Useful Idiots : Recent Episodes
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This week, the world saw the president of the United States sit quietly at his desk while the richest person in the world stood over him to take questions from reporters. It comes only days after another subservient look from “tough guy” Trump when he pushed in his boss’s chair like a waiter:
While Netanyhu seems to be in complete control of Trump internationally, we’re turning to the domestic front to ask: how much power do Musk and the Broligarchy have over the president’s decisions?
Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University and author of the upcoming book Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right, and journalist Michael Tracey join the show to unravel the mystery around Elon Musk, analyzing what he’s already done, what DOGE has the power to do, and how he plans to build his influence.
Quinn explains the difficulty in putting a label on Musk, which he says is often helpful in giving a historical analysis for a person. Some call Musk a techno-fascist, others call him a libertarian, and others a tech oligarch. Quinn doesn’t quite agree with any of these labels, and begins building a new one.
We also ask him about Steve Bannon, who has been replaced at Trump’s side by Musk, and whether there will be some kind of MAGA civil war between the pseudo-populists and the tech elites. And dive into how Elon Musk was shaped by the South African apartheid.
Michael Tracey discusses Trump’s role in the Ukraine War. After Trump’s failed promise to end the war in “24 hours,” it’s become clear that he doesn’t plan to stop giving aid to Ukraine. And with reports of a historic phone call this week between Trump and Putin, what is next for Ukraine?
Subscribe for the full interview with Michael Tracey on what Russia is willing to accept from Trump, the hypocrisy of the culture wars, and what Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of national intelligence means for foreign policy.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Calls on Ghost Witnesses from JFK Commission
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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican congresswoman from Florida, is leading the task force to declassify JFK assassination records. We’re not sure, but we think she just started giving herself that title and it stuck. It seems to be the way most of these people get their titles around Washington.
So in her first press conference as JFK Investigataire, Luna was asked who she plans to interview in her Congressional hearings in order to get to the bottom of who really killed President Kennedy.
“I’m looking to actually bring in some of the attending physicians at the initial assassination and then also the people that had been on the various commissions, like the Warren Commission.”
There’s only one problem with that: all of those people are dead.
Which means one one of two things:
- This is a fake task force led by a clueless government employee, thereby implying that all Washington task forces are both fake and clueless, OR
- Anna Paulina Luna can commune with the dead.
We are putting together a task force to determine which of these is true.
Also in this Thursday Throwdown: Trump has decided the US will take over Gaza for free, CNN’s Scott Jennings gets triggered by an actual Palestinian joining the panel, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth admits the Useful Idiots truth about Ukraine.
Don’t watch it alone – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
Former U.S. Marine Brian Berletic, who focuses on geopolitics in Eurasia and hosts the informative Youtube show The New Atlas, joins Useful Idiots this week as Elon Musk and the Trump administration are gutting USAID and attempting to move it under the control of Marco Rubio’s State Department.
Musk claims he’s “dismantling the Deep State.” Berletic, whose years as a marine gave him a harsh awakening about the reality of US hegemony, gives an in-depth analysis of what’s really going on.
He explains why each side is up-in-arms over the issue: Dems are painting USAID as an all-loving agency that is essential to upholding Democracy around the world, while Republicans are crying wokeism by finding relatively trivial expenses in the fine print. Neither, Berletic says, are highlighting the real, and much more nefarious issues with USAID.
“They have not mentioned foreign interference, regime change, subversion, stifling development, and they have not said that they are going to stop any of that.”
“And here's a photo,” he shows us from the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, drafted in part by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “Just think about how tone deaf or brazen they are to post this picture. This is a picture of the Philippines, the U.S. conquered the Philippines. There was an uprising because they wanted to be an independent nation. The US military brutally suppressed it. Mass murder, concentration camps. This is all listed on the State Department's website And so they're talking about insurgency, counterinsurgency, and USAID's role in the counterinsurgency process.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Brian Berletic on Trump's fight with China for the Panama Canal, Brian’s realization of the sick acts committed by marines, and what the Deep State really is.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Lackeys Sell “Bold, Fresh” Gaza Expulsion Plan
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This week, Trump met with a grinning Netanyahu and announced to the world that the US will take over Gaza with the basic intention of making a new Mar-a-Lago in the Middle East. His cultist cronies couldn’t be happier with this proclamation of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism.
“He puts some very bold, fresh ideas out on the table,” said National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, whose statements were echoed from the White House briefing room to Fox News. We watch a mashup of the GOP talking points, which all sound curiously scripted and identical, ending with the perfect encapsulation from one Fox News host:
“His crazy…might just be crazy genius.”
The plan Trump has put forth is to permanently remove all Palestinians from their homeland and begin building real estate with Israel. Democrats, who for the past year were seemingly fine with the destruction of Gaza and the mass murder of its civilians, are suddenly changing their tune to call out the ethnic cleansing proposal.
MSNBC host and former advisor to Kamala Harris tweeted: “I think now it’s very appropriate to reiterate that elections have consequences.”
We think it’s also appropriate to reiterate that genocides have consequences, and the Biden/Harris administration lost because they supplied the weapons and facilitated the destruction of Gaza. But sure, they never explicitly said they would ethnically cleanse Gaza – so we’ll call that subtler colonialism.
Plus, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy gives all the wrong reasons for keeping USAID, Trump admits we’re using Ukraine for their “rare earths,” and Zelensky channels Corky St. Clair to ask for nukes.
It’s a ridiculous week in corporate media. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
This week we are joined by two guests, Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha and tech Professor Ramesh Srinivasan. First is Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha, who recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker, and authored the new poetry book is Forest of Noise. He is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which was destroyed by Israel.
Over the course of Israel’s mass assault on Gaza, Mosab has lost 31 members of his family. He has expressed his catastrophic loss through poetry:
“All of Gaza has become a funeral home,” Mosab explains to us, “because the mourners themselves are killed. Who is going to mourn the death of someone when their father, their mother, their siblings were killed? And sometimes we do the funeral on the phone. We call someone and say, ‘I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.’ And then a few minutes later, that person, the caller or the recipient of this condolence, would be killed.”
Mosab also explains why he doesn’t consider this pause in Israel’s attacks on Gaza to be a ceasefire.
“The whole area is a pile of rubble, so where do you place your tent? People are deciding to go back. Going back for what and for how long? No one knows. This is why it's not a ceasefire.”
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We also talk to Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA and author of Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow.
The big news out of the tech world this week is that Chinese AI company DeepSeek has surpassed the abilities of ChatGPT. In response, the Trump administration imposed new tariffs against China, a move that exposes a fear of falling behind.
We ask Ramesh: why does the US government see DeepSeek as a threat, and should regular Americans see this new AI as a potential for human progress or as a dangerous new advancement? His answer gives a clear explanation for why the US is losing the AI War so far.
Ramesh also explains the surprising effect AI usage has on depleting natural resources.
Subscribe for the full interview with Ramesh Srinivasan on how the government uses tech companies to spy on Americans through the Patriot Act, the lack of disclosure by Big Tech of anything that they’re doing behind the scenes, and what the oligarchs who sat front row at Trump’s inauguration are planning next to tighten their control.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Exposes Hamas Condom Bombs
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“We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas,” said President Trump in a press conference. “And you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How ‘bout that?”
This claim then proceeded to echo across Fox News that Hamas was making condom bombs with US money. Katie and Aaron break down why this is one of the more ridiculous comments made by the guy who accused Haitian-Americans of eating the cats and eating the dogs:
- If aid is sent to Gaza, it would be received by Gazans, not Hamas. Trump insinuates that all Gazans are Hamas, but…
- As Muhammad Shehada points out, this isn’t possible because of Israel’s restrictions over what aid is allowed into Gaza. In addition to sexual and reproductive healthcare commodities, Israel has also banned “crutches, seeded fruits, oxygen cylinders, water filtration systems, sleeping bags, maternity kits, and cancer treatments” from entering Gaza. And even without this sadistic violation of human rights…
- How tf do you make a bomb out of condoms??
- But here’s the real kicker: according to Drop Site News, the allocated money was actually being “sent to the Gaza province in Mozambique.” Which means that Trump and his team saw the word Gaza and thought “Hamas is getting all the condoms.” And now the people of Mozambique are out of luck.
Also on this week’s Thursday Throwdown: the Pod Save boys have found their new leaders, Rand Paul doesn’t want to help people if he doesn’t get credit for doing charity, and disgraced Senator Bob Menendez is suddenly sweet on Trump now that he needs a pardon.
Everything’s as crazy as ever. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
What is really behind the TikTok wars? According to Arnaud Bertrand, our guest this week, it’s less about Palestine content and more about good, old-fashioned American colonialism and hypocrisy.
Bertrand, a French entrepreneur and political analyst based in Malaysia, who lived in China for eight years and has debated China with the likes of Adrian Zenz, reflects on the hypocrisy of the American government, which claims to respect the free market, but actually intervenes in business in order to ban a company for simply being Chinese:
“This is the kind of stuff that Cuba would get accused of,” he explains, “talking about the evils of communism, like appropriating enterprises. It’s ironic that the United States government, which presents itself as this bastion of entrepreneurship, free market, where the government doesn't meddle, is doing exactly that.”
“If [the Tik Tok ban] goes through, it sets a very worrying precedent because basically what it's saying is that, if as a non-American tech company, you make it big, then basically we're going to try to colonize you. It's digital colonialism.”
The fairness of the free market, Arnaud explains, is reserved only for American companies. Beyond that, the government steps in for control.
“It completely destroys the incentive for any country. It's already so hard to succeed given the odds on how dominated the landscape is by American VCs and American tech companies. If you're one of the lucky few that finally make it, then you're forced to sell to the Americans. It's definitely not right and that's a precedent that I don't think should be set.”
The irony is that the crackdown on TikTok has brought Chinese people and American people together as Americans are migrating to the Chinese platform Red Note.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Arnaud Bertrand on the myths the West tells about Chinese culture, China’s roll in the Ukraine-Russian War, and the claim that China is engaging in a genocide against the Uyghurs.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump’s Creative Excuse for Hiring “Very Stupid Person” John Bolton
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“I thought he was a very dumb person,” says newly-sworn in President Donald Trump about John Bolton, the man he appointed as National Security Advisor of the United States. “He’s the one, along with Cheney, that convinced Bush to blow up the Middle East and we got nothing out of it except a lot of death. We killed a lot of people, and John Bolton was one of those guys.” He adds once more, for effect: “A stupid guy.”
And honestly, we agree with you on this, Mr. President. But … if he’s so dumb, why’d you hire him? Surprisingly, Trump actually gave (made up) a reason:
“But I used him well,” he claims, “because every time people saw me come into a meeting with John Bolton standing behind me, they thought that he would attack them, because he was a warmonger.”
Huh. Just wonder if there was a way to do that without giving him the power to, among other dangerous acts, withdraw the US from an important nuclear deal, a move that in large part led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But at least you scared some people.
Also in this episode: Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik testifies that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank, Sean Hannity is enraged that a “so-called” bishop would ask Trump to have mercy on people who need help, and if you thought January 6 was over, guess again – now the Republicans are announcing a new Jan 6 subcommittee. Next we need a subcommittee to keep track of all the Jan 6 subcommittees.
It’s a messy week with a new president, watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Watch the full, unpaywalled episode here. Thanks for supporting independent media.
This week, after over a year of genocide in Gaza, Israel and Hamas have finally reached a tentative ceasefire deal:
“The giant loophole in this deal is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”
And here’s another trick: this quote isn’t from this week – it’s from our interview with Nathan Thrall in May 2024 regarding the ceasefire deal that was never implemented. But Gazan writer Muhammad Shehada, who is based in Copenhagen but with family still in Gaza, points out this week’s deal is remarkable similar to the one from May:
“I started reading through [the recent deal],” he tells us, “and I looked up the May 27th deal. I read the whole text: word-for-word identical, one hundred percent, not a change. There's only an appendix of elaborations.”
So we’re having onto the show former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy and Muhammad Shehada to analyze why this deal is back, whether it will actually signal an end to the mass killings in Gaza, and what really happened in the negotiations between Trump and Netanyahu.
“Could this then lead to a quid pro quo down the line where Netanyahu gets something from Trump that will be horrific for Palestinians, such as expanded theft of West Bank land?”
Daniel Levy also discusses “Bloody Blinken’s” terrible track record as Secretary of State, which has become a pressing matter as Blinken is now having journalists dragged out of press briefings for challenging him on his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Muhammad Shehada discusses the Biden Administration’s false history of ceasefire negotiations, and shares what it has been like to lose so many friends and family in Gaza.
This week’s interview is free to all viewers. Thanks for your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke
Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Correction: Trump’s Middle East envoy is named Steve Witkoff. He was wrongly identified at 5:00.
After over a year of genocide in Gaza with multiple ceasefire attempts quashed by both the US and Israel, a tentative deal has finally been reached – just days before Trump is sworn back into office. Which is begging the question: who’s really responsible for this?
And at the end of a rambling press conference (in which Biden condemned the “attack by Hezbollah on October 7”), a reporter asked Biden if he or Trump should get the credit.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Biden turned around: “Is that a joke?”
But what, really, is the joke? That President Biden was so ideologically subservient to Israel and morally responsible for funding this genocide that he allowed an opportunist like Donald Trump to take credit for making a ceasefire deal happen?
That complicity is also the reason Biden lost the election, and the reason we’re about to swear into power an administration whose members proudly call themselves Christian Zionists (see: waiting for the rapture, Jews who don’t convert condemned to eternal damnation, etc etc). And we’ll soon see what exactly this ceasefire deal entails: did Trump make promises to Israel, such as the ability to annex the West Bank? Will Israel follow through with the deal, or stop after Phase 1 like they always have in the past? Will any of these warmongers face accountability?
These questions and more will all be answered, as this marks the final Thursday Throwdown of the Biden era. Blinken and Sullivan give their farewell messages for Israel and Ukraine on their way out, Mike Johnson promises unconditional aid for Israel and conditional aid for California, and Pete Hegseth gets protested during his confirmation hearing.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
Dave Smith is Part of the Problem. He’s a Jewish, anti-Zionist, libertarian comedian who makes a lot of people mad – but today he’s on Useful Idiots to make us laugh. And you’ll see very quickly how his no-nonsense approach to foreign policy matches almost perfectly with the progressive anti-war mindset.
“My beef with Israel,” Dave explains, “has nothing to do with how I feel about Jewish people. I just think you can't occupy a group of people and then indiscriminately slaughter them. That's not cool.”
And here’s where the libertarian comes in: “And why on earth should I be forced to fund that, especially when it's so clearly at the expense of my country and my country's interests? Syria is the perfect example of this. On one side you have Al Qaeda, the enemy of the American people. And on the other side, you have Bashar al-Assad, the enemy of the Israeli government. And who are we picking? We're picking the enemy of my country's people. It's such an outrage.”
But as Useful Idiots knows all too well, speaking out brings a flood of outrage and name calling. But outrage and names, Dave explains, is about all they’ve got.
“If that's the counter argument then you really must be on weak ground. You know whatever I'm a Putin-apologist or I'm a terrorist-lover or a self-hating Jew or a Nazi or whatever you want to say. It's just so dumb, are we in the third grade?”
But his common-sense, anti-war argument is far from mainstream, especially in places where the government can dominate thinking in both the media and the culture itself. “It’s the dynamic under the U.S. dominant culture,” he says. “If joe Biden or Donald Trump or Barack Obama were to drone bomb a wedding in Yemen, which is something they tend to do, and they kill like six children and fourteen adults and a couple hundred others were wounded; and then that same day they gave a press conference and they said ‘I don't believe [x culture issue],’ what would be the big outrage of the day?”
Subscribe for the full interview with Dave Smith for his takes on Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Jake Shields, how Israel has created more antisemitism, and a progressive vs libertarian debate on welfare.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Pins January 6 On Hezbollah
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At a press conference stuffed with wild remarks, Trump dropped maybe the craziest line when asked who was really in the crowd on January 6. He begins with a seemingly normal take:
“They had people in some form related to the FBI, we have to find out about that.” We’re with you on that one, the FBI often plants assets in groups like these – but who else, Mr. Trump, was involved in January 6?
“We have to find out about Hezbollah, we have to find out about who exactly was in that whole thing because people that did some bad things were not prosecuted.” So not only did Hezbollah somehow participate in the riot, but the Deep State and the Democrats have been covering it up! This is a major scandal and Adam Schiff’s committee should address it immediately!
Katie and Aaron dig into the story, and the whole thing turns out to be a widespread conspiracy led by Putin, Hezbollah, and of course Hillary Clinton. Using Trump and Schiff logic, it makes almost too much sense.
Also in this Thursday Throwdown: Antony Blinken is revealed to be a Useful Idiots listener, Fox News claims that anti-genocide protesters in NYC are celebrating the New Years Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, and the likely next prime minister of Canada wants to help Israel bomb Iran.
It’s a very messy week – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Watch the full, unpaywalled episode here. Thanks for supporting independent media.
Healthcare workers are being targeted and killed by Israel in Gaza. This hasn’t stopped American doctor Tanya Haj-Hassan from repeatedly going back.
“I think it's normal to have some fear for your own safety,” she tells us. “You're going into a war zone where essentially there is indiscriminate killing of everybody. But at the same time, our colleagues have been enduring this for fifteen months straight. And it's intolerable and unbearable to watch it from the outside.”
Despite the oath she and every other doctor took to care for people, Tanya describes a "Palestinian exception": “When you work in the American healthcare system, you aren't given the freedom to show solidarity with Palestinian healthcare workers, with the Palestinian people, with patients, to express outrage about the intentional targeting of the healthcare system and healthcare workers. And you are either directly or indirectly attacked if you show solidarity in this way. True solidarity means risking something. And I can tell you as someone who's working in the North American healthcare system that we are silenced, and that when we speak out, we pay the price.”
But to Dr. Haj-Hassan, remaining silent isn’t an option. “Being silent in the face of the intentional decimation of an entire healthcare system, the intentional killing and targeting of healthcare workers, the intentional detention and torture of healthcare workers for no other crime other than providing healthcare is complicity.”
So, Tanya shares the harrowing stories of her time in Gaza, and while it’s very hard to hear, it is more important than ever to bear witness to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
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“You just finish mourning the loss of somebody you know,” Tanya shares, “and then you receive the next bit of news. And I think that's characteristic of everything we've been witnessing since October of last year. Just as an example, on Christmas Day, five journalists in a press marked vehicle were killed by a direct airstrike. A day later, Kamal Adwan Hospital is raided and burned down. Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya, the director, is, we're told, beaten and taken away to Israeli prisons.”
Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya, who was photographed bravely walking towards Israeli tanks, was already injured by Israel. His son had already been murdered by Israel. Yet he refused to leave the hospital. His pleas for help to the international community were ignored. His hospital was destroyed. And now he is reported to be in the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was killed and, according to witnesses, essentially raped to death.
Dr. Haj-Hassan continues: “And if it happened anywhere else in the world or it had happened in isolation, you'd have time to report on it and to share it with the world. But you just you move on the next day.”
Tanya also talks about pushing back on a CNN reporter and explaining that this is not some natural humanitarian crisis. This is genocide. And she reacts to the hateful smearing of child-educator and youtuber Ms. Rachel who is being called an antisemite for saying "children have the right to live." And Tanya debunks the malicious claim that children in Gaza aren't really freezing to death.
Listen to and share this interview with Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan. Thanks for your support of independent media and healthcare workers.
And if you subscribe, you’ll also get this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN Drunkenly Admits It’s Fake News
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“The 2024 election fried our brains – the Democrats couldn’t hold a primary because they were too busy holding a body upright.”
A drunk Anderson Cooper hides under his umbrella, grimacing as comedian Whitney Cummings roasts Dems and CNN itself, live on air during CNN’s New Years Eve celebration. Things only got more awkward from there:
“It was amazing that the pro-choice party didn’t give their voters one when it came to the presidential candidate,” Cummings goes on, “Kamala was forced on us so hard you’d think she was patented by Pfizer.”
More silence from the CNN hosts, who seem to now be wishing they hadn’t just taken shots on air. How, in a world where CNN is so lax on facts that the network just allowed a correspondent to fake a prisoner rescue in Syria, do they let on a comedian who outs them for refusing to cover Biden’s cognitive decline and the Democratic Party’s lack of a primary process? Must be the booze.
So we flip over to CBS where the panel there is actually admitting this blunder (coverup) openly – what is going on?? Is 2025 a new year for corporate media? Will they start telling the truth? Will Thursday Throwdown become an outdated relic?
Luckily, the rest of this week’s episode proves there’s still a lot of BS for us to cover. From Fox News’ coverage of the homelessness crisis, in which their expert who argues that the unhoused are criminals who want to be homeless is revealed to have been arrested for stealing funds during his tenure as Homeless Services Consultant, to Antony Blinken’s farewell tour in which he shows off his wonderful acting skills, to some rare Useful Idiots coverage of lefty-media infighting, there’s more than enough craziness on the news waves to fill hours of Thursday Throwdowns to come.
