A long-overdue land recovery measure in South Africa sparks a blatantly racist reaction from the Trump White House. In Episode 269 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down how this imbroglio reveals the white supremacist backlash that informs the entire political project of Donald Trump and his tech-oligarch backers, collaborators and ideologues. 

The Supreme Court of Canada on Feb. 28 allowed an application by the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS) for judicial review of the Saskatchewan government's approval of mining permits to proceed. The court ruled that the application, launched in 2021, was not an abuse of process because previous proceedings between the parties had not addressed the dispute in the present case. At issue are three uranium exploration permits within territory over which the MNS asserts Aboriginal title and rights.

Trump's mounting threats to defy the growing court decisions against his dictatorial program recall Andrew Jackson's famous words of defiance following the Supreme Court's 1832 decision in Worcester v Georgia, which upheld the sovereign rights of the Cherokee Nation. Jackson's subsequent forced relocation of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears is now echoed in Trump's hubristic and criminal plan to clear Gaza of Palestinians. On the 222nd anniversary of Marbury v Madison, in which it was established that the Supreme Court has the last word on what is and isn't constitutional, Bill Weinberg explores the historical parallel.

US conservation groups filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump on Feb. 19, asserting that the administration violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act by issuing an executive order reversing withdrawals of oil and gas leases. The groups filed the suit in the US District Court for the District of Alaska, alleging that the protected waters affected by Trump's order have extensive marine biodiversity that provides social and scientific benefits. The conservationists also noted that the deafening sounds of exploration and drilling activities injure marine life and degrade their habitat, and that the development of just one oil lease would create a 75% chance of an oil spill greater than 1,000 barrels. Pollution from vessels and aircraft around the areas could also cause significant harm, even if an oil spill were not to occur. The conservationists further asserted that surveys and drilling harm commercial fishing, and thereby ultimately harm local economies.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged Feb. 6 that the US government's decision to permit Lithium Americas company to mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada violated indigenous people's rights by failing to obtain free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in accordance with international law.

The 133-page report determined that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) permitted the lithium mine without the FPIC of the Numu, Nuwu and Newe peoples. In the 2021 BLM decision to approve the mining project, the agency stated it had been contact with tribal governments since 2018 and that "[n]o comments or concerns have been raised during formal government to government consultation for the project by the tribes." HRW's report challenges that assertion, claiming there was no meaningful consultation, and that US courts have rebuffed all efforts by affected indigenous peoples to challenge the adequacy of the consultation process. The extent of the consultation, HRW alleges, was just three rounds of mailings sent to three tribal governments.

In Episode 263 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the moves by the unconstitutional Trump regime to consolidate a dictatorship over the United States—attempting to seize autocratic control over the bureaucracy, and (in a case of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism) weaponizing concern with anti-Semitism to suppress free speech while institutionalizing indifference to (and consciously enflaming) all other forms of racism. And this as Elon Musk (a private-sector oligarch given extra-legal power over government functions) tells a rally of the Nazi-adjacent Alternative für Deutschland that Germany has "too much of a focus on past guilt." It took Hitler mere weeks to establish a dictatorship after coming to power, whereas with Mussolini it took some three years. We shall soon find out how long it will take in the United States—unless the country can find the wherewithal to resist.

Five Quaker groups filed a lawsuit Jan. 26 to stop immigration agents from conducting raids on houses of worship. The complaint alleges that the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy that allows Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to conduct searches and arrests at schools and religious institutions violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

In Episode 262 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg contrasts the intransigent resistance to the attempted power-grab by would-be right-wing strongman Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea (and Robert Fico in Slovakia) with the craven capitulation to the consolidating Trump regime in the US—despite the unconstitutionality of his very presidency, the fascist stench from his team of oligarchs, and despite the emergence of evidence that points to actual hacking of the vote to effect his victory.