The Needle Moves, But the Struggle Continues

Democratic control of the US Congress creates opportunities for their largely unimaginative leadership to obstruct legislation, investigate the administration, and contest funding for Trump’s projects. Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries are like middle-management imperialists, unwilling to move against the status quo so willing to continue imperialist policies and at the same time to appear as if they care about the popular distress. Previous Democratic administrations helped to construct the machinery of US imperialism and have repeatedly defended it. Trump continues to command the armed forces, and so if he wishes to bomb Iran again, for instance, it is unlikely that a Democratic leadership, deferential to Israel, would object. More

Stephen Miller and the Fascist Grip on American Power

BY Henry Giroux

Coming on the heels of MAGA’s devastating electoral defeat, Miller’s appointment as Trump’s White House chief of staff should end any remaining illusions about the forces governing the United States. To describe him merely as a “fiery hard-liner,” as the New York Times has done, is to conceal the danger. He is a doctrinaire ideologue, fiercely anti-communist, contemptuous of democratic compromise, and openly hostile to those who challenge his authority. He revels in ramped-up confrontation, dismissing Democrats as “extremists, freaks, and America-hating lunatics.” He is the chief architect of a vast propaganda machinery that turns politics into an endless spectacle of outrage, resentment, and cruelty. His worldview is imprisoned within an iron cage of ideological certainty, impervious to criticism, unmoved by reason, and unrestrained by any sense of moral responsibility. More

Americans Voted for Not-the-Political-Right, So Don’t Be the Political Right

BY Rob Urie

It’s easy enough to understand why people would make the best of an unexpected windfall. With respect to political upsets, power in the West has built infrastructure to gain advantage in such situations before the smoke has cleared. In terms of recent history, the Republicans weren’t prepared to lose the midterms and the Democrats weren’t prepared to win them. Recall that the leadership of the Democrats was cursing the Left and calling for political separation from it right up to the point where the Left won the election for them. More

Big Tech’s Carbon Capture Scam

BY Joshua Frank

The small town of Gillette, Wyoming, sits smack dab in the heart of the Powder River Basin. It’s a beautiful name for a scenic yet troubled place. This vast swath of land has been drilled and fracked. It’s been overgrazed and mined for coal, and now it’s a prime testing ground for the great hope of carbon capture and storage (CCS), a foolhardy effort to put a lid on emissions from fossil-fuel-burning power plants. More

War, Capitalism and Navigating the Climate Crisis w/ Tori Tsui & Joshua Frank

November 13, 2026

We are all living through the most severe ecological crisis in human history, and it can feel overwhelming, disorienting, and hopeless. A vision of a just future seems even more out of reach as capitalism and war continue to dominate the world order. What are we to do? Can our problems be solved politically? Will green energy save us? How can we remain steadfast in the face of an economy dominated by Big Oil, Big Tech, and militarism? In this episode of CounterPunch Radio, prominent climate activist Tori Tsui and journalist Joshua Frank explore what’s at stake and how and why the broader climate movement must think and organize to confront these persistent and daunting challenges.

Tori Tsui is the author of It’s Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis, just released in the US by New Press. She is an environmental activist, author, and climate advisor originally from Hong Kong, and a senior advisor for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

CounterPunch co-editor Joshua Frank is the author of the new book, Bad Energy: The AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who Are Selling Off Our Future, published by Haymarket Books.

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Wired to Steal w/ Yoav Litvin and Ilan Pappé

November 6, 2026

This week on CounterPunch Radio, Eric Draitser sits down with Yoav Litvin and Ilan Pappé to discuss their new book, Wired to Steal: Zionism and the Shaping of the Western Mind, just published by Interlink Books.

Wired to Steal is a powerful blend of investigative narrative, history, and behavioral neuroscience. Cutting through and dismantling propaganda, it exposes how the ruling classes of settler colonial projects hijack the human brain’s fear circuitry, systems of addiction, empathy pathways, and identity mechanisms to make oppression feel normal, even righteous.

Yoav Litvin is a doctor of neuroscience, award-winning photographer, and writer.

Ilan Pappé is recognized globally as one of the world’s foremost historians of Israel/Palestine. He is a professor of history at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.

You can order Wired to Steal directly from Interlink Books.

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Unphazed w/ Nasser Mashni of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network

October 23, 2026

In this episode of Counterpunch Radio, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt speaks with Nasser Mashni, Palestinian-Australian activist and president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. The son of a generation of Palestinians displaced by the ’48 Nakba, Mashni shares stories of growing up in the Palestine Liberation movement in the Australian diaspora and the growth of the movement since the 1970s. Unphased by relentless smear campaigns and lawsuits, Mashni emphasizes the breadth and depth of the movement, which unites Aboriginal Australians, Jews, unionists, queers, churchgoers, and others to advocate for Palestinian rights and challenge Australian complicity in the Gaza genocide.

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