Watch it with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Watch our full interview with Norm Finkelstein from October 11 here:
“I think the reasonable conclusion is that Gaza is no more. There's nothing left in Gaza.”
Monday the 7th marked one full year of genocide in Gaza, the darkest era of a decades-long occupation by Israel, which has now begun to spread into the broader Middle East region.
This week we’re joined by Gaza expert and Useful Idiots fan-favorite Norman Finkelstein to look back on this genocidal year.
Norm points out that this is not, as Western and Israeli media claims, an “Israel-Hamas war.” This is not war. This is genocide. And Israel is not targeting Hamas; they are killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, and picking off journalists, health workers, and children.
“I read this letter,” he tells us, “from sixty-five physicians from around the world who gave testimony as to what they observed. And every one of the physicians testified that the children who were coming into the hospital had bullet wounds to the skull or to the chest. No shrapnel. It wasn't bombs and shrapnel. It was targeted bullet wounds to the skull and to the chest of children. What does that have to do with war?”
“There were fifty-four disabled children who used the school in the convent complex. They fired two shells at it. What does that have to do with war?”
Norman also recalls meeting Hezbollah members, and shares what he got wrong about the organization. “Israel, he says, “is willing to kill for material benefit, and Hezbollah and Hamas are willing to die for survival” He also recounts his time meeting Hamas leaders, and explains Israel’s unfair advantage:
“Israel is the entrenched, concentrated manifestation of Western imperialism. It's got deep roots. It's got the whole Western system behind it, that Western system which won't let go. It will nuke China before it lets go of its global dominance. And in order to defeat it, it requires a very long-term struggle and intense calculation.”
Subscribe for the full interview where Norman explains this despair, and the generational hopelessness which lacks historical precedent.
“Our generation,” he laments, “has, for good reason, lost the belief, the conviction that we have the force of history behind us. That we have the force of justice behind us. Our generation believes there's a good chance we'll be defeated. There's a good chance we're not going to win.”
But that doesn’t mean we should give up.
“The only thing I can say as a conclusion is you never know. You can only know one thing for certain: If you do nothing, it can only get worse.”
It’s that certainty that he says keeps him going. “If you resist, there are moments where it looks very grim. And then there's that folk song, it's always darkest before the dawn. It's this hope that keeps me carrying on. It's always darkest before the dawn.”
“There's another reality. There's something in the human constitution that simply can't do nothing. In the face of such death and devastation, you just can't.”
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This has been a hard year. If you’ve been watching our show, you’ve probably heard the bleakness slowly growing in our hosts’ voices, the increasing grimness of our guests, and maybe begun to feel hopeless yourself. You’re not alone: 2024’s most popular episode had Norman Finkelstein mourning that “our generation has, for good reason, lost the belief that we have the force of history behind us. Our generation believes there's a good chance we're not going to win.”
2024 has shown us heartbreaking and disturbing footage from Gaza, shattering the lines many of us held of what we thought were the limits of human cruelty, and an election cycle that told us we’re powerless to stop it. 2024 brought WWII levels of destruction to a city and its people, and made them cry silently in defeat while it happened. 2024 felt broken, beaten down, and emptying.
But there’s something in that darkness, that rage against the world, that brings a light we can’t usually see. Something that makes you wonder how the world could be so terrible and how the world could be so beautiful. It opens your eyes to something new.
Our fellow Substacker Caitlin Johnstone wrote it best in her poem, “Let Yourself Be Shattered By Gaza.”
This world will break your heart
and then pour plant medicine into the cracks.It will show you a dead Palestinian child,
and then show you a white kite in the sky.It will drop you to your knees screaming in anguish,
cursing a God you don’t even believe in,
bawling your eyes out,
only to open them and stare in wonder
at a dandelion growing through the cracks in the concrete.
This year has been more challenging and draining than any other. It’s also been the year of noticing the beauty in more sunsets, dandelions, and people than any other.
The stories of what our guests and their families have been through, the brave stands that groups like CodePink have taken, the risks that doctors and volunteers have made in Gaza have shown us how much beauty there still is in the world – and why the fight must go on.
The poem ends like this:
Let your whole universe
be reduced to ashes.Let it all die away,
and then stand up,
and rejoin the fight,
eyes no longer clouded
by anything that could be destroyed
by truth.
Have you felt this too – light that comes with the darkness? We love to hear from you, so share your 2024 thoughts in the comments.
Keep up the fight, and keep noticing every beautiful thing. It’s all love and rage.
Happy holidays to everyone,
– Katie, Aaron, and Wilson
Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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He’s the author of the new book Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine and host of the Scott Horton Show – it’s Scott Horton! And he’s joining Useful Idiots this week in a Santa hat to bring us the much-needed gift of finding out WTF is really going on in Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East.
A theme of this interview – and much of our reporting these days – is that so much of what was previously dismissed and smeared as Russian propaganda is now admitted openly as fact. Two glaring examples: the US and UK prevented a peace deal that had been negotiated between Ukraine and Russia right after Russia invaded in February 2022. And the idea that this whole conflict is a US proxy war.
When we reported these on our show, we were called Putinists, Russian propagandists, and, by some really clever haters, useful idiots.
But today, either everyone has fallen for these Russian talking points, or the West has finally realized it can’t hide the truth much longer as mountains of evidence prove these to be true. Just listen to Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister who famously warned Zelensky not to finalize the peace deal, describing the war now:
“We are, let's face it, we're waging a proxy war. But we're not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years and years now we've been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, and it has been cruel and we need now to give them what they need.”
He admits that this is a proxy war, but using Ukraine as fodder against Russia isn’t the cruel part. The cruel part, according to neocons, is that we’re not giving them all the weapons possible to fight and die on our behalf.
That’s the perspective that Scott Horton takes apart in this week’s episode, giving a very detailed account of the US role in provoking the proxy war in Ukraine and the methods to prolong it ever since.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Scott Horton where we discuss how so-called anti-war President Trump has stood as firmly by NATO as anyone else, whether actual Ukrainians want western support, and a complex look at the Middle East where Scott reveals the country that spies on the US more than anyone else.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté Silences Piers Morgan Panel with Facts on Syria & Palestine
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When a Useful Idiot goes on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the world stops to watch. But, as was the case with Aaron’s first three appearances as well as Katie’s clash with Alan Dershowitz, the other guests on the panel don’t ever seem to stop talking. From ad-hominem smears to ridiculous Zionist talking points, the opposing debaters have talked, whined, and yelled over Aaron and Katie in an effort to block their message.
But this week, there was an unprecedented silence during Aaron’s fourth time on Uncensored. Jonathan Conricus, former IDF spokesperson and recurring offender of the shouting strategy, sat wordlessly while Aaron dropped facts on Palestine and Syria, marking a rare moment on establishment TV where Israeli and Western messaging is actually checked.
We break down some of Aaron’s top arguments in this week’s Thursday Throwdown.
Plus: News Nation tries to make the argument that it isn’t Luigi Mangione but Brian Thompson (United Healthcare CEO) who is actually the ‘everyman’ the working class should be celebrating, the State Department admits that the US’s $10 million terrorist bounty on Mohammad al-Julani (HTS leader who founded al-Qaeda in Syria) is still active even as Western leaders are meeting with him to celebrate his rise, and Jake Tapper airs a new interview in which he fawns over Mitt Romney.
It’s a wild episode of Thursday Throwdown – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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To the applause of the United States, Mohammad al-Julani and HTS (formerly known as al-Qaeda in Syria) overthrew the Assad government in Syria, a shocking victory for Western regime-changers that has been years in the making.
But now the question remains: who will rule Syria?
Founding director of the Middle East Studies program at George Mason University Bassam Haddad shares his analysis: it won’t be al-Julani. He gives an in-depth history of the conflict from the perspectives of the Syrian government, HTS, the US, and Syrian citizens to explain why.
The situation in Syria is trickier to analyze than other global conflicts: with so much destruction on all sides and the overflowing propaganda surrounding it all, it has become exceedingly difficult to find the truth of what’s happening on the ground in Syria, let alone analyze it from afar. Which is why (and we try never to use the word), the situation needs nuance. Bassam Haddad’s analysis is extremely well-rounded and unbiased, which makes his take very crucial to anyone looking to cut through the noise.
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Bassam on the type of rule he predicts for the future of Syria, if the corruption-plagued Syrian government would’ve collapsed even without US interference, and why Israel is benefitting from the fall of Assad.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Rachel Maddow Finds a Way to Connect Alleged CEO Shooter to Trump
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After the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by alleged shooter Luigi Mangione, the internet has been running wild with theories and rumors over what’s really happened since December 4th. But none, somehow, have been crazier than what Rachel Maddow just debuted on MSNBC.
She found a way to connect Luigi to her favorite target: Donald Trump.
So follow this – if you scroll through Luigi’s internet history, you’ll find his Goodreads account, on which he wrote the following review of the Unabomber’s book, Industrial Society and Its Future:
“It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”
Now switch over to Trump’s cabinet – it is reported that Trump is considering venture capitalist Blake Masters to be nominated to lead the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Here’s where things get crazy. A few years ago on a podcast, Masters called the Unabomber a “subversive thinker.”
Wow. Wow! Trump did CEO shooting.
Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: State Dept Spox Matthew Miller suddenly likes the ICC again when it comes to arresting Assad, CNN finds Assad’s garage full of luxury cars and doesn’t realize it’s debunking the efficacy of US sanctions, MSNBC reveals Trump is to the left of Bernie Sanders, and the Pod Save bros have another terrible take.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s Thursday Throwdown. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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This week on Useful Idiots, we’re doing a deep dive on Syria, a foreign policy issue constantly shrouded in propaganda and misinformation. We hear reporting from two sources:
Kevork Almassian, whose family lives in Syria, is a geopolitical analyst and host of Syriana Analysis, and Lindsey Snell, an independent journalist who was taken captive by Al-Qaeda in 2016.
Syria is back in the news because a long-dormant war there has reignited with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the group formerly known as Al-Qaeda, which has launched a major offensive taking Syrian territory, including the major city of Aleppo.
This is a huge setback for the Syrian government, sparking widespread fears that we're going to see a repeat of the awful years after 2011 when there was a massive war inside Syria fueled by foreign powers, including the U.S.
The group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is led by Mohammed al-Julani, the founding leader of al-Qaeda in Syria and the former deputy to the founding leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi. But after multiple name changes and rebrands, HTS is portrayed as “reformed” in western media.
There’s a lot of propaganda to cut through. Kevork and Lindsey are guiding us through it all.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN’s Hunter Biden Pardon Therapy Session
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For months, Democrats paraded the integrity of Joe Biden, claiming he would never stoop to Donald Trump’s amoral and nepotistic level of pardoning close friends and family. Biden himself even promised that he wouldn’t pardon his own son, a bold high road that many Dems referred to as the only Democratic choice.
Which made things reaaally awkward this week when Joe Biden pardoned his son for all crimes dating back to 2014.
CNN hosted many of these Democrats for follow-up interviews, including Levi Strauss-heir Rep. Dan Goldman, who was asked the very introspective question “how does it feel” that Biden lied? And that’s how it went on corporate media – a strange therapy session for dismayed Dems desperately trying to back-peddle their stance to save their names.
It’s a little sad.
Plus, Obama’s chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel complains that the culprits of the Iraq War and the financial crisis were never held accountable (that was your job, Rahm), and Ted Cruz’s thespian take on FBI director nominee Kash Patel.
It’s Thursday Throwdown, your midweek dose of media madness. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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For a break from the news this Thanksgiving weekend, Katie and Aaron have a chat with Bronx comedian Adrienne Iapalucci, whose new special The Dark Queen is available to stream on Netflix.
Adrienne didn’t earn that title lightly: she’s got jokes about Ukraine, Gaza, school shootings, and even a pedophile joke that got her kicked out of a Connecticut benefit. For her, nothing’s off limits.
So for a change of pace and a Thanksgiving laugh, take a trip to the dark side for this funny interview with Adrienne Iapalluci.
This week especially, we want to thank all our listeners for supporting independent media – we couldn’t do what we do without you. Happy Thanksgiving, and we’ll see you next week.
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Here’s our full Thanksgiving chat with Simon Shuster. Thanks for your support.
After President Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use long-range US missiles in Russia, the Russians responded by shooting an intercontinental ballistic missile back into Ukraine. Now, as we wait for the next move that could ignite nuclear war, we’re talking to TIME correspondent Simon Shuster to analyze the conflict.
At TIME, Shuster covers international affairs, with a focus on Russia and Ukraine. For his first book, The Showman, he reported inside the Ukrainian President’s compound in Kyiv as the Russian invasion unfolded.
Our interview includes insights into President Zelensky’s inner circle, a fascinating story of the Ukrainian president during the early days of the war, and first-hand accounts of the back and forths of generals.
Plus, Simon and Aaron have an extended debate over the cause of the conflict as well as the motives of Putin, Zelensky, and NATO.
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown, where Katie breaks down her debate with Alan Dershowitz during her recent appearance of Piers Morgan.
Thanks for supporting independent media. Enjoy this week’s full episode, unpaywalled, and have a happy Thanksgiving.
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This week, be thankful that Katie made her debut on the Piers Morgan Show where she got to debate the ICC arrest warrants. On Katie's side was journalist and former guest Matt Kennard; on the other side was lawyer Alan Dershowitz and former IDF soldier and spokesperson Jonathan Conricus.
As you will see, things get pretty heated. Even after Katie lists some pretty awful things the IDF has done, The Dersh maintains it is, indeed, the most moral army in the world. Dershowitz's best line of the debate may be, "how old are the children?" He was referring to the children victims of Israel's war, but let's just say it may not be the only context in which he has asked that question.
Plus Kamala Harris's campaign advisors reveal they have learned absolutely nothing from her loss, were happy to prioritize norms over beating Trump, and apparently don't really care that much about defeating what they describe as fascism. Also, Biden is still wrong about Palestine, Trump played voters when he pretended to be antiwar, and the U.S. wants even younger Ukranians to die.
It’s our Thanksgiving Throwdown – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.
On this Thanksgiving, we’re especially thankful for your support of independent media. Subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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“I've just never seen anything like this.”
Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned economist, University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University returns to Useful Idiots at a time of global peril to warn that we are close to World War Three.
“The president himself,” Sachs says, “and his extraordinarily weak team understand nothing about diplomacy. They have gotten us closer and closer to complete global disaster, World War III, nuclear Armageddon, whatever you want to call it.”
Just this week, the administration gave Ukraine the go-ahead to launch long-range missiles into Russia, which Russia responded to with an intercontinental ballistic missile strike into Ukraine, and the US for the fourth time, vetoed a UN ceasefire resolution.
“Absolutely shocking, awful, and lawless,” Sachs says.
Given that Biden himself seems utterly incapacitated, who is really running the military industrial complex? “I would say the deep state is true, which is that The U.S. has strategies that persist certainly between administrations, but really for decades. And I think that's essentially what we are witnessing right now. War has been the policy of the U.S. deep state or the permanent security state.”
Jeffrey also explains how the New York Times has been the propaganda arm of the security state, analyzing two insane passages from the paper:
And no, we didn’t make that up and put it in NYT font.
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Jeffrey Sachs on what to expect economically from the incoming Trump administration, if BRICS has enough power to survive outside of the US dollar, and how Democrats should have responded to Trump’s ‘illegal aliens’ rhetoric.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: The Morning Joe-Hitler Pact
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In response to the Biden administration’s unfettered support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, several US officials resigned from their posts in protest, refusing to take part in the mass slaughter of civilians.
Josh Paul, a State Department official who worked on arms transfers, dropped Biden in October 2023, weeks after the assault on Gaza began, and Tariq Habash, a Palestinian-American appointed as a senior official at the Department of Education, left in January 2024.
Now, in the wake of a disastrous election for the Biden-Harris administration, they’re joining the show to explain how the Democrats failed them, and what the party should have done differently to earn back their support.
“Americans feel disconnected from their government,” Tariq said. “They don't feel represented. We've seen poll after poll after poll where Americans say: ‘We want a ceasefire. We want to stop sending weapons to kill children. We don't want to see dead kids and doctors and journalists on our social media every single morning when we wake up.’
“And you see elected officials repeatedly vote the opposite, continue to do the bidding of external interests instead of their own constituents' interests. It creates this disconnect in a way that is really, really damaging to American democracy.”
He goes on, explaining how Biden himself is at the root of this divide.
“Joe Biden has been willing to make exceptions for the destruction of Palestinian life in a way that we've never seen a United States president be willing to do. And I can't think of another way of rationalizing it other than you just don't believe that Palestinians deserve life. And that is, frankly, just rooted in hate.”
But it isn’t just the Dems, they explain. In the interview we also go through Trump’s new cabinet picks, who, in line with mega-donor Miriam Adelson, are all deeply in the pocket of the Israel lobby.
It’s like Biden promised in his 2020 campaign: “Nothing will fundamentally change.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump’s New Cabinet Will Make Israel Great Again
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In 2015, Donald Trump mocked Marco Rubio in a tweet:
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, the wealthiest Israelis in the world, are heavy Israel lobbyists who have spent millions of dollars to influence US elections. Trump, the self-proclaimed anti-war anti-foreign-influence candidate, correctly blasted Rubio for selling out and handing his agency to a foreign actor.
Until…
The 2024 election when Miriam Adelson spent $100 million on the Trump campaign. So now, the Adelsons’ new perfect little puppet is choosing his cabinet, precisely as instructed by his masters. And in a full-circle moment, he chose Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state.
And Rubio comes as one in a long list of Israel sycophants tapped to serve in the new administration. Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Waltz, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Mike Huckabee and more, all given big payouts from Israel lobbies, will now be in charge of defense, national security, and intelligence. And if anyone is still unsure if the swamp is drained or not, the neocon-est of them all, John Bolton, announced that he’s thrilled with Trump’s picks.
So, as Joe Biden notoriously announced in 2019: Nothing will fundamentally change. It’s going to be another long four years – Useful Idiots will be here to help you laugh instead of cry through all of it.
It’s this, and so much more madness, on this week’s Thursday Throwdown. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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“Trump did not convince a lot of Biden voters to become Trump voters,” says Palestinian-American scholar Yousef Munayyer in his postmortem of the Democrats’ disastrous performance in the 2024 election. “Harris failed to convince Biden voters to become Harris voters. And that ended up deciding this election.”
The Democrats, Munayyer explains, led four years of economic hardship for the working class and continued to double down on their support for a genocide in Gaza. “This was a change election. People wanted something different.”
And when Democrats showed up with nothing, voters stayed home. “For some people,” he tells us, “it was just a moral question. There was just no way that they could cast their ballot for someone who could not say that what was happening [in Gaza] was wrong, let alone do something about it.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s enabling of Israel’s genocide even disillusioned voters who don’t care about the Middle East.
“And whether you care about Palestinians or don't care about Palestinians,” Munayyer explains, “the fact that your government seems to be more concerned with issues thousands of miles away than the issues that impact you at home reinforces the message that these people don't get me. They don't care about me.”
So why, if it’s such a losing message, did Harris stick so tightly to her support for Israel?
“The only sort of rational explanation for doing this is that parties don't just think about one election. They think about their ability to be competitive over many elections over time. And for that, money is more important than votes. If they were facing the choice between risking several hundred thousand votes in some of the key states or potentially losing major contributions from pro-Israel donors for the next generation, maybe they calculated that they'll take the loss here.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Yousef Munayyer on how Democrats allowed Trump to claim the mantle of being the anti-war, working class champion, Israel’s recent confirmation of its plan for ethnic cleansing in Northern Gaza, and a terrible victory-lap video in which AIPAC brags about how much it influenced US elections.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Dems Shoot Themselves in the Face (with the help of Dick Cheney)
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In the wake of a crushing defeat for Democrats in the 2024 election, corporate media rushes to scapegoat every possible group for Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump. Every possible group… except for Dems themselves.
Of course it wasn’t because of the months of gaslighting voters into believing that Harris was suddenly a serious candidate after three years of being a punchline. Of course it wasn’t because of the canceled primary that didn’t give the base a choice. And it certainly couldn’t have been the Dems funding genocide, ditching universal healthcare, promoting fracking, not codifying Roe v Wade, or increasing the number of kids in cages at the border. It wasn’t any of those things.
Kamala Harris lost because of:
• Black and Latino men
• Jill Stein
• Those meddling Russians
• Anti-genocide progressives
• And, of course, Palestinians
So we go through every excruciating clip, watching pundits squirm their way out of any possible introspection, never wondering once if they could have been the problem. And their final takeaway: Kamala Harris didn’t campaign with the Cheneys enough.
It’s our election Thursday Throwdown – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Our last episode before the election will not be paywalled. Thanks for supporting independent media
“What is your overall view of 2024 and what should be done?”
This is the question we asked two Palestinian-Americans: Lexi Alexander, a filmmaker, and Rania Batrice, a political strategist who served as deputy campaign manager for Bernie Sanders in 2016. Both guests took the question not to mean who will be better between Trump and Harris, but instead which evil will be worse.
“Number one,” responded Lexi, “is that I don't think anybody in any situation ever should vote for genocide. Not just for Palestinians, but for themselves. And so I find myself constantly shocked to watch Americans eagerly vote for what I consider to be Adolf Hitler in 1942.”
Voting for either candidate, she argues, is a vote for genocide. “If Trump will be worse, then we'll endure it together. And we'll fight that fucker too. But you still can't reward genocide.”
Rania, on the other hand, warns of the dangers of a second Trump presidency. “I don't think we get to continue this fight and continue fighting for humanity, for Palestinian people, and many, many other communities under a Donald Trump presidency. But I do believe that with a President Kamala Harris, we have a fight to fight.”
The two each give a long list of reasons why both candidates are terrible, but give different takes on whether a genocide could get worse, whether or not Jill Stein is a worthwhile candidate, and how the two candidates compare on domestic issues. Plus, Katie reveals who she’s voting for in 2024.
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Victoria Nuland Preemptively Warns Rachel Maddow and her audience that Putin Stole the Election
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“It’s the third election in a row,” says Rachel Maddow with a told-you-so grin, “in which Russia has tried to interfere to try to get Trump into the White House.”
“He’s at it again,” responds former State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, the same smile on her face (it seems they’re struggling to hide their joy this time around). Nuland, who has worked for both George Bush and Dick Cheney, has become a go-to warrior for Dems as a leading pusher of stolen election claims as well as a driving force behind the Ukraine-Russian War. “This time [Putin’s] not even trying to hide his hand, and he has far more sophisticated tools.”
Russia’s so-called tools in the past amounted to, as evidenced in the Mueller report and an FBI investigation, a few thousand dollars spent on social media posts, such as the ‘buff Bernie’ meme. This time, Nuland claims, Putin has a sophisticated new AI, plus $10 million spent on influencers to steal the election for Donald Trump. This accusation, of course, needs no further investigation from Maddow.
Only another smile.
On the other side of our terrible election, Donald Trump is making new threats against Iran that sound equally crazy. After his pet Sean Hannity asked why Kamala Harris is encouraging Iran to assassinate him (what?), Trump went on an unhinged rant about how the US should treat Iran.
And when it comes to our terrible treatment of other countries, it’s harder to find a more one-sided relationship than the US-Ukraine alliance. And Ukrainian President Zelensky seems to be finally realizing that as well, calling out the US for pushing him into a needless war which has led to the deaths of countless Ukrainians.
It’s a terrible week on corporate media as always. Watch with Katie and Aaron to hopefully laugh instead of cry at all of it. Thanks for supporting Useful Idiots, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Over a year after the start of Israel’s mass-murder campaign in Gaza, what Netanyahu anticipated to be a swift destruction and short-order real estate sale has escalated into a regional war, slipping further out of his control with each attack.
Elijah J. Magnier, a journalist who has covered the Middle East for over 35 years, specializing in politics, strategic and military planning, and terrorism and counter-terrorism, joins the show to give an update on Israel’s war on the Middle East.
“We don't have a loser and a winner now,” he says. “They're both fighting, and certainly Israel is not winning.”
So what is happening? After the IDF’s assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who each proposed multiple peace offers which were all refused by both Israel and the US, the chances of a ceasefire have plummeted, leaving only uncertainty for the region.
Day after day, Magnier explains, Israel mounts attacks which aren’t the decisive and strategic successes they planned but instead amplifiers for the international coalition forming against them.
“The mistake that Israel did,” he continues, “was bombing the south of Lebanon, forcing the inhabitants to be displaced. The entire society that Hezbollah is part of and the society that protects Hezbollah is already displaced. Therefore, Hezbollah doesn't have anything anymore to be afraid of. It gave more freedom for Hezbollah to attack the Israelis.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Elijah J. Magnier for a full military analysis dissecting the next moves for each side and the one way to stop Israel. Plus, who does Elijah think would be worse for the region: Trump or Harris?
And catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Marvel Announces Next Movie: Liz Cheney the Liberal Superhero
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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s neocon Liz Cheney!
Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and voting alongside Donald Trump more than 97% of the time, what Democrat could resist this war-mongering hero?! In this installment, Liz has traveled all the way from her hard-right Republican planet to join forces with Kamala Harris.
What dangerous deeds will this daring duo get up to in…
Liz: The Liberal Darling!
As terrible as it sounds, this isn’t a joke. And as Kamala Harris parades her new friend around Michigan, MSNBC is losing their minds in excitement. “I've never seen a more heroic figure than Liz Cheney,” says Chris Matthews. “There's such courage there.”
Name one thing, Chris Matthews, other than not liking Donald Trump, that the Cheneys have done good for their country. No? We can’t either.
Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Donald Trump accidentally proves that both he and Harris are terrible for Muslim voters, the ‘diplomats’ who pushed Ukraine into war are now proposing new ways to kill young Ukrainians, and another smug MSNBC chat mocking third party candidates.
It’s all as bad as it sounds. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can hopefully laugh instead of cry at all of it. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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“They want world war.”
This is the conclusion, after fighting in the IDF, after watching Israeli aggression expand for decades, and after watching the occupation and destruction of Gaza, of Professor Haim Bresheeth-Zabner. Haim’s latest book, An Army Like No Other, shows how the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars.
So after last week’s politically-focused interview with Norman Finkelstein, we’re now running a military analysis with our guest Haim, who fought for Israel in the 1967 War and has seen first-hand how the army is embedded in all aspects of Israeli daily life and identity.
He begins with the notion that what is happening in Gaza could be called a war:
“Israel is not fighting against any army at the moment,” he explains. “They're not able to train an army that can fight guerrillas.” And the reason why is a centuries old truth of war. “Those guerrillas in Gaza, in the West Bank, the people of Hezbollah, and other organizations are all fighting for their home. They are fighting to defend their right to live where they are. And they will fight over it until they're killed or they're winning.” The Israelis, on the other hand, “are fighting for real estate.”
And the US, in it’s long-term plan to weaken Russia and China, is more than happy to have Israel play it’s local part in this. “It is the West,” says Haim, “that is doing this genocide, and Israel is the tool.”
Haim goes on to explain a history of the conflict in the Middle East, how it has expanded, when it will reach the inevitable breaking point, and the only way Israel can be stopped.
“I don't think that anyone can actually stand in the way of this unless BRIC came together and said, ‘We will destroy you if you start this war. You want a deterrent? This is the deterrent.’ Now, the Russians more or less said this. And if you follow the press, Biden thinks that they are bluffing. Well, that's not a joke.”
Iran also gave a similar warning, he says. “What the Iranians have done is told Israel, ‘Please, please, please don't fight us. We don't want to fight you. We don't want to kill people in Israel. We can do that. Just give it up, stop the genocide, and we promise we won't touch you.’”
But if those warnings continue to be ignored? Haim asks: “Who is going to stop it? I don’t know.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Haim Bresheeth-Zabner on the Israeli occupation policy that is worse than the Nazis, an analysis of who in the West is really in charge, and a dark conclusion from this genocide: “Life is [now] impossible in Gaza.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Bill Maher vs Chappell Roan
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“To those viewers who aren’t watching this while also looking at their phones,” begins Bill Maher’s open letter to pop singer Chappel Roan, the smirk on his face informing you that he’s being funny now, “let me explain: Chappell Roan is a great new recording artist who, like a Hezbollah pager, is really blowing up.”
Building a punchline on the horrors of Lebanese kids’ and healthcare workers’ faces being blown off by Israeli terrorism gives a pretty good outline for how the rest of his self-satisfied lecture goes.
He goes on to tell young Americans that they don’t know as much as he does about the Middle East because the Chinese are using TikTok to make them hate Israel – it’s not the videos of exploded children and patients being burned alive in a hospital, it’s those meddling Chinese. Bill Maher, however, knows better.
So from his soapbox he tells his viewers that Gen Z is too hardened to care about “young women raped at a music festival.” This dangerous statement, used by corporate stenographers like Maher to build a ‘brown savage’ narrative that justifies bombing schools and hospitals, is backed by zero instances of evidence, victims, or witnesses of Hamas rape on October 7. What he doesn’t mention, of course, is the videos of Israeli guards gang raping Palestinian prisoners, the Right to Rape protests across Israel, or the Knesset member claiming that “inserting sticks into people’s rectums” is “legitimate.”
And to teach the ignorant young Americans a lesson, the famously atheist Maher then uses the Bible to prove that Israelis aren’t colonizers.
Every second of this thing is worse than the last – the best we can do for humanity is to mock Bill Maher as much as possible.
Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Kamala Harris claims that the Russians tricked Black people into thinking that there’s racism in the US, one of the top US officials involved in pushing Ukraine into war with Russia is now saying ‘never mind,’ and if you didn’t get your condescending blowhard fix from Bill Maher, Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols is here to tell you that if you vote for Jill Stein, you’re not a serious voter.
After this week’s Throwdown, you’re going to need to wash your eyes. Or maybe scrub them.
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“I think the reasonable conclusion is that Gaza is no more. There's nothing left in Gaza.”
Monday the 7th marked one full year of genocide in Gaza, the darkest era of a decades-long occupation by Israel, which has now begun to spread into the broader Middle East region.
This week we’re joined by Gaza expert and Useful Idiots fan-favorite Norman Finkelstein to look back on this genocidal year.
Norm points out that this is not, as Western and Israeli media claims, an “Israel-Hamas war.” This is not war. This is genocide. And Israel is not targeting Hamas; they are killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, and picking off journalists, health workers, and children.
“I read this letter,” he tells us, “from sixty-five physicians from around the world who gave testimony as to what they observed. And every one of the physicians testified that the children who were coming into the hospital had bullet wounds to the skull or to the chest. No shrapnel. It wasn't bombs and shrapnel. It was targeted bullet wounds to the skull and to the chest of children. What does that have to do with war?”
“There were fifty-four disabled children who used the school in the convent complex. They fired two shells at it. What does that have to do with war?”
Norman also recalls meeting Hezbollah members, and shares what he got wrong about the organization. “Israel, he says, “is willing to kill for material benefit, and Hezbollah and Hamas are willing to die for survival” He also recounts his time meeting Hamas leaders, and explains Israel’s unfair advantage:
“Israel is the entrenched, concentrated manifestation of Western imperialism. It's got deep roots. It's got the whole Western system behind it, that Western system which won't let go. It will nuke China before it lets go of its global dominance. And in order to defeat it, it requires a very long-term struggle and intense calculation.”
Subscribe for the full interview where Norman explains this despair, and the generational hopelessness which lacks historical precedent.
“Our generation,” he laments, “has, for good reason, lost the belief, the conviction that we have the force of history behind us. That we have the force of justice behind us. Our generation believes there's a good chance we'll be defeated. There's a good chance we're not going to win.”
But that doesn’t mean we should give up.
“The only thing I can say as a conclusion is you never know. You can only know one thing for certain: If you do nothing, it can only get worse.”
It’s that certainty that he says keeps him going. “If you resist, there are moments where it looks very grim. And then there's that folk song, it's always darkest before the dawn. It's this hope that keeps me carrying on. It's always darkest before the dawn.”
“There's another reality. There's something in the human constitution that simply can't do nothing. In the face of such death and devastation, you just can't.”
Plus, check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Kamala Harris reveals her main difference with Joe Biden
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Kamala Harris, who until now has remained mostly hidden from interviews throughout the election cycle, has finally emerged to start talking. Which means in this Throwdown, Katie and Aaron are listening.
‘What would you do different from Joe Biden,’ asked a slew of corporate interviewers who intended the question to be a softball, ‘especially in an election when voters are begging for change?’
Kamala gave three different answers to this:
- “Well, I mean I’m obviously not Joe Biden, and so that would be one change in terms of…”
Uh, I don’t think that’s what they meant. Next interview: 2. “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”
Hmm, don’t think that’s what people want to hear. One more try to name an actual difference: 3. “Listen I plan on having a Republican in my cabinet. You asked me what’s the difference between Joe Biden and me? That will be one of the differences.”
Oh. Good news for Liz Cheney, we guess…
So as the electioneering rolls on, Useful Idiots will keep picking through the seemingly bottomless word salads to find the hidden neocon messaging underneath (see: the US will be the most lethal fighting force in the world, threats of preemptively attacking Iran and China, touring with the Cheneys, etc).
Also in this Thursday Throwdown: Hillary Clinton accidentally reveals her plan for “total control,” Dana Bash and the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt go on a tirade of racist lies on CNN, and a strange surprise from Fox News’ Trey Yingst.
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“It's very bloody and very violent and very dangerous.”
Lebanese political scientists Bashir Saade and Karim Makdisi shed light on Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah and more.
Since the situation is so volatile, news is constantly breaking: after we recorded the interview, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister told CNN that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just before he was assassinated by Israel. The temporary ceasefire, he claimed, was called for by President Biden, President Macron and other allies during the UN General Assembly.
During the interview Karim and Bashir predict what is to come. “The cost is going to be very high,” warns Karim. “It’s going to be very bloody.” They also reflect on why Israel’s attack on Lebanon was inevitable, but not because of Hezbollah.
“I think this is a war that has been coming,” Karim explains. “It's a war that was going to happen. And if it wasn't going to happen now, it would have happened a year from now. You have an expansionist Israel. It has always been expansionist.” And, Bashir adds, “Hezbollah is prepared for this.”
They discuss the double standards faced by the IDF, which is called the most moral army in the world, and Hezbollah, which is described by western media and politicians as terrorist. As Karim explains:
“Hezbollah could target civilian areas. But it's just not in their doctrine, in a sense, to hit civilian areas for the sake of it. In the way that for the Israelis, with the Dahiya Doctrine, you can level the entire civilian area if you think there's some kind of military target inside. This is something the Israelis have been doing since 1948.” Coming tragically full circle, Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine, which calls for disproportionate military responses and the targeting of civilians (war crimes), was named after a Beirut neighborhood where Nasrallah wound up being murdered.
The West justifies Israel’s war crimes by claiming that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. But this week, when Iran launched a missile attack on a Mossad weapons base, CNN itself admitted that the base was embedded in a civilian area.
“The Mossad headquarters and military and defense ministry,” Karim explains, “are in various very civilian areas inside main Israeli cities. So does that mean they’re targets? Does that mean all the civilians working there and around there are targets? Does that mean that it's legitimate under self-defense or any other kind of doctrine? Does it mean that Hezbollah can blow up cell phones and pagers?”
Notably, the very same western politicians and media who accuse Hamas of using human shields are absolutely silent when it comes to Israel’s documented use of Palestinian and Israeli human shields.
Subscribe for the full interview with Bashir and Karim on the state of Hezbollah after the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, how corporate media is constantly working to cover up Israel’s crimes, how martyrdom is portrayed differently based on who does it, and what Bashir and Karim are calling “political suicide” for the Democratic Party.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: John Kerry Wants to Save Democracy (By Ending Democracy)
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“It’s really hard to govern today,” complained former Secretary of State John Kerry at the World Economic Forum. “The referees we used to have to determine what’s a fact and what isn’t a fact have been eviscerated.”
We don’t think he’s talking about the referees who let him lie about WMDs in Iraq in order to justify his own vote for the Iraq War, but let’s let him slide on that one and keep listening…
Today, he mourns, “people self-select where they go for their news and information, so it’s much harder to build consensus.” And when the government can no longer shape information through corporate media, officials like Kerry need to “curb those entities” that provide the public with alternatives to CNN or Fox News.
But it’s not as easy as John Kerry had hoped to ban a site like Twitter.
“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able hammer it out of existence.” Oh no! So what’s the solution, John? “What we need is to win the ground by winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” If you vote for us, we’ll make sure there is an information consensus.
And if that isn’t scary enough, just wait until you watch the rest of this week’s Thursday Throwdown. As Iranian missiles rain down on an Israeli weapons base, CNN reporter Jim Sciutto explains that the base is in the center of a densely-populated civilian area. Which means, by CNN logic, that Israel is using civilians as human shields by placing its command center there.
Surely Jim Sciutto will condemn Israel for this, right? Right?
Plus, Katie and Aaron watch clips from the supremely terrible vice presidential debate, focusing in on Margaret Brennan’s very leading opening question, and wondering if JD Vance has been watching Useful Idiots after a certain Hillary-Clinton-related argument.
It’s all this, and so much more, on this week’s Thursday Throwdown. Watch with Aaron and Katie so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.
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Momodou Taal is a PHD student at Columbia, traveling on a visa from the UK. So when he led a pro-Palestine protest against Columbia and their donor Boeing, his foreign status was used to attack him. Columbia University now has plans to deport Momodou.
Or, as corporate media would put it:
Now, more protests are erupting across campus as Cornell threatens Momodou with deportation, and while his lawyers are working around the clock to keep him here, his status is in jeopardy. Tonight (Friday) at 5pm is his deadline, so tune in now, follow him on Twitter, and show your support. Let’s hope they can’t get away with this one too.
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You know him from a hundred cartoons and a thousand podcasts – and now he’s a Useful Idiot. It’s comedian James Adomian, bringing jaw-dropping impressions of Jordan Peterson, Bernie Sanders, Elon Musk, Mike Pillow, Marc Maron, and more.
And all of them have a lot to say about the Harris/Trump matchup.
Who is Elon Musk’s new fascist girlfriend? Does Bernie think he sold himself out? What would Chris Matthews say about the election if he were still at MSNBC? Close your eyes, and you’ll be convinced they’re all really here.
Plus, James does a deep dive on the changing nature of comedy, from the conservative era post-9/11 in which he and Katie had to fight to get progressive voices heard, to the leftist scene in the Obama years, and the swing back right in the 2020s. He explains how, similar to left journalism, the progressive comedy space is spread thin, losing ground to a smaller and more cohesive (and heavily funded) right.
Subscribe for the full episode where James gives a roadmap for the left to escape this rut, shares his path as a gay man in comedy, and teaches us about the history of oppression in his family’s country of Armenia (okay, maybe it wasn’t all so lighthearted).
You can watch James’ hilarious new standup special here.
USEFUL IDIOTS NEWS: We have a bonus interview coming out later today with Cornell student Momodou Taal, who Cornell is attempting to deport for his pro-Palestine protests. Stay tuned.
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CBS News lets Blinken get away with murder
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Two government bodies concluded that Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza. From reporting by ProPublica: “The U.S. Agency for International Development and others determined that Israel had broken the law.” But when Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before Congress, he told an alternative truth.
“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting” aid, he said under oath, despite endless evidence and reports to the contrary.
So when Blinken was confronted about this lie on CBS News, do you think they held him to the facts?
“The US government says,” began one of the hosts, asking the question exactly as she was instructed to, “that it has to restrict supplying weapons to a country that deliberately stops humanitarian aid from getting to civilians. Why have we not done so?”
Anything missing from that question? They include ProPublica’s report, but the question ignores the fact that Blinken is the one who lied to Congress about this. By letting him off the hook, the reporting ensures that Blinken’s lie goes unchecked, and further, ensures that Israel remains free to continue committing war crimes in the future.
It is yet another example, broadcast to the world in real time, of US corporate media facilitating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
And while CBS excels at covering up genocide, they’ll never match the proficiency of their rivals at CNN. On Monday Mourning this week, we showed how Jake Tapper and Dana Bash formulated a smear campaign to accuse Rep. Rashida Tlaib of antisemitism. And as the lie spread rapidly into another alternative truth, we watch today as Tapper and Bash each give their own fake corrections, which only cement the lie further.
And if it weren’t for Thursday Throwdown, all these corporate media lies would continue to go unchecked. Katie and Aaron have got you covered – stick with them, so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.
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Retired US Marine Jim Webb joins Useful Idiots to give a military analysis of America’s neoliberal wars waged around the world. If you miss history class or are fascinated by combat strategy and the decisions of generals, this episode is for you.
We start in Ukraine, where everyone waited anxiously this week as Joe Biden teased a dangerous message to Ukraine: the approval of shooting long-range Western missiles into Russia. In the past month, Biden’s hawkish policy showed he was increasingly flirting with the idea, but Webb explains:
“There were leaks leading up to this meeting between Biden and Keir Starmer last week saying that a decision was pretty much imminent, but it didn't happen. And it didn't happen after Vladimir Putin said that if Biden approves this, then basically the U.S. will be at war with Russia.”
And it’s this waning end of hope for Ukraine, with desperate attempts at surprise attacks, forced conscriptions, and escalated war tactics, that Webb describes as the latest failure in the Washington neoliberal war machine.
“We just don't know how bad the war is,” Webb says. “The lengths that the U.S. has taken to ensure the Ukrainians stay on the battlefield.”
And that machine knows that as the number of killed Ukrainians skyrockets into the hundreds of thousands, their clutch of control will finally slip. “The descendants of Hillary Clinton's State Department are still driving the bus. And it's the last grasp, the last dying breaths of a really hardcore neoliberal element that is in control. They know that if this fails, then their entire project across the world is going to come into intense scrutiny, beginning with Ukraine.”
So Webb gives a military history of the conflict, explaining the strategic (and nonstrategic) decisions made by each side that brought us to this point, and maps out how the upcoming decisions of Biden, Putin, and Zelensky could lead to peace or to war.
He also answers the burning question: What will be the foreign policy difference between a President Harris and a President Trump?
Subscribe for the full interview with Jim Webb where he explains who really started the Russia-Ukraine War, how Ukraine’s Kursk invasion was actually a trap laid by Russia, and why Israel’s string of pager explosions should be considered a terrorist attack.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Hillary Clinton Wants to Lock Herself Up
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“I think it’s important to indict the Russians,” said Russiagate progenitor Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, “but I also think there are Americans who are engaged in election interference and propaganda. Whether they should be civilly or criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence.”
But after eight years of Russiagate, one of the biggest conspiracies in US history in which a presidential candidate used the FBI to fraudulently claim election fraud and foreign interference in the 2016 election, who, in the eyes of Hillary Clinton, is more deserving of that deterrence than herself?
So, “Lock me up!” she began to shout, as fellow Russiagater Rachel Maddow joined in on the chant. “Lock us up, and we’re sorry for everything!” And so on.
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Since it’s election season, Russiamania is back in full force. So we’re also watching:
• Presidential candidate Jill Stein’s uncomfortable interview with liberal attack dog Mehdi Hasan, where he catches her off-guard with a gotcha about whether or not Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.
• James Rubin of the Global Engagement Center (the propaganda arm of the State Department) complaining that the global south doesn’t like NATO because they get the RT channel there (and they’re not smart enough to make their own decisions, of course).
• And Jill Stein’s VP pick Butch Ware calls out another warmongering form of US propaganda: if we’re spending trillions of dollars on weapons used to blow up kids in other countries, why is it a “wish list” to have actual social programs here?
Plus, another week has gone by since the last Thursday Throwdown, which means Israel has committed a slew of new war crimes. This time, they’re using pagers and electronics to blow up “Hezbollah targets” in Lebanon. So far, it’s mostly kids and medical workers who they’ve murdered. John Kirby doesn’t want to comment on that just yet.
Don’t watch the news alone. Watch Thursday Throwdown – your midweek dose of media madness. Stick with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Subscribe to support independent media and watch the full interview here:
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Eight years ago, people were shocked at the insanity of the Trump campaign and his xenophobic border policies, pining for a more civil age where debates were proper and kids weren’t kept in cages.
In 2024, those days seem simpler.
John Washington, staff writer at Arizona Luminaria and author of The Case for Open Borders, joins Useful and reports something that may seem hard to believe: Trump’s campaign promises in 2016 are actually more progressive than either of the candidates’ we saw in this week’s debate.
“Kamala Harris,” he says, “has wholeheartedly embraced policies that are to the right of where Trump was when he took office in 2016.”
And it was all there in the debate. When Trump attacked her for being soft on the border, she didn’t argue that America is a nation of immigrants, built by immigrants. In fact, she didn’t talk about immigrants at all. “She talked about drug smugglers, human traffickers, and people who illegally crossed the border. But she didn't really give any idea of America as a nation of immigrants, which is the most boilerplate standard go-to on the left.”
But in the past three years, what the US considers ‘left’ has shifted drastically. “It's also important to remember where we started,” Washington says. “At the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, they were asking for a hundred-day moratorium on deportations. Now they've gone way past the center and are at the right.”
The Biden administration in a single term has already deported or expelled over three million people. “He's taken the mantle of Deporter in Chief,” a title that was previously held by Barack Obama.
And as we heard in the debate, Kamala Harris is following in his footsteps. “The policies that she is fighting for are vehemently anti-immigrant. They would raise the asylum threshold, build more wall. They would put more surveillance technology on the U.S.-Mexico border. They would detain people for longer.”
Tell us, Democrats, which of those things counts as a lesser evil than Donald Trump?
Subscribe for the full interview with John Washington, where he describes the real danger of the “they’re eating the pets” hoax, violent reality at the border, how the media is spinning it to protect Biden and Harris, and how borders affect what is happening today in Gaza.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: We found the WORST moment of the debate (and it’s not about pets)
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During the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris this week, in between all the outrageous moments of back and forth over crowd size and fracking and who ate whose cat, you may have noticed the real ‘Isn’t that Terrible’ that permeated the affair.
“I believe in… ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Quick – who said it, Democrat or Republican?
Is there really even a difference anymore, as Dick Cheney becomes the latest neocon to endorse Harris? Yes, the same Dick Cheney who lied to the American public in order to start a war that killed millions and destabilized the Middle East. What, really, makes Kamala Harris a Democrat anymore?
“The one thing I will assure you always,” she went on (and yes, you were correct if you chose Democrat), “I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself. I have my entire career and life supported Israel and the Israeli people.” That was the true theme of the night: who loves Israel harder.
And Harris even had to double down on her promise to keep sending weapons to Israel after Trump attacked her stance, claiming that “she hates Israel.” It was probably because of her unfortunate slip-up when Harris admitted a weird consolation to Palestine: “It is also true [that] far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” But… does that mean there’s… a right number of innocent Palestinians to kill?
Katie and Aaron watched the full, brutal debate and are throwing down on all the ridiculousness that came from it. We hope you didn’t force yourself to watch it live – it’s much less depressing to laugh at it all with Useful Idiots.
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Though Western media has barely covered it, Israeli soldiers engaged in what can only be described as a gang rape of a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman, an Israeli military prison in the Negev desert, which Israeli media has dubbed the Israeli Guantanamo Bay.
When Israeli police detained soldiers who engaged in the rape, which was recorded and broadcast on Israeli TV, Israeli citizens, including Israeli politicians, protested not the rape but rather the attempt to hold the rapists accountable. In addition to these "right to rape" protests, the governemnt has given the rapes its blessing. Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, said during a session of the Knesset, that “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum” is "legitimate."
A one off gang rape would be bad enough. But the truth is this is merely one example of a systemic epidemic of abuse. In fact, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a haunting report on the Israeli prison system which it described as “a network of torture camps.” The title of the report is what an Israeli jailer told a Palestinian prisoner when he arrived at one of these torture camps: Welcome to Hell.
To learn more about this hell, we spoke to Sarit Michaeli, the international advocacy lead for B’tselem, which focuses on human rights abuses in the occupied territories. The abuse suffered by Palestinian prisoners was not random. Rather, “the most gruesome accounts” of the victims revealed “the systemic nature of what has been happening in the Israeli prison system. After October seventh, Israel turned the prison system that deals with Palestinians into a network of torture camps.”
This is not a case of a few rogue actors or bad apples: “The most important thing,” says Michaeli, “is that none of this is the result of individual actions by any sort of individual prison guard. These are systemic actions inspired by [National Security] Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.” And while the torture may have been inspired by Ben Gvir, it's approved of and encouraged by the Israeli government.
The testimony of the Palestinian detainees is harrowing. Fadi Baker, a 25 year old father and lawyer recalled, "they put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body. They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a whole day. My testicles swelled up." Another detainee witnessed the killing of a Palestinian prisoner:
"He screamed in pain constantly, begging for the doctor. The guard would come now and then and swear at him and tell him to shut up. In the morning, the guards came to count us. One said, 'Get up, you animal. Get up, you dog.' They checked him, and the whole place went silent. Finally, the doctor said, 'There’s nothing to be done.' One of the guards said to them, 'My condolences.' And they all started laughing. They put him in a black body bag and carried him out like trash."
Eighteen year old Muhammad Nazzal recalls, "they kicked us and hit us with metal batons. Every time I tried to cover my head with my hands, they hit me on the hands as well as the rest of my body... people beat me again, and also strip-searched me and took photos of me naked." He also witnessed a fatal beating. When a prisoner dared to ask if there had been a ceasefire, "they beat him to death. The guards simply left him there for half an hour after the assault."
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Sarit Michaeli where she describes the “sadistic... orgy of hate and revenge that Israeli society was plunged into," explains why it's Netanyahu, not Hamas, that's blocking a ceasefire deal, and argues that Netanyahu is rooting for a Trump victory. Plus, she reacts to a truly terrible clip from the Israeli podcast “Two Nice Jewish Boys.”
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: AOC vs Predator – Is anti-genocide a predatory stance?
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From a too-casual couch angle, a reclined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave her “spicy” take on Green Party candidate Jill Stein in an Instagram video this week:
“You’re not serious. You’re not – to me, it doesn’t read as authentic. It reads as predatory. I’m sorry, I’m just saying it. What does this person do to grow power?” So Katie and Aaron give their own spicy takes in response.
First, which is more predatory – running as a third-party candidate in a system built to crush dissidents, or telling voters that your own candidate is “working tirelessly for a ceasefire” even as her administration sends its 500th weapons shipment to Israel?
And how does AOC expect the Green Party to grow power when the Democratic Party is strangling it at every turn by blocking ballot access, spam calling voters while impersonating Green Party staffers, and constantly smearing its candidates? Stein’s mission in the 2024 election is to pass the threshold of 5% of the popular vote, which would earn her party national public funding, ballot access, and potential debate inclusion in future elections.
AOC claims to oppose the two-party system, but as Jill Stein is doing her best to break it, the couch-lain Insta smears tell a different truth.
This week’s Thursday Throwdown is jam-packed with media madness from all across the political spectrum. Death in Israel was finally mentioned on corporate media this week because six Israeli hostages were killed. No word yet from Dana Bash and co on the tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians.
Plus, with a new election comes new foreign interference conspiracies. Are pundits and politicians worried about the millions spent by Israel and AIPAC to influence Congress members and oust progressives, as reported by the New York Times?
If you guessed “of course not,” you’re right! It’s Russiagate 3.0! But this time, with a spicy new twist. Watch the full episode to find out what it is.
It’s all as terrible as it sounds. Watch with Aaron and Katie so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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In the name of democracy, neoliberal French President Emmanuel Macron is thwarting democracy in a move that some are calling a coup.
The French left coalition, The New Popular Front, shocked the nation (and Macron) when they won the elections in July. Usually this would mean that a leftist candidate becomes the Prime Minister. But in the name of “institutional stability,” Macron is refusing to allow this to happen.
So, the leftist France Unbowed party, a member of the New Popular Front, is calling for mass demonstrations on September 7.
Our guest, France Unbowed Member of Parliament Danièle Obono, joins Useful Idiots to explain it all: “It's very disrespectful to the voters that their government would not actually be serious about what they voted for. They voted for us because our platform is to implement changes, to raise the minimum wage, to rebuild social services, to fund healthcare and education and environmental policy, to provide shelter and legal papers to migrant people. The voters should be respected.”
But, Obono vows, “they won’t succeed in silencing millions of people.”
Obono also criticizes Macron for cozying up to France’s fascist far right: “People [are] quite shocked that he would agree with the far right. It triggered something very deep within the people because the National Rally is an actual fascist party. They target migrant people, Muslim people. People feared for their lives, for the future of their kids.”
Subscribe for the full interview with MP Danièle Obono where she explains how Macron plans to use the far-right to launch a coup, how her comments about Hamas incited a government probe on her, and why France just arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN is offended that Palestinians wanted to speak at the DNC
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“It’s a little bit rich,” CNN’s Kasie Hunt claimed on air, that Palestinians not yet committed to Kamala Harris “want a piece of the stage at her convention.”
Her lecture comes after Democrats, who claim unity and diversity, refused to allow a single Palestinian speaker at the DNC. And instead of any attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and the uncommitted movement, Democrats have chosen the strategy of bragging about Harris’s record.
“It’s hard to understand what more people could want out of a presidential candidate!” exclaimed Hunt’s guest after enumerating Kamala’s empty campaign platforms, all made on the same day that her administration sent its 500th arms shipment to Israel. “Take the win,” he tells them with a smug smile, “I’m not sure why they’re not saying ‘we support you.’ It seems like a little bit of an own goal.”
This, in case you weren’t familiar with CNN talk, got a big laugh from Hunt. Ha! they laugh, what fools to think they have a say!
Katie and Aaron then open up the CNN stage to a much wider, somehow even more insufferable group of panelists who mock the “pro-Iran” college protesters and applaud the colleges that are shutting down free speech in preparation for fall classes. Watch with amazement as former Fox News host Chris Wallace proves to be the leftist of the group.
And since we’re martyrs for truth (or maybe masochists for propaganda?), we still aren’t turning the dial from CNN. We watched more outlandish claims from former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and General H.R. McMaster that will almost certainly make you groan.
But it’s fun when we’re groaning together – it’s Thursday Throwdown! Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Western media presents Hezbollah as a group of savages, targeting civilians and trying to drag Lebanon, and the entire Middle East, into war.
But, Lebanese journalist Ghadi Francis explains, this couldn’t be further from the truth: “The armed resistance in Lebanon and in Palestine and in Yemen and in Iraq is just the reaction to the decades of oppression, to the decades of blood.”
And though Ghadi doesn’t share Hezbollah’s ideology, she is grateful for it: “The ideology gives so much confidence to these fighters and patience and resilience to their families.” And she is grateful that Hezbollah is fighting to protect her, the Lebanese people and the Palestinian people. “The concept of resistance, it's the concept of life, to give my kids a future that I couldn't have.”
Ghadi warns against trusting Western media. “After the 40 beheaded imaginary Israeli babies,” why would we “still believe them?”
Social media is revealing the truth that traditional media has been covering up: “You are seeing now the tremendous videos and feeds coming out from Gaza. I tell you, this is not new. The same things have been happening, but cameras weren't there and social media wasn't there.”
Although Hezbollah and other resistance movements are painted as instigating violence, they are reacting to it. “The armed resistance in Lebanon and in Palestine and in Yemen and in Iraq is just the reaction to the decades of oppression, to the decades of blood.”
Israel’s terrorism is presented as self defense, while Hezbollah’s self defense is presented as terrorism. But “when someone else is killing your infants, you’d have to be like God or a prophet to be able to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive, decade after decade after decade.”
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Subscribe for the full interview with Ghadi Francis on the difference between how Israel and Hezbollah fight wars, the growing desperation in the west that could lead to a ceasefire, and her own experience in Hamas’s tunnels.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Everyone’s laughing at you, CNN.
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“I know you guys are objective over there,” says Stephen Colbert to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, and already you can hear the audience struggling to keep it together. And then he says: “You just report the news as it is.”
Big laugh from the audience.
“Was that supposed to be a laugh line?” asks Collins, offended but understanding that any attempt to prove her network’s integrity as a journalistic outlet would only lead to more laughter.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” responds Colbert, “but I guess it is…” And a once-great Colbert would have understood what his audience clearly got: that CNN, along with Fox News, the New York Times, and all the others, is a corporation focused on maximizing profits and spewing whatever propaganda it needs in order to do so.
And Collins’ reaction shows that the pundits over at CNN also understand that their grasp over public consciousness is slipping. That they can no longer feign gravitas and principles, but are instead degraded to attacking other outlets and crying misinformation at every turn.
So Katie and Aaron turned on CNN to test this hypothesis, and the first thing they saw confirmed it. Kasie Hunt, pictured with Collins above (Jake Tapper doesn’t appear in this Throwdown, but I couldn’t resist putting his shocked face in front of the painted laughers), used her CNN show in the wake of Trump’s weird X chat with Elon Musk to proclaim that “X has turned into a haven for the spread of misinformation.”
Sure, Musk and Trump themselves tell many lies, but for CNN to claim that the entire platform is a haven for misinformation is a projection so obvious that we just wish Colbert’s audience had been there to laugh her off the set.
Subscribe to watch the full Thursday Throwdown where we also talk Biden’s feud with Pelosi, a conservative’s reasoning for endorsing Kamala Harris, dream-team Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal’s trillion-dollar admission in Ukraine, and an awful goodbye from Israel’s “most moral” ambassador to the UN.
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“The colonial era never ended in the Middle East. The colonial spirit that drives white, Northern, European, American, military-industrial, racist, apartheid, Christian powers is still with us.”
Palestinian-American journalist Rami Khouri, who is a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow at the American University of Beirut and author of the new book Understanding Hamas, has been reporting on conflicts in the Middle east for 55 years. “And the most striking thing to me in that entire period is what we're witnessing today.”
This week the world is watching the potential face-off between an Israeli-American alliance against a new alliance of forces in the Middle East. Will Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran trigger a regional war?
Khouri explains how the tumultuous history in the region brought us to where we are today, and he points a finger at not just nation states and governments, but Western media:
“The mainstream media has played such a central role propagating the various lies and exaggerations and racist stereotypes that have kept this conflict going for so long.”
And they don’t just report on war. They profit off it. “We have to not be drawn into the CNN, New York Times, MSNBC fantasy world of cartoon-like diplomacy, and the projection of the US as the great provider of peaceful life and democracy in the face of these barbaric Muslims and Arabs and Iranians. This is a fantasy world that has been created in the West, and a lot of people made a lot of money out of it.”
So we asked Rami Khouri: will all this lead to a new war in the Middle East?
Subscribe to hear his full answer, plus how Israel has repeatedly rejected peace deals, the difference between Judaism and Zionism, how to properly understand Hamas, and the one way to end this occupation:
“The Israelis have revealed, in all its ugliness, the barbaric, violent spirit that is their Zionist movement in the genocide in Gaza. There has to be an international mechanism to force Israel to do what it has never done.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Is Tim Walz antisemitic for not being Josh Shapiro?
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The “journalists” over at CNN are NOT happy with Kamala Harris for her choice of running mate. You may have heard the spewing all week from Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Republicans that the Democrats are antisemitic for not choosing Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro, but you may be surprised to find out who actually invented that talking point…
“For some reason,” sang Jake Tapper in his nasally I-know-more-than-you way, “people keep attacking [Shapiro].”
“The attacks on Josh Shapiro,” echoed Dana Bash, “for his ‘stance on Israel’ [said with hard air quotes], it’s the same stance as the non-Jewish contenders. They’re picking at him and we should not let that go unsaid.”
“You have antisemitism that has been marbled into this party,” repeats Van Jones. “How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts of the party?”
So is it true? Did Josh Shapiro get dismissed because of his religion? Are Democrats really antisemitic?
Or was it because Josh Shapiro compared student protesters to the Ku Klux Klan? Or that as governor he attempted to defund any public college that divested from Israel? Or that he once tried to enlist in the IDF? Could it be any of those things?
CNN says no. And you’re being antisemitic for asking that.
It’s the Thursday Throwdown – Katie and Aaron have your full dose of media madness, jam-packed with all the crazy Walz takes, Trump bigotry, and a TV opinion that somehow makes all of that look completely sane. Hint: it involves Walz, goblins, and the Antichrist.
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When the US government has been running a decades-long regime-change operation, sabotaging another country with shadow governments and crippling sanctions, it’s hard to take anything it says about the country’s leaders at face value. Which is why, as Venezuela held elections this week and corporate media shouted reports of stolen elections, dictatorship, and civil war, you might find yourself asking:
Is any of this actually true?
Journalist Anya Parampil, author of the new book Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire, documents the bipartisan efforts of the last four US presidents to destroy Venezuela’s economy enough to remove its leaders from power and instate a US-backed puppet as head of state.
“You can't deny,” she says, “what was an orchestrated demolition of the Venezuelan economy on behalf of foreign powers.” And while we hear repeatedly from corporate media that the problems come from within Venezuela, whether it’s dictatorship, gangs, or corruption, Anya points out a basic truth:
“Coming at it from the point of an American, I'm not going to intervene in your country at all, and beyond that all I know is that their lives would be better if the sanctions were lifted.”
She explains why, even after the constant meddling of neocons like John Bolton and Gargamel-doppelganger Elliot Abrams, the piracy of the country’s oil, and the destruction of countless people’s lives with harsh sanctions, the US has still been unsuccessful in regime change.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Anya Parampil where she details how each US president from Bush to Biden made efforts to derail Venezuela’s economy, how these efforts have actually created the immigration problems they love to complain about, and Anya’s epic 2019 interview with Tucker Carlson which led to a call from then-President Trump.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: The State Dept Doesn't Know What a War Crime Is
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In Israel this week, protests have erupted after nine IDF soldiers were arrested for the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners. No, they aren’t protesting the rape and torture, they’re protesting to free their soldiers. Israeli lawmakers then argued that rape is ‘legitimate’ in this case, and Israelis are tweeting things like this:
This is the state of Israel today.
So when journalist and former Useful Idiots guest Said Arikat asked State Dept spokesperson Vedant Patel if the US considered this a war crime, Patel’s response was this:
“Uh I’m not a legal expert, Said.”
And it’s true, without going to law school, how could he possibly know if rape and torture constituted a war crime?
And this isn’t all the madness you’ll get in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: this week Trump said maybe the most bigoted thing we’ve ever heard him say so far, CNN is boldly repeating Israeli lies, and an Olympics fan gets radicalized by Israelis on live TV.
It’s your midweek dose of media madness. Watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.
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Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed el-Kurd is from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. He became known around the world when he resisted the theft of his family home by Israeli settlers.
Now, as he and his community continue to resist, he is constantly asked in Western media: But what about their feelings? Where will the settlers go?
His response created a meltdown for corporate media elites: “I truly don’t give a f***”
In a new satirical parody of the disingenuous Western media, Mohammed expands his answer: “Why should I care about what happens to the settlements? What happens to the people who have been bombed to smithereens? What happens to our relatives who are in prisons rotting away without charge or trial? But what I'm asked to care about is the hypothetical future of the settlers who drink their coffee from my balcony.”
So we chat with Mohammed on Useful Idiots to find out why he’s using satire to make fun of the corporate media that treats Palestinians so disingenuously.
“Ever since this genocidal onslaught on Gaza started,” he says. “It's become more and more circus-like. Being a Palestinian in the media sphere almost feels gimmicky, like it's being done for entertainment values. We are told to take these ridiculous accusations seriously, to respond to them in good faith. In reality, when you're responding to them in good faith, you're giving them power over you.”
Mohammed’s parody, which he made with Jewish Voice for Peace activist Morgan Bassichis, is instead titled In Bad Faith. “When you're satirizing them, when you're dismissing them, you are in fact flipping the script. It teaches the audience at home something. It inspires them and incentivizes them to be more flippant, to be more irreverent, to refuse these kinds of investigations and interrogations.”
What is serious: Mohammed goes in-depth on what it was like to have people violently raid his community and steal their homes.
“They would look at us like they were at an auction for zoo animals. And that's how it felt. We grew up with settlers doing all kinds of sexual harassment, verbal abuses, and they're always protected by police. We would have busloads come into our front yard and sing their religious songs and scream their expletives at us, spit at us. If I didn't live that life, I would not believe it.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Mohammed el-Kurd where we ask him if there’s any difference between Trump and the Democrats, discuss the New York Times’ complicity with their rampant anti-Palestinian propaganda, and find out: will Kamala Harris be any different?
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden forgets he’s at war around the world
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After announcing the forced-end to his presidential campaign on X, President Biden finally showed his face for an Oval Office farewell address (who knows if he’ll be able to make one next January).
And what he said was this:
“I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world.” Uhhh.
Luckily, we didn’t have to explain to him that yes, in fact, you’re overseeing multiple wars. Because on the very same day, US Central Command did it for us. They posted that we literally BOMBED YEMEN YESTERDAY:
Now even if you disregard Biden’s war in Ukraine as merely a proxy war and the genocide in Gaza as just funding a war, the bombing of two targets by US forces certainly can’t be called anything else.
It’s the worst lie since last week when he claimed he’s “the guy who’s done the most for the Palestinian people.”
It’s Thursday Throwdown. Katie and Aaron cover it all, from Kamala Harris to Bernie Sanders to the terrible Netanyahu speech before a fawning US Congress. And our message to Bibi the next time he defiles our name:
is this:
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“Is the revolution around the corner? I effing hope so!”
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters returns to Useful Idiots as bold and funny as ever, with takes on the UK’s new “self-serving Nazi” Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the meaninglessness of the Trump assassination attempt, the real devastation happening everyday in Gaza, Julian Assange, and so much more.
Roger laments that our leaders are “Joe Biden, who thinks he rules the world” and “Keir Starmer, who's a self-serving, career Nazi. They would do anything, tell any lie, adopt any position that can give them power and influence.”
Waters asks what would have happened if the assassination attempt on Trump had been successful: “Nothing. There'd be another puppet there instead. It doesn't make any difference.”
Which is why Roger believes working hard to get these people, Trump and Biden, out of office is so important. “You have an opportunity now to take part in the existential battle for the human soul that Aaron and Katie and I and millions, billions of people all over the world are engaged in. Because we care about right and wrong and we care about human rights and we care about our brothers and sisters.”
And if we don’t? “We are heading towards World War Three very, very fast.”
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Last week, Aaron appeared on Piers Morgan in a debate with two very angry Zionists. The week before, Roger debated Piers himself. The two trade stories of the frustrating environment and how blatant lies (beheaded babies, evidence-less sexual assault of Israeli women), and propaganda (the covering up of Israel’s mass violence of its own people on October 7th) are being shoved down our throats.
“People on this issue just repeat again and again claims that have been debunked. They've been doing it since Joseph Goebbels and Herman Goering suggested it in the late 1930s. The bigger the lie you tell, the better it is. You just have to keep repeating it.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Roger Waters where he shares stories of his meeting with Julian Assange, a song from his upcoming album, the fascist uniform he wears for his live shows, and what he does every day to make a difference in the world.
“It's not easy. We all of us wake up in the morning and burst into tears, and then think ‘All right pull yourself together you big lunk. There's work to be done.’ And we think what can I do today to to make a difference? However tiny it is, what can I do today that is not standing by, silent and indifferent? What can I do?”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Joe Biden thinks he's the MOST RESPECTED world leader
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Joe Biden’s decades-long hunt for power as a bloodthirsty, screw-the-working-class senator was successfully memory-holed by corporate media with ice cream cones, Aviator sunglasses, and the feebleness of old age. Which sometimes makes us wonder: is that civil-rights-bashing, war-mongering aggression still there?
Yes. Yes it is.
In a new leaked audio between Biden and Rep. Jason Crow (D–CO), the president chastised Crow for thinking voters won’t care about his foreign policy record. He shouts (“garbling his words”):
"I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I'm not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me. Tell me who the hell that is. Tell me who put NATO back together! Tell me who enlarged NATO! Find me a world leader who doesn't think I'm the most respected person they've ever—"
Here, Crow cuts him off: "It's not breaking through, Mr. President, to our voters."
Biden goes on, angrier still, somehow believing that his so-called accomplishment of adding Sweden and Finland to NATO will be on the top of voters minds. Inflation? Proxy wars? Healthcare? Nope. Joe Biden’s winning the NATO vote.
But wait – at the NAACP convention (just after saying the most racist thing we’ve ever heard from Biden, watch tomorrow’s Dem’s Suck to find out) Biden announced a new policy that will actually help the working class:
“Corporate-owned housing can’t raise rent by more than $55.” Wow! What a win! Thanks Union Joe—
But of course, that wasn’t true. Biden’s teleprompter told him to say 5%, but his brain read $55. He did not correct the mistake.
It’s Biden mania on this week’s Thursday Throwdown, but don’t worry, Katie and Aaron are making fun of the RNC, JD Vance, and neocon Republicans too. Catch it all on this week’s Thursday Throwdown.
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By popular demand, we are unlocking the extended interview with Ian Proud. Watch the full chat here:
From July 2014 to February 2019, veteran diplomat Ian Proud was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow where he advised UK Ministers on sanctions against Russia.
His embrace of diplomacy over war made him a Misfit in Moscow.
Proud joins Useful Idiots to explain how British diplomacy failed in Russia, and how a strategy other than aggression and saber-rattling could have averted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He gives a complex history of the conflict, beginning with the 2014 West-backed coup in Ukraine, and culminating in Boris Johnson’s infamous in person threat to Zelensky that he must reject a peace deal.
We ask Ian if it was Biden who instructed Johnson to do so.
And today, with a (“so-called”) peace summit convened by the Ukrainian government and Putin making his most concrete peace offer to date, Ian’s long history as a British diplomat in Moscow gives us a chance to pull back the curtain on the talks that could potentially end the proxy war.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Ian Proud where he explains:
•How the US’s Victoria Nuland undermined peace talks at every step since 2014
•Boris Johnson’s admission that the proxy war is about “defending western hegemony” (and his embarrassing meeting with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion)
•The UK’s role in the dirty war in Syria
•The UK’s role in aiding Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza
•How much the British government and its allies invest in propaganda (or, as they call it, strategic communications) to deceive the public into going along with their proxy wars
•And the 2024 US presidential election: Would there would be any foreign policy difference between Biden and Trump?
Useful Idiots is off this week, so we are unlocking a fan-favorite episode. Thanks for your support!
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media
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“If this is my story, then how do Palestinians feel?”
This was the turning point for Jewish Arab Israeli Alon Mizrahi, a Mizrahi Jew who grew up in Israel facing racism and discrimination his whole life because of the color of his skin and the type of Jew he is. Mizrahi Jews ancestrally come from the Middle East. Ashkenazi Jews, like Netanyahu, come from Central and Eastern Europe.
“I wasn't an Israeli,” Alon says. “I was treated differently, I was looked at differently by teachers in school, in university, by people everywhere. And when I was willing to accept that there's no such thing as an Israeli, my next step was, if this is my story, how do Palestinians feel? Or how do Arabs feel?”
Alon felt the long-engrained Zionism taught to him beginning to splinter. “And then I started reading about the actual history of Zionism and Palestine. And it didn't take long for me to get it. It has nothing to do with reality. Zionism is 100% fiction. There's not one grain of truth to all of it.”
So as the story he was told began to break apart and the death tolls of Palestinians rose each year, all without any word from the media he was instructed to trust, Alon’s worldview, like many people’s these days, has turned cold.
“I'm in a stage in my life,” he says, “where I question everything. Nothing is sacred for me. Nothing. People are sacred. Children and babies are sacred. But that's the only thing. The rest I don't give a f*ck about. I'm willing to accept everything I know about anything is a lie, a political lie, brainwashing, propaganda.”
As an Israeli who is now awake inside of Israel, Alon Mizrahi tells us his government’s plans:
“Netanyahu is preparing for a bigger and more apocalyptic war.” He believes Netanyahu will soon invade Lebanon, opening up a new front in order to keep his power steady as the war rages on. But Lebanon is not Hamas: their army and arsenal are fully equipped. Which is why Alon has such a dark prediction for Israel’s current fate: “National suicide.”
And how does that end? “I think this is going to be the war that breaks Israel.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Alon Mizrahi on Netanyahu’s promise not to stop his assault on Gaza, the wider war with Lebanon, and the prospect of a coming Armageddon.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: NYT accidentally exposes Biden's big debate lie
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“The fact is that Putin is a war criminal,” whispered Biden during his debate against Trump. “He’s killed thousands and thousands of people. And he has made one thing clear: he wants to re-establish what was part of the Soviet empire, not just a piece, he wants all of Ukraine.”
He went on, so far unchecked by Dana Bash and Jake Tapper: “And then you think he’ll stop there? Do you think he’ll stop when he – if he takes Ukraine? What do you think happens to Poland? What do you think happens to Belarus? What do you think happens to those NATO countries?”
And while the media went on to fact check Trump’s many lies, they avoided all of Biden’s, covering up his trail of falsehoods perfectly.
Except for the New York Times.
They wrote this week: "Throughout the war, U.S. officials have assessed that President Vladimir V. Putin is loath to expand the war beyond Ukraine’s borders."
The New York Times must be having a very shameful week knowing that it didn’t perfectly perform the duties of state media stenography.
And that’s not all they’re in trouble for. Prime Minister Netanyahu slammed the Times for accusing Israel of being willing to accept a peace deal.
“I am here to make it unequivocally clear,” he said, “This will not happen. The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives. We will not capitulate to the winds of defeatism, neither in the New York Times nor anywhere else.”
Ouch, strike two for the paper that used to be so good at following the government line. We’re sure they will rectify it immediately.
It’s all this, and so much more, on this week’s episode of Thursday Throwdown: your midweek dose of media madness. Join Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all.
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265 days into Israel’s assault on Gaza, Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization Diana Buttu joins us from Haifa with a stark warning:
Things are going to get worse.
“For Netanyahu,” she explains, “he needs to open up another front in order to maintain his power. He's made it clear that he's not going to push for a ceasefire. He doesn't care about the Israeli captives. And so it's pretty clear to me that he's going to go ahead and attack Lebanon.”
Israel has no aim to rescue its hostages. It never did. “If they actually cared about them, they would have done what should have been done very early on, which is negotiate a ceasefire. Instead, they’ve done the opposite. And this is why you can look at these ceasefire proposals with such skepticism. Because instead, what they’ve done is bombed Gaza to virtual smithereens.”
Diana, whose father survived the Nakba in 1948, moved to Haifa in 2000. And like many others, she believed what the media told everyone to believe: that with a simple peace plan, Palestine would be fixed.
Then she arrived in Palestine and saw the true reality.
“All of the things that had been dismissed by the mainstream media,” she says, “I had dismissed too. I had dismissed this idea of settlements and the impact of settlements. And I kept thinking, it'll be undone. It'll all be undone. I dismissed the harm of what it means to be a Palestinian political prisoner, to be somebody who's abducted in the middle of the night. I dismissed the harm of the checkpoints. I dismissed a lot of things. And so when I arrived here, it was the first time that I had to confront the reality that this political process was not going to undo any of those harms.”
Stopping the bombs is one thing. Stopping settlements, returning land, granting rights to Palestinians, and removing the literal wall that cages them is another.
“They talk about reconfiguring the prison, reconfiguring the occupation, but they never talk about ending the occupation because this mentality of control permeates deep inside Israel.”
There’s only one way this ends, Diana says. “It's going to end when the world says that it's enough. And that's it.”
Diana also shares haunting stories of Palestinian children who were kept in Israeli torture prisons for months, and the ways that western corporate media has worked to cover it up.
This week’s interview with Diana Buttu will not be paywalled. We hope you’ll listen to and share her important perspective.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN compares Keffiyehs to Confederate Flags, where Van Jones claims that wearing a keffiyeh around Israeli government supporters is as much a call for violence as waving a confederate flag in Harlem. And we celebrate the freedom of Julian Assange, a rare victory that couldn’t have happened without supporters of independent media like you.
Thanks for your support, we’ll see you next time.
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CNN’s Van Jones, who somehow still calls himself a progressive, gives a racist rant against pro-Palestinian protesters in LA, claiming that wearing a keffiyeh in “Jewish neighborhoods” is as much a call for violence as waving a confederate flag in Harlem.
Jones, as well as President Biden and every mainstream media outlet, has been condemning what they call antisemitic protests against a synagogue in LA.
None of the headlines, however, actually mention what they were protesting. It wasn’t the synagogue, but the real estate event selling occupied Palestinian land.
It’s example number 3 billion of the sad fact that if you only listen to corporate media and bought-out politicians, you’ll have no idea of the horrors they’re so good at hiding. And just wait until we go through the videos of pro-Israeli counter-protesters saying and committing the most vile acts, all while a group of cops looks the other way. It’s honestly sickening.
But there is one light, a much-needed sign that all the work we’re doing has some impact: Julian Assange is free. It is supporters of independent media like you who helped save his life.
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From July 2014 to February 2019, veteran diplomat Ian Proud was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow where he advised UK Ministers on sanctions against Russia.
His embrace of diplomacy over war made him a Misfit in Moscow.
Proud joins Useful Idiots to explain how British diplomacy failed in Russia, and how a strategy other than aggression and saber-rattling could have averted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He gives a complex history of the conflict, beginning with the 2014 West-backed coup in Ukraine, and culminating in Boris Johnson’s infamous in person threat to Zelensky that he must reject a peace deal.
We ask Ian if it was Biden who instructed Johnson to do so.
And today, with a (“so-called”) peace summit convened by the Ukrainian government and Putin making his most concrete peace offer to date, Ian’s long history as a British diplomat in Moscow gives us a chance to pull back the curtain on the talks that could potentially end the proxy war.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Ian Proud where he explains:
•How the US’s Victoria Nuland undermined peace talks at every step since 2014
•Boris Johnson’s admission that the proxy war is about “defending western hegemony” (and his embarrassing meeting with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion)
•The UK’s role in the dirty war in Syria
•The UK’s role in aiding Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza
•How much the British government and its allies invest in propaganda (or, as they call it, strategic communications) to deceive the public into going along with their proxy wars
•And the 2024 US presidential election: Would there would be any foreign policy difference between Biden and Trump?
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: White House would NEVER pause shipments to Israel, reports White House
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After a video message in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reprimanded the Biden administration’s “inconceivable” decision to allegedly pause the shipping of weapons to Israel, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre darted to her podium to beg forgiveness.
“We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about,” Jean-Pierre cries, waving actual prayer hands. “We just don’t.” She then admits to one (“just one!”) shipment of 2000-pound bombs that was paused in May over the Rafah tent massacre but assures reporters that the US is in final talks with the Israelis to reinstate it.
“There are no other pauses,” she pleads. “None! No other pauses or holds in place.” Okay, we believe you. Hopefully when the International Criminal Court eventually tries you for aiding and funding a genocide, they’ll believe you too.
Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: NYC Mayor Eric Adams wants to ban masks on subways in order to dox anti-genocide protesters who wear masks in fear of losing their jobs or getting attacked by Zionists. He compares the student protesters to the KKK.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is giving the ok go to Ukraine to begin attacking deeper into Russia. It seems that in his tenure in this role, Sullivan has done everything but ensure national security.
Nancy Pelosi spews some pro-CIA sinophobic rhetoric that feels really strange to hear from the supposed leader of the Donald Trump opposition party. And the lamest fact check you’ve ever seen airs on CNN.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s Thursday Throwdown. Thanks for supporting independent media.
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President of the US/Middle East Project Daniel Levy used to be an Israeli peace negotiator. Today, he’s a leading critic of the Israeli government. This former insider talks to us about the real goals behind Israel's assault on Gaza, why the U.S. is so enabling of Israel, and the political impact this will have on Biden.
He describes Israel's depressingly narrow political spectrum: “from apartheidists with a smiley face, through to ‘reoccupy Gaza permanently,’ through to the expulsionist eradicationist camp.” It’s a bleak but increasingly undeniable reality that what was once considered the left in Israel and the US has now become ‘the right but nicer about it.’
And what is Netanyahu's plan?
“Right now I'm not sure that Netanyahu has a plan of what his morning-after looks like. To the extent to which there is an ongoing Israeli position, it’s ‘entrench the control,’ it's ‘maximum land,’ and it's this matrix of domination which is going to prevent any Palestinian freedom rights. The idea is push them out and resettle Gaza now.”
Daniel also blasts the so-called peace process: “What they’re essentially saying,” Daniel explains, “is ‘let's go back to the status quo ante,’ which is a regime accurately described by Palestinians, Israeli human rights NGOs, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and the International Court of Justice as meaning the bar of a legal definition of apartheid.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Daniel Levy where he explains what the US gets out of its enabling of Israel, Hamas’s new goals, and how he went from Israeli government official to leading critic.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Brian Stelter warns Trump will arrest Rachel Maddow
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Breaking news from Useful Idiots fan-favorite Brian Stelter on CNN: if Trump is elected, he will throw Rachel Maddow in prison!
How will he have the power to do that? Why didn’t he do that in his first term? Stop asking crazy questions, you unhinged conspiracy theorist.
We’re getting more breaking news now: AOC will also be thrown in jail once Trump is elected! Our source? AOC herself on a recent podcast. You better vote quickly before all the corporate elites are thrown in jail.
Just please, Mr. Trump, don’t take Brian Stelter too.
But while they’re still free, let’s take a look at what these people are still allowed to say on corporate media. On Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch is justifying terrorist logic by questioning who actually counts as a civilian casualty. Do journalists and doctors count as civilians? What about the “hundreds and thousands of rabid Gazans,” do they count? What if some of them support Hamas? Surely they deserve to be massacred, right? We respond to all of Donny’s rabid insanity on Morning Joe.
And Jake Tapper, claiming falsely that Hamas has refused a ceasefire deal, gets called out by another Israeli propagandist. That’s just how good Jake Tapper is.
Plus, an update on the Hunter Biden-Donald Trump convictions. What fun.
It’s a week of lies and craziness, stick with Katie and Aaron. They’ll make you laugh instead of cry.
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“Netanyahu has messaged over and over again that he will not end this war. Israel absolutely and categorically refuses to end the war until Hamas is totally defeated.”
This is the analysis of Nathan Thrall, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and writer who lives in Jerusalem. What’s surprising, however, is the newly announced deal brokered by Israel and the US which stipulates that Israel would agree to a ceasefire if the hostages were returned.
“The giant loophole in this deal,” explains Thrall, “is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”
Israel’s intransigency and unyielding occupation makes Thrall loath to talk about the potential of a one state or two state solution.
“The discussion about solutions and about one-state-versus-two has served to distract people from the real present day reality. What that distraction has allowed people to do is to treat the present reality, the more than half century long present reality, as though it's temporary.”
Focusing on the one or two state solution allows people to “debate the fantasy Utopia” and perpetuates the lie that the occupation is “only temporary. Clearly it can't last, they say, Israel is going to have to choose either to give Palestinians citizenship or give them a state”
The reality is that “Israel doesn't have to choose. It will require a revolution in the way that the world treats Israel for it to have to choose, and maybe we're on the road to that now but it's a very long road.”
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Nathan Thrall in which he discusses his Pulitzer-winning book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, which tells the story of a deadly school bus crash caused by harsh restrictions imposed on Palestinians living in Jerusalem.
Thrall also updates us about how the main characters have been affected by Israel’s response to October 7. For example, Abed recently told Thrall “in all his life and experience of this occupation, these are the greatest restrictions on movement he has ever seen. It can take hours to travel distances that used to take half and hour inside the West Bank.”
Also in the extended interview: For people who claim that Hamas broke the ceasefire, what was the state of violence in the occupied West Bank prior to October 7? What is life like in Gaza, where he spent 6 weeks. What’s it like being an American Jew in Gaza? And what kind of revolution would have to happen to reach peace?
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté debunks the Washington Post's Grayzone propaganda
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“News site editor’s ties to Iran, Russia show misinformation’s complexity” claims the newly edited title of a libelous article from Washington Post writer Joseph Menn. He announced the article by tweeting the following:
I wrote about a news site whose top leaders have taken money from Iran as well as Russia, showing how it is getting harder to trace the forces behind any one false narrative.
The article, as you likely already guessed, gave zero instances of evidence that the Grayzone has accepted any money from any foreign government. The writer’s only “proof” was that one staff editor used to do journalism for Iranian and Russian state media outlets before joining the Grayzone. We don’t, oddly enough, see any articles about journalists who used to work at the BBC or CBC, accusing them of being British or Canadian agents.
In the article, Menn smugly writes that the Grayzone “describes itself as an independent investigative news site.” When you google Joseph Menn, he describes himself as a journalist who covers misinformation. Perhaps a little too well.
The article comes at a time when Russiagate is ramping up again for the 2024 election, with headliner Rachel Maddow blaming everyone and everything on Russian misinformation. Up next, it’s the Democratic National Convention which is a “target-rich stew” for the Russians. Again, no evidence, but they say it anyway.
Of course, she claims, the expected protests outside the DNC in Chicago aren’t because Biden is overseeing a genocide in Gaza or implementing Trump’s draconian border policies. Nope, they’re caused by the Russians.
Katie and Aaron are doing their best to laugh instead of cry at all of it. There’s a lot of really dumb lies coming out of corporate media this week. Stick with Useful Idiots, you’ll laugh too.
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“They knew,” repeats Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. “They knew this would result in killing. They knew this would result in immense physical and mental harm. They knew that by declaring a siege with no food, no water, no fuel, no medicines, people would be destined to die.”
She continues, citing the definition of genocide: “These are conditions calculated to ‘bring about the destruction of a group in whole or part,’ and this is why it's genocide.”
Working at the UN, Francesca Albanese released a groundbreaking report titled Anatomy of a Genocide, which concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide has been met.
And Albanese is not alone in her conclusions. The International Court of Justice found plausible grounds for the genocide case against Israel. And the International Criminal Court has sought arrest warrants for Israeli officials over genocide.
“The reason,” Francesca explains, “why Israeli leaders are being investigated and hopefully one day prosecuted by the ICC is because Israel has proven unwilling and unable to comply with international law [related to] war crimes against humanity, genocide, and oppression.”
And the Biden administration is complicit:
“The US administration considers the ‘red line’ as a sort of movable geometry. They keep on pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable, they keep on pushing the red lines further and further in order to justify their lack of action. The current administration is embroiled in this catastrophe in a way that words can’t say but justice can fix.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Francesca Albanese where she responds to the argument that Israel has a right to defend itself, explains how mainstream media has censored her accounts of sexual violence against Palestinian women, and details the threats the ICC has received from Israel over their war crimes inquiry.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: John Kirby feels “perfectly comfortable” with Israel bombing Rafah
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“Is there a feeling here at the White House,” asks a reporter to White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby, just two days after Israel launched its brutal attack on civilian tents in Rafah, “that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies put President Biden in a more and more difficult position? And you also?”
“Me?” asks Kirby with his famous tight-lipped smirk. “I’m perfectly comfortable, I’m fine, thank you.”
He then goes on to claim that it isn’t Israel but Hamas who is committing a genocide. “Read the Hamas manifesto,” he says. So an out-dated piece of paper is genocide, but what is happening before our eyes, with tens of thousands of people being slaughtered with US weapons, is not.
And John Kirby is perfectly comfortable with that.
Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Morning Joe wants you to know that even though Biden claimed that an invasion of Rafah would cross a Red Line, this invasion of Rafah does NOT, in fact, cross a Red Line. Jill Biden went on the view to run cover for her genocidal husband to smear the campus protesters, pretending to support them while admonishing them for fighting violence with violence. She did not, however, list any example of violence committed by the student protesters.
Antony Blinken claims that the US has no information of who bombed the displaced-persons tents in Rafah until an investigation takes place. His speech comes after CNN reported that shells made by Boeing (sent by the US) were found to be the weapon used to massacre the refugees.
And Israel posted a totally legit video in which two Gazans casually claim that everything Israel has said is totally true and that the Israeli missile was actually very tiny and harmless. We’re honestly surprised that the clearly-faked Gazans spoke in Arabic and not in English with Middle Eastern accents. It’s more effort than Israel usually puts into their propaganda schemes.
It’s lie after lie after lie after lie after lie. But don’t cry – laugh at it all with Katie and Aaron. It’s Thursday Throwdown.
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“Israel makes a killing from the occupation,” says journalist Antony Loewenstein in his new book The Palestine Laboratory, which uncovers how Israel has profited off the terror it reigns over Palestinians.
“Israel's military uses the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies.”
And with this scheme, he explains, Israel is able to genocide three birds with one stone.
First, most obviously, they achieve their goal of control and carnage in Palestine, making the territory unlivable for the indigenous people in an effort to take the land. Second, Israel’s military industrial complex is vastly enriched from the sale of weapons and tech. And third, Israel’s weaponry allows them to to commit mass terror in Gaza:
“After 1967, there were many nations that publicly opposed what Israel was doing, but the insurance policy is that Israel has been selling weapons and surveillance tech to so many countries for so long that those nations were less likely to criticize Israel where it matters, like the UN.”
And the vast extent of this insurance policy is likely greater than we realize.
“No one even knows, by the way, how many countries Israel has sold weapons to. I calculate anywhere between 125 and 145 nations, which is the majority of nations on the planet, have bought some form of Israeli weapons, surveillance tech, or repressive technology.”
But since October 7, Antony explains, Israel’s grip over the world is slipping. Subscribe to hear the full interview in which Antony explains why “Israel is a house of cards,” how companies like Google and Amazon “are directly complicit in potential war crimes,” and why Israel’s potential war on Hezbollah “would make what's happening in Gaza seem like kindergarten.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Blinken's Neo N*zi Pizza Party
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who’s giving Henry Kissinger a run for his money for the title of “Worst,” is having a rough week. When he’s not busy perpetrating a genocide in Gaza, ordering protesters to be thrown against walls during Congressional testimonies, or prolonging the Ukraine proxy war to ensure the deaths of the few Ukrainian soldiers still standing, he wants to relax like any other regular guy.
It seems he can’t catch a break.
On his recent trip to Ukraine, Antony thought he’d strap on a guitar and sing Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” only to be mocked by the internet when it turned out that the song was actually protesting everything he represents.
And when he tried to have a pizza party with the Ukrainian foreign minister, how could he have known that he was sitting in front of neo-Nazi symbols in a restaurant that celebrates Nazis, a restaurant that hangs a photo of Ukrainian ultranationalists burning dozens of protesters alive?
Wherever Blinken goes these days, he is constantly surrounded by protesters calling him Bloody Blinken, the Butcher of Gaza. Watch with Katie and Aaron as Blinken stares deadly (with black eyes weirdly reminiscent of The Jinx psychopath Robert Durst’s) as the women of Code Pink are aggressively dragged out by guards.
All of this is occurring as the ICC announced it is seeking arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as members of Hamas. Blinken crony and State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller is now claiming that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Gaza, but that it is instead Israel and somehow the US who have jurisdiction over the lives of Palestinians.
Miller is backed up by Netanyahu himself, who was given full air time to spread his propaganda on both Good Morning America and Jake Tapper’s CNN show. After threatening the head of the ICC, he debuts the new talking point that arresting him is like arresting George Bush after his actions after 9/11. Finally, something we can all get on board with.
The world is insane as always. Stick with Katie and Aaron – they’ll help you laugh instead of cry at it all.
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“I really have never seen anything like this, in Palestine or anywhere else in the world.”
Palestinian-American writer and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa has been to Gaza twice since October 7th. Her harrowing experience is hard to hear, but so important to listen to.
“The inhumanity is hard to fathom,” she says as she describes images far worse than what we’ve been told so far about Gaza. “It is a constant state of terror.”
We had Susan on to pull back the curtain of censorship held over Palestine, and she reveals the horrifying truth: zip ties tied tight for children’s hands, a heat wave turning tents into ovens, an epidemic of flies, mosquitos, and scorpions, grandparents who have lost their entire families, and a story of a house cat wounded and orphaned from his family, barely able to survive.
And as the US continues to fund this terror, Susan gives a stark warning: “If we allow this to continue without any accountability or serious consequences, then there will be no more limits for what these fascists will do. And it won’t stop with Gaza.”
But this week after a just-for-show shipments pause, Biden sent another $1 billion of weapons to Israel. So we asked Susan about the 2024 election and the question that keeps coming up: But won’t Trump be worse?
Susan responds: “I don’t know what’s worse than what Biden’s done. What can possibly be worse than genocide? What is worse than besieging two and a half million people in a tiny, densely-populated place and then bombing the hell out of them? Watching for seven months a live-streamed genocide and sending billions upon billions every month to this monstrosity to continue this genocide. What could possibly be worse?”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Susan Abulhawa about academic censorship, the policing of pro-Palestine speech, and why she was canceled for her comments about Zelensky.
This episode is very hard to hear, but Susan explains that we cannot become desensitized to the horrors our governments are creating. Listen to and share Susan’s reporting. We appreciate your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: GOP brags Trump hates Palestinians more than Biden does
And see Katie’s mashup of politicians’ and corporate media’s hypocrisy on Zionist violence here.
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See Katie’s mashup of politicians’ and corporate media’s hypocrisy on Zionist violence here.
Only days after Biden’s big stand against Israel in which he paused a single weapons shipment (and privately acknowledged it was only symbolic), he restarted his funding of Israel’s assault on Gaza with another billion dollars of aid.
This made Republicans nervous. We’re supposed to be the genociders, they thought.
So Doug Burgum, who’s currently on his knees before Donald Trump in hopes of getting a VP nod, took to corporate media to prove that Trump is actually much harsher against Palestinians than Biden ever could be.
Compared to Trump, he says, “Biden is not just negotiating with terrorists, he’s negotiating for the terrorists.” He claims that Biden is putting a red line on Israel instead of on Hamas, and that instead of any conditions, Biden should arm Israel until all the hostages are free.
But Trump and his followers are going to have to do better than that to out-genocide Genocide Joe. Because to top the Republicans, the Biden administration has announced that no hostage deal would bring a ceasefire. No matter what, Biden’s assault rages on.
This bickering and arguing about who gets to kill more Palestinians is unfortunately sure to intensify as we head towards June, when the first debate between Trump and Biden (and no one else, assures a Biden spokesperson on CNN) will take place with the two worst possible moderators you could imagine.
Subscribe to watch the episode and commiserate with Katie and Aaron as they throw down all across corporate media. Sky News is celebrating the attempted assassination of Slovakia’s prime minister, Tim Scott (also on his knees) praises Trump for having the energy of a 40-year-old, CNN warns why Russia is going to steal this election even harder than the other ones, and the Missouri secretary of state has a weird new campaign slogan: “In America, you can be anything you want. So don’t be weak and gay.” We wonder how that will work with voters.
And finally, we’ve got a surprisingly satisfying palate cleanser in which Bill Burr roasts the smug out of Bill Maher. It’s nice to get a win sometimes.
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Palestinian journalist Said Arikat may have the hardest job in the world: every day he walks into the State Department briefing room to ask serious questions about the United States’ support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, only to be met with the smirking grin of Joker-cosplayer Matthew Miller:
Arikat is one of the last legitimate journalists working in Washington, and his pressure on warmongers like Miller, John Kirby, and the Biden administration is essential in holding their feet to the fire, especially at a time when the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times is working around the clock to cover up their complicity.
So from inside Washington establishment politics, Said shares his thoughts on the US’s plans for more war and the way the Biden admin enables the “gangster state” of Israel.
“This is really an army that is indoctrinated in criminality to kill the Palestinians, to show them they’re not human, to torture them. Shame on the Europeans, shame on the Americans, they’re the ones that should be held in contempt for allowing such a huge crime to take place under their eyes.”
Said, as is sadly the case with all of our Palestinian guests, also has personal stories of family members killed by Israel. Which is why it is so important for him and the rest of us to continue to stand up against the genocide.
But more and more people are seeing through Israel’s lies, which has Israel worried: “They are panicking because Americans can’t be fooled and blackmailed by AIPAC for much longer.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Said Arikat on the power of the college encampments, the House’s racist antisemitism bill, Israel’s attack on Rafah, and the Biden administration’s meaningless “pause” on weapons that will have no impact on Israel’s plans.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Billionaire tech bro calls protesters an "infection inside our society"
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At the SCSP AI Expo, a coterie of billionaires and war generals took the stage to explain why US protesters shouldn’t criticize Israel’s genocide. The talk, led by General Mark Milley and Palantir CEO Alex Karp, is the latest in ‘weird ways to justify Israel’s war crimes.’
“We slaughtered people in massive numbers,” begins Milley, thinking he’s somehow forming a positive talking point. “Innocent people who had nothing to do with their government.”
His point (we think?) is that the US has committed so many terrible war crimes that it has no right to criticize Israel’s. This is when CEO Alex Karp jumps in to back up the general:
“And one of the things I find personally very frustrating,” says the billionaire, “is that peace activists are actually the pro-war activists, and we’re the peace activists. You are an infection inside of our society!”
His point, um, is, uhh, well we’re not really sure wtf he’s on.
But his craziness is only mirrored as we look across the rest of corporate media. Senator John Fetterman claims that the peace protesters are actually working against peace in Gaza, which is incidentally something he’s never claimed to be for. Jake Tapper brainstorms the new desperate talking point that Hamas accepted a ceasefire agreement not to stop the war but to look good. And a spokesperson for the Israeli government just admits he has no idea how many civilians Israel has killed.
They’re all insane.
Which is why they fit so perfectly into Thursday Throwdown: your midweek dose of media madness.
Plus, Fox News defends lunatic Rabbi Shmuley, Democratic Congresswoman Jeanne Shaheen again blames student protests on China, and the biggest lie of the week: Andrea Mitchell tells Jen Psaki that she has a reputation for honesty and truth-telling.
It’s all crazy, and it’s all on Thursday Throwdown. Watch with Katie and Aaron, they’ll help you laugh instead of cry.
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In a disturbing assault caught on camera, Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was attacked and arrested by police at Washington University in St. Louis. She, along with her campaign manager Jason Call and hundreds of others, were arrested for peacefully protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
As they held their ground, cops attacked Dr. Stein with a bike and pinned Jason to the ground. They recount the aggressive story in this week’s interview.
This campus beatdown is the latest in a long line of fascist attacks at colleges around the country, with students and professors hospitalized as US leadership looks on. President Biden, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, corporate media journalists, and countless members of congress have condoned or even encouraged these police attacks, giving them the green light to escalate their violent methods.
And Dr. Stein has a theory for why:
“The red flags are flying all over the place that they really are losing their stranglehold,” she says of the global empire. “It’s a scary moment because the bear has been cornered and knows that it’s under attack. The empire is striking back in every way that it can because its days are numbered.”
The growing protests around the country are a sign that things are changing and people are committed to that change. “It’s a very distressing and disturbing moment but it’s important to also recognize that behind that is this power of a different world rising up.”
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Dr. Jill Stein and Jason Call where we analyze Mayor Adams’ claim that professional protesters are taking over Columbia, debunk CNN’s propaganda that the wife of a terrorist has joined the students, and explain why it is actually the Zionist counter-protesters who are spreading dangerous antisemitism.
And for a full recap of corporate media’s dishonest bias against student protesters, including a sickening speech from CNN’s Dana Bash and a weird rant from NYU Professor Scott Galloway, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Pervy Prof is Horny for Genocide.
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If you thought Zionists couldn’t get any weirder, wait until you hear NYU Professor Scott Galloway’s newest take. In just two weeks, he’s become the fastest rising star on Useful Idiots:
“Young people aren’t having as much sex,” says the man who was hired to teach business to students. “And I know how ridiculous that sounds, but for the species to survive, you get a dopa hit from fighting off a perceived enemy, and I think they’re on the hunt for what I call a fake mortal enemy.”
Galloway then went on another show to double down on the talking point (notice how he repeats his weird ideas word for word, even bringing back “I know this sounds paranoid but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong” from last week): “Young people aren’t having enough sex so they go on the hunt for fake threats.”
Hmm. Maybe this has less to do with the anti-genocide student protesters and more to do with Scott Galloway’s weird Nazi-threat-sex-fetish. I know that may sound paranoid, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
But Galloway isn’t the only crazy on this week’s Throwdown. We’ve got racist corporate pundits on CNN and MSNBC. We’ve got college professors who also happen to work for the NYPD. We’ve got NYC Mayor Eric Adams implying that he’s been spying on students. Everything you could ask for from an insane media, we’re covering it.
And maybe the craziest moment of all comes in the way CNN host Kasie Hunt refers to the 6-year-old Palestinian child who was murdered by Israel: “A woman who was killed in Gaza.” New lows every week.
It’s all this, and more, on a sickening episode of Thursday Throwdown. Watch with Katie and Aaron, they’ll make you laugh at it instead of cry.
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Jamie Stern-Weiner, Ahmed Alnaouq, and Colter Louwerse, authors of Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm, join the show just in time to check Netanyahu on his sickening new video address instructing the US government to censor college protesters:
“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” begins the Israeli leader in a speech that comes across as desperate. “They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. They want to kill Jews wherever they are. It has to be stopped.”
Israel murdered many family members of our Palestinian guest Ahmed, including fourteen children under the age of 13. When Netanyahu lies that protesters are against Jewish people and not against Israel’s uncountable horrors, it becomes crucial for journalists to thoroughly debunk his dangerous claims.
So Jamie, Ahmed, and Colter lay out a complete history of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, from the mass murder in Jaffa in order to create Tel Aviv, up through the massacre at the Great March of Return (Ahmed shares personal stories from the march). They show the countless attempts at peaceful protests by the Palestinians that were met with Israeli violence, and explain how today’s college protests, including a large contingent of Jewish students, signify that years of peaceful protesting is finally making a global impact.
This week’s interview will not be paywalled because we think Netanyahu’s claims should be debunked for everyone.
If you want a full breakdown of the college campus protests, the Israeli actors posing as protesters to disrupt them, and the professors who are gunning to censor and expel the brave students, subscribe to watch our Thursday Throwdown. We cover it all here: Columbia protests organized by CHINA (say MSNBC conspiracy theorists)
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“What might sound paranoid, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” says NYU Professor Scott Galloway, finishing up an unhinged rant on MSNBC in which he compared student protesters to people with white hoods chanting lynch the Blacks and burn the gays, “is I think the youth are being manipulated. Their frame for the world is TikTok, and if I were the CCP, I’d be doing exactly the same thing.”
That’s right, if it weren’t for China, young people would be celebrating the fact that there are children in Gaza who are undergoing amputations without anesthesia. They need something like the Chinese to trick them and brainwash them into thinking that genocide is not good.
And if you thought Galloway was the only deranged professor we’re letting near students, wait until you get a load of racist whiner Shai Davidai, who teaches at Columbia. After a meltdown when his campus key card was deactivated (apparently Zionists don’t like checkpoints and getting kicked off land either), he declared on the news that the anti-genocide protesters are not just terrorist supporters, but actual terrorists.
The main evidence of terrorism comes in a harrowing video of violence that we dare to air on Thursday Throwdown. The headlines tell it all:
And just wait until we show you the video. Katie and Aaron can barely contain their laughter. The victim (the same student who called Yale racist for not calling her couscous Israeli) then went on Piers Morgan to share her story. And looking at her eye, it seems she has made a miraculous recovery.
It’s all this and a whole lot more in a jam-packed episode of Useful Idiots. Everything’s as vomit-inducing as ever. Join Katie and Aaron, they’ll help you throwdown instead.
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At a time when genocide is being broadcast live on TV and western democracies are cracking down on free speech in order to enable it, As'ad AbuKhalil, Lebanse-American Professor of Political Science at California State University Stanislaus, finds a silver lining:
“The rest of the world is watching,” he says. “The west is being seen for what it really is: a racist, colonialist west that stands for war crimes.”
And as the United States supplies the weapons that massacre civilians, uses the press to cover up the crimes, and arrests students who speak out against it, it becomes “a full participant in the genocide.”
But will the Western governments that support Israel ever stop supporting it? “I don’t think that Israel can cross any threshold” for its supporters.
He gives a history of Israel’s crimes. “Every crime of terrorism in our region has been pioneered by the Israelis: throwing bombs in buses and crowded markets, letter bombs against British embassies, booby-trapped cars, the incineration of the people of Jaffa in order to create the greater Tel Aviv region.”
And he shares harrowing stories from his own life in Lebanon, where Israel “incinerated Palestinian refugee camps,” indiscriminately killing “20,000 Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians.”
But instead of condemning any of that, the US is fighting its students who refuse to support a genocide.
“In this country that prides itself on being the freest country in the world, members of Congress are summoning presidents of universities and holding them to account about which views are allowed on college campuses. They’re taking pride that they are clamping down on the freedom of speech of students of the United States. That is very significant. That is western democracy at work.”
Subscribe for the full interview where we watch some of the most outrageous moments from Congress’ questioning of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, discuss why the Zionist lobby has “every reason to be worried,” and get Professor AbuKhalil’s take on the Biden-Trump rematch.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Meltdown Joe begs you to love the US military
And order Karina Gonzalez’ new children’s book, “Churro Stand” here.
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“AMERICA IS STRONGER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER BEFORE!” yells Morning Joe at an uncomfortable panel of MSNBC pundits. He is LIVID with Fox News for their Hate America First propaganda, when they should be celebrating HOW STRONG WE ARE!
(If that seems like an exaggeratory amount of caps lock, wait until you hear how loud Joe’s pro-military sermon is.)
But while Joe Scarborough is fuming at Fox News for their fake reasons to be angry at America, what all of these corporate pundits are missing is that America really does have problems. As we’re bombing the rest of the world, breaking up peace talks, and blocking ceasefires with our impressive military, US citizens are suffering the highest rates of poverty we’ve ever seen – homelessness and suicide rates are up, healthcare is increasingly unaffordable, and more than half the country can’t afford to pay their rent.
So as ~~Morning~~ Meltdown Joe berates his audience with why America is the greatest it’s ever been, we take a look at what is actually going on under the watch of our powerful country.
In the House, an overwhelming majority of representatives just voted to ban the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” because apparently equality for oppressed people is antisemitic. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer accidentally admits that the US’s proxy war in Ukraine was a complete failure and caused the deaths of huge numbers of Ukrainians, all while arguing we need to fund the war even more.
Congressmembers Raskin and Gottheimer are each finding ways to blame Russia for anything wrong in the US (and yes, using that to argue for more weapons money), and a CNN host attacks Cornel West with pre-written questions from the IDF.
As always, it seems like every week there’s more madness than the last. Stick with Katie and Aaron, they’ve got shovels to plow through it all. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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After several connection issues, we were unfortunately unable to record our interview this week. Here is our brand new Food Groups plus the previously-paywalled section of our Jeffrey Sachs interview:
“Biden’s frustrated, because someone told him he was president, and then he found out that it’s actually President Netanyahu who determines US policy.”
This is how Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of economics at Columbia University, sees the “pathetic” administration. “The truth is the Israel lobby is very powerful. Netanyahu has gotten his way on every single thing. If the US is actually going to try to have a US foreign policy, that would be something new.”
But what about The Call, which the White House rushed to leak, where Biden supposedly urged Netanyahu to reach an immediate ceasefire? Well, once Netanyahu finishes “laughing off” anything said on this call, there’s not likely to be any change. Because the United States doesn’t have to convince Israel of anything.
“All it has to do is stop providing munitions. Biden can say ‘the munitions stop, period.’ That’s what an immediate ceasefire is. We don’t have to convince the Israeli government, we have to stop arming the war. That’s all.”
Biden is still pushing votes in Congress to arm Israel with fighter jets, weapons, and money. But while we at Useful Idiots have focused on Biden’s storied career of obsession with Israel, Sachs disagrees on what Biden’s true motive is. He says it’s not a deep, emotional attachment to Israel.
“I think he’s got a deep, emotional attachment to becoming president. And he determined early on that never show light with the Israel lobby and someday you might grow up to be president. I don’t think Biden has too many deep attachments to public policy. This was the politics necessary to get him to the presidency.”
But then he found out “being president isn’t as good as being prime minister of Israel. That’s the part that frustrates him. He found out it doesn’t have that much power for the same reason he towed the line for forty years.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Sam Harris thinks Nazis are better than Hamas
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Podcaster and philosopher Sam Harris came out with a new take this week that the Nazis were actually better than Islamic Jihadists, mainly Hamas. So if you know anyone who survived the Holocaust, you can tell them that they really didn’t have it that bad.
This racist and absurd opinion stems from the crazy idea that Hamas is analogous to Nazis in the first place: we might remind Mr. Harris that in Germany in 1941, the Jews were not occupying the Germans. The Jews were not keeping Germans in a concentration camp. The Jews were not putting Germans on a diet. The Jews were not “mowing the lawn” of Germans.
The Jews, like the Palestinians, were, as Norman Finkelstein said in our interview last week, “refusing to accept the fate that has been meted out to them: to languish and die in a concentration camp."
The fact that people like Sam Harris are considered thought leaders in our country is a scary thing.
But that’s not all there is to throw down this week. Biden is telling new lies that the way to end the war in Ukraine is to give them another $61 billion of weapons. Chuck Schumer is calling out the Republicans for not being hard enough on Russia while Ted Cruz is claiming the Democrats are too soft on Israel. Antony Blinken is very sad that no one has ever condemned Hamas. A Berkeley law professor assaulted a student protesting for Palestine. And you’ll never guess how Fox News brought the eclipse back to the border.
It’s a week jam-packed with awful… Stick with Katie and Aaron, they’ll make sure you laugh instead of cry at it all. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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“Biden’s frustrated, because someone told him he was president, and then he found out that it’s actually President Netanyahu who determines US policy.”
This is how Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of economics at Columbia University, sees the “pathetic” administration. “The truth is the Israel lobby is very powerful. Netanyahu has gotten his way on every single thing. If the US is actually going to try to have a US foreign policy, that would be something new.”
But what about The Call, which the White House rushed to leak, where Biden supposedly urged Netanyahu to reach an immediate ceasefire? Well, once Netanyahu finishes “laughing off” anything said on this call, there’s not likely to be any change. Because the United States doesn’t have to convince Israel of anything.
“All it has to do is stop providing munitions. Biden can say ‘the munitions stop, period.’ That’s what an immediate ceasefire is. We don’t have to convince the Israeli government, we have to stop arming the war. That’s all.”
Biden is still pushing votes in Congress to arm Israel with fighter jets, weapons, and money. But while we at Useful Idiots have focused on Biden’s storied career of obsession with Israel, Sachs disagrees on what Biden’s true motive is. He says it’s not a deep, emotional attachment to Israel.
“I think he’s got a deep, emotional attachment to becoming president. And he determined early on that never show light with the Israel lobby and someday you might grow up to be president. I don’t think Biden has too many deep attachments to public policy. This was the politics necessary to get him to the presidency.”
But then he found out “being president isn’t as good as being prime minister of Israel. That’s the part that frustrates him. He found out it doesn’t have that much power for the same reason he towed the line for forty years.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Jeffrey Sachs on the US’s disastrous wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the upcoming wars with Iran and China, and the recent mania around TikTok.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN says Israel killed food workers because of workflow breakdown
Watch the full interview here:
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CNN’s Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, stooping as low as they can to better lick the boot heels of the IDF, have twisted themselves into a position to see Israel’s murder of an American citizen as simply a communication breakdown. When they finally regained their posture, they announced this revelation on national television.
This week, in between destroying Al Shifa hospital (killing 300 Palestinians), bombing the Iranian embassy in Syria, and shutting down Al Jazeera in Israel, the IDF managed to find time to target and kill seven food workers in the World Central Kitchen. One of them was American.
Instead of condemning Israel for any of these violations of international law and calling them out for war crimes, the corporate props at CNN brought on Israeli spokespeople to explain to viewers that this wasn’t Israeli policy, but a mixup between IDF leaders and the soldiers on the ground. Oops!
Tapper then pivots to the continuously-debunked lie that Hamas carried out an operation of mass sexual assault on October 7th, even though there are zero Israeli witnesses claiming this to be true. But in Jake Tapper’s demented logic, this excuses the IDF for all of its killings, whether accidental or not. It’s the Nazi-refined strategy of dehumanization.
But that’s not all there is to throw down on in this extra-depressing week: we’ve got Hillary Clinton shouting “get over yourself” to voters unhappy with the two presidential candidates (that should work well to win over voters), a UN independent investigator explaining why Israel has plainly shown evidence of committing genocide, some nonsense from a self-acclaimed disinformation expert, and the return of a Russiagate favorite: Havana Syndrome.
It’s been a dark week. Stick with Katie and Aaron and hopefully you’ll be able to laugh instead of cry at all of it. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe to watch the full episode here:
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Israel is confronting a legitimation crisis, political scientist and prolific author Norman Finkelstein observes, as international pressure on Israel grows from both global protesters and the UN.
He flashes back to before the current war for context: “Another war was inevitable, senior Israeli officials observed in 2016. We cannot conduct a constant war of attrition. Therefore, the next conflict has to be the last conflict.”
This conflict will be the last one. They’re not going to mow the lawn again, Norm explains. They’re going to extirpate every blade of grass from Gaza.
“It’s not about Hamas,” he says, shedding light on Israel’s real plan to solve the Gaza question. “It’s about the refusal on the part of the people of Gaza to accept the fate that has been meted out to them by the state of Israel to languish and die in a concentration camp.”
That’s the dark part, but Norm also gives his reason why we can’t give up.
“During the Iraq War, many young people concluded in despair that here are the largest anti-war demonstrations in world history and nonetheless the Cheney-Rumsfeld administration goes ahead with the war in Iraq. That to me is a naive understanding of how formidable and concentrated the power we’re up against is. It’s a very long battle.”
But though it’s hard to see, the protests are working: “The pressures on Biden gradually accumulate and accumulate until they reach the proverbial critical mass and have a real political impact.
“You’re not going to see it. You’re not going to see the connection between your demonstration in your town square and the abstention in the UN Security Council, but it’s there. And so we should always remember not to despair.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Norman Finkelstein where we discuss Bernie Sanders’ recent comments on Israel and Golda Meir, the history of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, and what comes next in this genocide.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: MSNBC's Hypocritical Meltdown Over Ronna McDaniel’s Hire
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The self-acclaimed journalists at MSNBC, including Nicole Wallace (George W. Bush’s communications director), Jen Psaki (Biden’s press secretary), Joe Scarborough (Republican congressman), John Brennan (CIA director), etc, have become enraged with their parent company for hiring Ronna McDaniel, who get this, used to be a government spokesperson.
McDaniel previously served as the chair of the RNC, notably backing Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020. And while MSNBC seemingly mandates that its hosts have a background in lying, such as Nicole Wallace peddling WMD lies which led to the Iraq War, or Rachel Maddow’s repeated claims that the 2016 election was stolen, McDaniel’s lies are far more egregious.
Hers damage the decorum of the elites.
Katie and Aaron throw down on the cries of the MSNBC hosts of a liar among their ranks and the celebrations they threw when she was ultimately fired. It’s about as hypocritical as we’ve ever seen them. Tune in to join the fun.
Plus, John Kirby walks back the US’s position on the UN ceasefire resolution, saying it’s nonbinding and that he still loves Israel with all his heart, Matthew Miller calls the UN antisemitic for their independent investigation that found Israel guilty of genocide, and Ali Velshi has a strange memory hole in his coverage of the US’s role in the destruction of Haiti.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Our full, unpaywalled interview with John Mearsheimer from 02.23.24:
Professor John Mearsheimer, whose political analysis predicted today’s horrors in Ukraine and Palestine, joins Useful Idiots to give his take on what’s next in the world’s biggest wars.
And since he’s been largely excluded from corporate media for his dissenting views, it’s more important than ever to get his word out.
“What you have here is a real disjuncture between what the elites think and what the publics think,” he says of the two conflicts, in what is already a clear affront to the narratives of elitist western media. “There are recent polls produced by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Quincy Institute that show that only 10% of Europeans and 12% of Americans think that Ukraine can win the war.”
And when it comes to Israel, Mearsheimer explains that US policy is even further from what the people want. It’s not the voters who have a say, and even Congress (as pro-Israel as they are) isn’t in control: “I believe that 90% of it is accounted for by the [Israel] lobby.”
Professor Mearsheimer deep dives into each war: he explains why the US tanked Ukraine’s peace talks to further instigate Russia and what he would do now if he was in Biden’s or Putin’s position. He also delves into the influence of the Israel lobby and how Biden has given impunity to Israel’s killing Gaza killing spree.
Plus, catch our ridiculous Thursday Throwdown: US politicians ban TikTok to save free speech
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Hey subscribers,
We’ll start with a heads up that there won’t be a Thursday Throwdown today or new episode tomorrow, we’ll be sending out an unpaywalled version of the John Mearsheimer interview. This week is the final week of our third year on Substack, so it’s just a quick take-our-breath moment before we roll into Season 4.
Get ready for a jam-packed y…
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Did you ever wonder what Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman would sound like if she was played by director and actor Werner Herzog? Or what Chris Christie would do if Trump ordered food for him that he was allergic to? Have you wondered what the German word is for a Brazilian spider bite that causes painful, hours-long erections? Do you know the world-record time for drinking 2-liters of soda? Can you guess how many buffalo wings Matt Taibbi has eaten in one hour? Or how many hugs two erotically-charged men can do in one minute? Did you ever wonder if hugs could be counted? Or if an act of love such as a hug can’t be quantified as there is so much more to a hug than a physical entanglement of arms, and that in the same way a competition for who can fall in love more times is a fleeting grasp at ordering the confusing nature of life, it is ultimately an impossible feat, and maybe the point of life isn’t to count but to live, so when you finally allow yourself the freedom of falling out of control instead of waiting indefinitely behind the curtains of a stage that only exists in your own mind, preparing to say the lines you wrote for yourself but know deep down you’ll never perform, when you finally let all that go and “embrace” the lack of control you realize you aren’t falling but flying?
Did you ever wonder those things?
If so, you’re in luck! Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper have all the answers while they celebrate three and a half years of Useful Idiots with a reunion episode, throwing it back to the four food groups, terrible media clips, a scary new censor, and as always, a whole lotta nonsense.
Subscribe to watch the full episode where Matt and Katie do shrooms with Trump in a bowling alley and discuss the dystopian future of government censorship where the word transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us.
Plus, watch the latest Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance."
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
This week marks two and a half years of Useful Idiots on Substack and we’re very proud of and thankful for the community we have grown in that time. After an analysis of our subscriber model with the helpful team at Substack, we decided to make some changes.
These changes WILL NOT affect current paid subscribers
First is that the price to subscribe will rise by a small amount on October 1st. Anyone who has a paid subscription BEFORE OCTOBER 1st will be LOCKED IN to the low price forever. So subscribe now before prices rise.
Our reasoning: apparently the Substack model has changed since we joined in early 2021, and this price, which is the baseline price for the site, is more in line with the cost of keeping the podcast up on Substack and running smoothly.
However, we’re hoping none of you pay that price because you’ll all subscribe before October 1st.
Second, we’ll be rolling out some new ways to get your subscription discounted. This includes bundling with other Substacks, getting up to 6 months comped by referring friends, and some special discount codes that will be sent out to our most active listeners. Stay tuned in the coming months for updates.
Finally, we have a new URL! Twitter has been suppressing Substack links, so you can now tell your friends to find us at usefulidiotspodcast.com.
Thank you all so much for your continued support. Helping independent media stay alive is so important right now and we value every listener in the Useful Idiots community. If paying for a subscription isn’t an option for you right now, sharing the show and subscribing to us on Youtube is just as important to grow our audience.
In the next two and a half years of Useful Idiots, we’ll either defeat the suppressing security state censors or be silenced into obscurity. Stick with us either way.
We’ll be back with more updates and a whole lot more show. Stay tuned.
Subscribe now to lock in the low price and support independent media.
Click here to join the live Absurd Arena with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat
Hey Useful Idiots,
You heard it here first: there’s a new “industrial complex” in town. The military one is sooo 2022 (and they already proved they’ve won), so we’ve got a new villain to fight. The censorship industrial complex.
If you watched last week’s interview with Max Blumenthal, you heard the phrase a lot. That’s because a fundraiser for independent journalists run by the Grayzone was frozen by GoFundMe “due to some external concerns.” This comes after similar acts by corporations like PayPal and Visa, and after the FBI’s request to Twitter on behalf of the Ukrainian government to shut down the accounts of several Grayzone journalists, including Aaron.
Certain Twitter commenters like to tell us that it isn’t censorship if they’re a private company, that they can do whatever they want. But when they’re silencing people in the interests of the national security state, it’s censorship. And when the Bill Gates-funded fact-checkers like Snopes and Pointer only check the facts that contravene with the national security state message, it’s censorship.
And before last week’s interview, a lot of this was unknown to the mainstream public. Which probably means there’s a whole lot more that we don’t know.
So for this Absurd Arena, let’s pull back the curtain of the censorship industrial complex (as much as we can) and discuss the big acts of censorship we know about and guess some of the ones we don’t.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to ~~take down the censorship of the national security state~~ chat about the great job our FBI is doing!
Join the live chat!
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“The constitution is just a sideshow at this point.”
Censorship, no longer just a threat from the government but now from private tech corporations as well, has snowballed into dystopian size. And the scariest part about censorship? It hides itself. So it’s hard to know just how huge it really is.
Which makes this an issue on a scale so large that the only team possibly fit to crack into its titanium shroud is the original Useful Idiots: Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. That’s right, Matt’s joining us for a two-week special. Buckle up.
This week, we’re interviewing two journalists recently trampled by the wheels of big tech. First is Max Blumenthal, editor and founder of the Grayzone, which had a recent fundraiser frozen and withheld by GoFundMe “due to some external concerns.” GoFundMe, along with corporations like PayPal, has buried other independent news sites for speaking out against US war. But none as big as the Grayzone. Which means they can speak up and fight back. Tune in and join the fight.
The second guest is Matt Orfalea, video editor and Racket News contributor, whose videos on Youtube have been deleted and demonetized for being “potentially harmful,” or for spreading election lies. The main video in question was simply a mashup of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump claiming that the 2016 and 2020 elections were stolen from them. No opinion, just documentation. Check out the video, it’s back up on Youtube but demonetized. You wouldn’t want such a dangerous video to make any money for its creator.
Subscribe for the full interviews with Max and Orf where they explain the digital de-democratization of the world under the guise of a NATO proxy war, the terrifying new DIIA app which is creating a new digital passport, and Max Blumenthal’s grim prediction:
As the power of corporations takes hold, “the only kind of activism that’s going to be allowed is activism that supports the state’s objectives.” It’s a new world model where transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us.
Subscribe to watch the full episode below and support independent media at a dangerous time.
Plus, watch the latest Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance."
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Listen now (64 mins) | Plus Bernie Sanders attacks Cornel West in his latest descent into Bidendom
Listen now (68 mins) | The inside story of how our political class enabled an era of unaccountable corporate might that left ordinary Americans isolated and powerless
The century's most prolific election deniers gloat that Donald Trump was caught and they weren't
Listen now (63 mins) | The Hunter Biden case leaves Chuck Todd giddy for a record-breaking three special DOJ counsels
Listen now (83 mins) | Journalists Jennifer Briney and Michael Tracey debate the criminality of the third Trump indictment
Listen now (83 mins) | Subscribers get the episode early: Journalists Jennifer Briney and Michael Tracey debate the criminality of the third Trump indictment
GOP presidential candidates are lining up to out do each other for the stupidest gesture to President Zelensky
Listen now (77 min) | The military alliance will continue to tease Ukraine with membership until there is no Ukrainian left to fight
The corporate hosts totally own the former president by granting him unlimited coverage
Listen now (58 min) | Our elderly leaders spend their final days clinging to the power of their empire
Listen now (57 min) | The blockbuster warns about the future of nuclear weapons, but gives notable passes to the people who dropped them in the past
On the bright side, the extra-terrestrials are younger than our current representatives
Listen now (57 min) | It may sound like US nuclear submarines are a sign of western aggression, but it's all part of the Chinese playbook
Listen now (73 min) | Lev Golinkin calls the widely-unreported Vox poll "earth-shattering"
Listen now (64 min) | Every parent dreams of sending their child to die at war to send a message to China
Listen now (66 min) | Plus AOC completes her corporate transformation, George Santos becomes Rosa Parks, and the burning question: Is Barbie a communist?
The president tells his Ukrainian counterpart that as long as Ukraine is taking US money, we own him
Listen now (60 min) | Plus Biden's Trumpian nomination, DeSantis's self-own, and the top suspects for cocaine in the White House
A new court ruling that limits government censorship is panicking the New York Times and their corporate friends
Listen now (82 min) | The former marine tells Biden that the only way to beat Putin is through peace
Our neocon war leaders prepare us for world-ending destruction, but seriously, don't freak out
Listen now (59 min) | Our free press asks its heads of state: "What should we believe?"
Listen now (69 min) | David Talbot and Aaron Good reveal the true history of the Kennedy brothers vs the Dulles Brothers
If the president is looking to booster his credibility with xenophobes, this clip might help
Listen now (81 min) | The tracks of the decade that show the love, pain, and resilience of Black music
Watch the corporate propagandist's brain quake as he confronts information outside the CNN narrative
Listen now (56 min) | The Oscar-winning director returns to challenge everything you've been told about nuclear energy
Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat
Hey Useful Idiots,
For his 80th birthday, also known as his Joe Bidentennial, my Great-Uncle Bob created the most important playlist of his life: one playlist to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. His 80 for 80 Birthday Playlist.
The idea is a great one: create a playlist with the number of songs equalling the number of years you’ve been alive. Uncle Bob’s rule is No Skips. Imagine you’re on a 5 hour roadtrip driving through the desert. If you put on your playlist, you should never want to skip a single song; they’re all that good. And if you happen to get too into the tunes and crash your car into an oncoming cactus, the playlist will become your perfect funeral playlist.
So it’s not to be taken lightly.
But the hard part, Uncle Bob lamented, was how do you pick 80 songs that encapsulate 80 years of life? He had to sort through the early rock and roll from his youth, the protest music of the civil rights rallies, the songs he fell in love to, and all the new stuff he’s impressively keeping up with. His advice: start early.
So prepping for my quartercentennial this year, I’ve begun my much-more-manageable playlist…and it’s still really hard. And thinking about the perfect songs makes me want to learn all of yours.
What makes your Birthday Playlist? Songs from childhood, the tunes that got you into music, a song to cry to, or one to remind you of someone special. There’s no rules, you just can’t skip ‘em.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to start building your playlist. But how hard could it be? They’ll only listen to it after we’re all dead.
Join the live chat!
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Since CBS is celebrating Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday, we figured it’s time to look into the “elder statesman’s” past with journalist Nick Turse, author of books including Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead and a recent investigation “Blood on his Hands,” an extensive examination of the unreported mass killings of Kissinger’s secret war in Cambodia.
“It’s long been known that Henry Kissinger has a lot of blood on his hands for Cambodia,” Turse begins. “But this investigation, using an archive of US military documents and never-before-published interviews, shows that Kissinger was responsible for far more civilian deaths than we knew about, and that the violence was far more intimate.”
Turse, who visited Cambodia to hear the stories of survivors, shares in-depth accounts of the horrors unleashed by Kissinger. And he was asked over and over again by the people of Cambodia: “Why? Why were we bombed?” Nick, in an ambush interview with Kissinger himself, asked the statesman those very questions.
“Why were they bombed?”
“We didn’t bomb Cambodians,” Kissinger lied back. “We bombed North Vietnamese in Cambodia.”
“Then how were 50,000 Cambodians murdered by your bombs?”
And the answer Kissinger gave, as strange as it is chilling, Nick still doesn’t understand: “He told me to ‘Play with it and have a good time.’ And then he stomped his cane on the floor and stalked off.”
Hear the full interview with Nick Turse in which he recounts finding the secret tape recordings from Kissinger’s office, widely unreported, that detail the extent of Henry Kissinger’s hands-on control in the murders of tens of thousands of people.
As Aaron puts it: “Well that was bone-chilling.” Subscribe to watch the full interview below.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "The Russians are dying... it's the best money we've ever spent."
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Neocons rejoice! There’s nothing quite as sweet as money well spent, except of course when it’s hundreds of billions of other people’s dollars spent to end the lives of countless Russians. For Lindsey Graham, that’s as sweet as it gets.
In a video edited by Ukraine, Graham tells a grinning Zelenskyy the bold truth that other neocons like Jamie Raskin are too afraid to say out loud: "The Russians are dying... it's the best money we've ever spent." The funniest part is that, as explained by Twitter’s Community Notes feature, Graham didn’t actually say the two lines consecutively. It was the Ukrainian government posting the video who edited it to cut out the BS and say what they’re all thinking.
Plus, corporate media backtracks on the six years of explosive screaming that Donald Trump is the end of democracy and the worst thing that can ever happen to us. That’s right, there’s someone worse than the end of democracy, and his name is Ron DeSantis.
There was too much for Katie and Aaron to throw down on this week as primary season builds and the Ukraine proxy war tickles corporate media silly. Join them to laugh/cry at it all.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat
Hey Useful Idiots,
As we progress more and more into technological utopia, with AI growing to understand our every need and government sifting information to tell us what we should know, as phones eliminate unnecessary interaction and our homes become absolute cells we never need to leave, I sometimes wonder: what if our utopia isn’t as perfect as it seems?
But then I stare back into the endless abyss my iPhone allows me to get sucked into and the thoughts, both positive and negative, slip comfortably away into numbness.
I’ve been reading dystopian short stories lately and, somehow even dating back to 1909, they all seem to perfectly predict today’s insane dystopia. How they knew, even before screens and robots and cars and planes existed, so clearly where our governments and technology would lead us, I don’t understand. But they proved it’s possible, and if they can do it, so can the Useful Idiots.
Today we’re writing a futuristic scifi novel. What elements of dystopia do you predict humans will live to see? What new forms of technological and psychological control will the government have in 100 years? What’s something that will seem normal to future humans that we can’t even comprehend today, like AI and screens and spaceships to the people of 1909?
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to share your favorite dystopian short stories and novels, and then let’s predict our own dystopic future. The more control, the better.
Join the live chat!
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From Iraq to Syria to everywhere else the US government attempts regime change, when corporate media tells us what the “voices of the people” are saying, it’s not often that we actually hear voices that deviate from the US agenda.
That’s why we invited Syrian analyst Kevork Almassian and journalist Hekmat Aboukhater. And even under accounts of dangerous war zones, terrorist groups, and crushing US sanctions, they both noted that there is hope in Syria.
And the truth they found in Syria only underscores how much western corporate journalists lie to us to help keep the oppressive sanctions going:
“The western journalists who are the so-called experts on Syria,” Kevork, who founded Syriana Analysis, says. “They also have blood on their hands. They’re like a parallel intelligence apparatus giving justifications and information so that these criminal psychopaths in Washington would continue in their policy. Their entire goal is to give justification for US regime change and sanctions.”
Hekmat, cofounder of Project Onwards, shares the story of a Syrian student unable to access most websites and learning materials under US sanctions: “At every single turn as a youth trying to better himself, he’s blocked by a country oceans away that seems to have its knee on his neck as he’s just trying to exist as an internet student.”
But the US government and media pretend that sanctions are targeted only at President Assad, not destroying the lives of citizens. It’s a world of propaganda that’s become increasingly difficult to see through, but the first step to finding out what’s really going on is hearing the voices of real Syrians.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Kevork and Hekmat where they share stories of US weapons used against the Syrian people, the CIA-backed army that kidnapped and threatened to behead Kevork’s brother, and the glimmer of hope they found back home.
Read Hekmat’s article here: Immiserated, humiliated, yet resilient: how Syrians survive America’s economic siege
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "Donald Trump loves communist Russia," announces Democrat.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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“Putin is communist and Donald Trump loves communism!” Wait. I thought the Russians were blackmailing Trump with pee tapes. But now they love each other? And when did Russia become communist again? Something’s not adding up… We must need a history lesson. Or maybe former Senator Claire McCaskill does.
This was one of (too) many rants from this week in corporate media, and we’re imploring you: do not watch them alone. From Fox News hosts claiming that Democrats want an uprising over the debt ceiling while Republicans just want you to open presents on Christmas morning, to heir (and congressman) Dan Goldman screaming that no one should criticize the FBI, the sickening dose of media madness is deadly if not taken with a heaping amount of mockery.
But one bright spot, buried under the hours of propaganda and greed blasted out on cable news, shone through: when a BBC reporter asked a South African leader if they would arrest Putin when he arrived in their country, the leader challenged the reporter with the past two decades of war crimes committed by the UK. It’s everything you wish you could say to shut up the propagandizing warmongers.
Watch it all with us in our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat
Hey Useful Idiots,
Here’s a hypothetical that’s been stumping me this week: If you could change every single person on earth’s mind about one thing with a snap of your fingers, what would it be?
This one came from my roommate, who’s been using it as his new party icebreaker. The responses he gets vary widely, from big issues like “everyone should stop using guns against other people” and “everyone should believe that renewable energy is the way to go” to more specific issues like “bikers need to stop going the wrong way down one-way bike paths.”
One particularly prescient response that we heard just after debating whether “war is bad” is the best choice was from someone who clearly took the question with a different meaning: “Everyone should think I’m pretty.”
My first thought when he asked me the question was that everyone should realize it shouldn’t be okay to make people live on the street without food and shelter, especially when there are more than enough resources to help every one of them. But “the fighting should end,” “stop killing the world,” and “enough with these terrible governments” all made my limited resource of one snap feel very critical.
So let’s debate: you’re able to change everyone’s mind about one topic. Are you saving the polar bears? Stopping drunk drivers or mass shootings? Getting everyone to chew with their mouth closed? Or just having everyone finally realize how hot you are?
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to get some magic in your fingers and snap everyone out of one idea you just can’t bare for them to have.
Join the live chat!
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Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
The era of corporate media is dying. The future is independent.
Ben Smith, former Buzzfeed chief and New York Times media columnist, is the founder of Semafor, a news site which, unlike corporate rags who pretend otherwise, doesn’t hide the author’s opinion. Check it out here.
Ben joins Useful Idiots to explain the beginnings of the internet age of media that led to Obama’s election, the rise and demise of outlets like Buzzfeed News and Vice, and describes what he sees as the next era. And yes, it includes Useful Idiots.
Watch the full episode where Ben debates Aaron on the Durham Report, which this week showed that the six-year story of collusion between Trump and Russia was a hoax led by corporate media. Buzzfeed, with Ben in charge, was the first outlet to publish the Steele Dossier in 2017. When Aaron challenges him on this, things get heated.
Then, as an ex-Times writer, Ben exposes the biggest clusterf*ck from his years at the paper, a notorious example of choosing traffic over truth. Hear his report in the full interview.
And speaking of Traffic, check out Ben Smith’s new book on media genius, rivalry, and delusion in the billion-dollar race to go viral.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: BlueAnon Cracks under Russiagate Report.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Adam Schiff, Keith Olbermann, and more members of the Russiagate cult known as BlueAnon became fantastically enraged this week when fellow conspiracy theorist Jake Tapper admitted on CNN that the Durham Report, which showed there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, is “devastating to the FBI.”
Olbermann, the only man capable of a spittle-spewing rant through a tweet, called for Tapper’s resignation, denouncing him and CNN as propagandists.
Schiff, in contrast keeping his eel-like calmness, only doubled down on his claims, trashing the report, slithering to the safety of MSNBC where Trump is still a Russian asset doing Putin’s bidding.
But even with the report breaking up a six-year story that, as Aaron argues, potentially scourged up enough Russophobia to lead to the Ukraine proxy war, there’s still no one covering it. And so, the tireless job of the Useful Idiots continues, covering stories no one else will, shouting breathlessly into an empty void.
Plus, Anderson Cooper asks to be kicked to repent for CNN hosting the Trump town hall, and CNN is teaming up with the CIA to recruit Russian spies on the dark web.
It’s a weird week.
Watch our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Exciting news! The DNC debates are back on, and Joe Biden is warming up his boxing gloves deep in his basement as we speak, lightly tapping a punching bag so as not to break every bone he has. Sure, he won’t actually be debating any real primary challengers like RFK Jr. or Marianne Williamson, that would be a democratic service which the DNC would never stand for. Nope, he’s debating someone else this week:
You.
That’s right, since the party won’t allow any real challenge to their power, the responsibility to spar with Biden is left to the Useful Idiots. And I believe we’re ready. When you’re up there in your blue pantsuit or big red tie, what will you say to challenge the president’s record?
And remember, whatever policies you bring up, be it his proxy war or his fight against unions, he’ll always be ready to cite intelligence officials who claim it’s all Russian disinformation. You’ve got to be ready.
So join Katie and Wilson at 12pm to debate Joe Biden: what are your main talking points? What Biden policies will you criticize? What plans for the country will you enact as president? The debate begins at 12. And the gloves are coming off.
Join the live chat!
Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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A 23-year-old Ray McGovern, fresh in the CIA, a believer in John F. Kennedy, sat for a lecture from a senior operations officer at the agency. And was shocked by the rant he heard: “This president is a coward! He failed to back us up on the Bay of Pigs! He’s so cowardly, this is an awful, awful thing!” That was the summer of 1963. Three months later John Kennedy was assassinated.
McGovern, who worked in the CIA for 27 years and has spent an equal number of years critiquing it, lays out step by step the factors that led to what he suspects is the agency’s role in the assassination of a president.
First, he explains, was that “Kennedy threatened to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and throw it to the four winds. Now, what President Kennedy didn’t realize is you don’t say those kinds of things. You don’t threaten to do those kinds of things.”
Already in dangerous territory, Kennedy also went rogue on the CIA’s war: “Not only had John Kennedy already made two executive orders to pull our troops out of Vietnam, but in June 1963 he gave an incredible speech saying ‘Why can’t we just get along with the Russians?’”
The result? “He was killed. Very simply. He was assassinated and it was a warning to all other presidents who might want to threaten the CIA.”
McGovern, who since leaving the CIA founded the anti-war group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, is calling for the CIA to be disbanded. “It should be splintered. It serves no useful purpose. Somebody should set up an apolitical, agenda-free institute to do substantial, substantive, and untainted intelligence.” He adds, slyly: “And then if you want to do operations like blowing up pipelines, you put that in the Pentagon.”
Watch the full interview to hear Ray McGovern dissect the CIA’s proxy war in Ukraine, the Biden administration’s hoax of Russian disinformation, and the shocking private Trump quote that made him ask: “Who the hell is running this country?”
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: If you're voting for Joe Biden, you ain't 18-29.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Even corporate media, a steady employee of President Biden, is beginning to crack under the increasingly immense weight of his tanking poll numbers.
This week an ABC poll showed that 36% of all Democrats don’t want Joe Biden to run again, and the number only gets worse among young progressives. CNN begrudgingly hosted a panel which noted that “young activists…aren’t being listened to.” They cited Biden’s decision to drill in Alaska as well as his record on public safety and immigration as top issues driving young voters to stay home. “There’s this skepticism about the effectiveness of the electoral process. ‘I voted and I’m seeing the erosion of reproductive rights.’”
These opinions being shared on corporate media, a rare sight these days, proves the failure of the Biden campaign. “They are telling us it is not enough for Democrats to keep telling these young people to consider the alternative. They have to come up with a compelling, inspiring message.”
The fact that this aired on CNN, however, only makes it more hypocritical for Dems to continue to ignore Biden-challengers RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson and cancel democratic debates. It only adds to our theory that Democrats would rather lose to the other faction of the ruling class than win together with the working class.
Plus, our knight in shining armor Brian Stelter worries how we’ll be able to censor Tucker Carlson when he’s independent, and breaking news: Dianne Feinstein is back (you just can’t see her yet).
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Two weeks ago, just before the NFL Draft, we held a draft of our own for a different team: a united independent media. The idea itself is great: instead of competition and redundancy between all the fantastic investigative journalists working independently, an organized front would not only make it easier for subscribers to get real news, but also create a worthy opponent for corporate media.
The execution, however, is much more logistically difficult. But while it’s not a practical idea now, the best way to get an idea rolling is to talk about it. So we did, and we drafted an impressive A-team of Useful Idiots strong enough to crush the ratings of any corporate news network.
But, you must know, a hero is nothing without a villain. Which is why this week’s Absurd Arena is Draft Day II: Corporate Vengeance.
That’s right, we’re drafting a team of heavies, the most crooked corporate bloodsuckers ever to call themselves journalists. The finest liars, the hardest sellouts, the war profiteers, the government stooges. Who are you drafting?
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to share your draft picks for the conglomerate of corporate crooks that our journalist heroes can crush.
Join the live chat!
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
“Humanity escaped by the skin of its teeth.”
But you wouldn’t know it without journalists like Branko Marcetic, a returning Useful Idiot revealing the contents of the Pentagon leaks that the media has tried so hard to bury. And after this week’s attempted drone strike on the Kremlin, these leaks of US aggression become even more important.
“One of the topline revelations,” he tells us. “Was that despite the fact that Joe Biden said early in the war we’re not going to send US troops, it turns out that there are boots on the ground.” What they’re doing there, we don’t know yet. What it means for the war, Branko explains.
Another major revelation, he explains, is that “last year there was a run-in between a Russian and British plane. It turns out, we know from these documents, that a Russian plane fired at a British spy plane because the pilot misunderstood the instructions he was getting from the ground.” The only reason the plane wasn’t shot down, potentially leading to World War III: “The plane malfunctioned. And humanity escaped by the skin of its teeth.”
But our heads of military in both the Pentagon and the media can’t let Americans know how dangerous this increasingly escalating war is for fear of losing support for the billions of cash we spend on it. And that’s where Branko gives the third revelation from the Pentagon leaks:
“US officials lied about Ukraine winning the war. Privately, they believe Ukraine can make modest land gains at best. But if Americans believe that Ukraine is winning, they’re more likely to support sending further military aide.”
The Pentagon leaks are being censored to keep a deadly proxy war alive, to keep support for sucking Ukraine dry until we fight to the last Ukrainian. Branko Marcetic is uncovering it.
Watch the full interview to hear the scary extent of the Pentagon leaks, the depressing reelection campaign of “yesterday’s man” Joe Biden, and a heated debate:
Is Tucker Carlson actually anti-war?
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden Toasts Media for Ignoring Julian Assange
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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For the second year in a row at the White House Correspondents’ dinner President Joe Biden was massaged with the blind loyalty of his corporate press, a ruler and his cronies guffawing at the world’s most famous journalist who couldn’t make it to the event.
The hypocrisy, which echoes last year’s brave praise from Biden buddy Trevor Noah, shows how dangerously incestuous the relationship between the media and government has become. In diligent stenography the New York Times tweeted a single quote from Biden’s speech: “Journalism is not a crime.”
And yet they watch in abetted silence as Julian Assange is tortured in a life sentence for publishing the same material they did.
So, as actual journalists, unlike the people laughing and clapping at the duplicitous toasts to the First Amendment, Aaron and Katie are standing up and throwing down for Julian Assange. Watch their takedown of a fraudulent ode to journalism.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
From Twitter to the corporate Sunday shows, it seems that in the past few weeks, a dump truck has unloaded on top of me an unending shower of garbage about the Culture Wars. Check out this tweet that popped up on my timeline from someone on the “left:”
And, after wiping the last remnants of trash out of my hair, I responded: what has any of that done to help actual Americans? the sick, hungry, or poor? The culture war, a tool used by the elites to divide the masses against each other, serves as a perfect distraction to, as Norman Finkelstein says, “derail, deflect, and diffuse a radical class-based politics.”
In April, Bud Light and the Trump indictment monopolized the airwaves while Biden’s decision to let Medicaid end for millions of Americans and reports of rampant government censorship snuck by unspoken in mainstream media.
Similarly, Useful Idiots guest Christian Parenti explained why the Democrats in power don’t help the people of East Palestine, even though doing so could ensure a landslide win over Republicans in a battleground state: “They’re afraid of the slippery slope. That if you give anything to working class interests, there’s the threat of a good example.” Because a win over the other faction of the ruling class isn’t actually the goal; the real win is dividing and conquering the rest.
So for this Absurd Arena, let’s be like our bipartisan Congress and play war games about the Culture War. How have they affected you? Do you see any significant importance in them? Do you agree with the idea that they’re a (extremely effective) distraction from issues affecting Americans?
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to join the debate.
Join the live chat!
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
If you thought beef with Elon Musk and threats of imprisonment from Congress would stop Matt Taibbi from breaking more of “the biggest story” of his career, you underestimate the power of a Useful Idiot: Matt returned to the show this week to drop an explosive new Twitter Files.
What he and journalists Matt Orfalea and Andrew Lowenthal uncovered was Project Osprey, Twitter’s secretive method of categorizing threats to the establishment as Russian agents. Twitter had two different algorithmic lists of Russians: “A Priori Russians” and “Inferred Russians,” the latter including presidential candidate Jill Stein and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
“It’s another example,” Matt explains, “of how there’s lots of stuff in the Twitter Files that if the quote unquote “left” cared, there’s stuff pertaining to them.” The reports consistently show collaboration between media companies, private corporations, and the US government to control a narrative of information and censor whatever doesn’t fit into it.
As Collusion author (and “Buzzsaw” victim) Luke Harding wrote in his Orwellian view of the future of journalism: “Rivalry between media titles is a thing of the past. The future is collaboration, the hunt for evidence a shared endeavor.”
Matt translates: “What these people are really talking about when they’re making decisions about content, it’s not just a First Amendment violation, it’s not just an antitrust violation, it’s a complete demolition of the whole model of how democracy is supposed to work.”
And this, not Hunter Biden’s penis, is the underlying theme of all the Twitter Files: “It’s this collaboration between a tightly-knit group of insiders who have decided that they’re gonna do this thing together without the input of the public.”
For all the unprecedented revelations of government censorship and control, Matt can’t understand why no one in the mainstream media seems to care about the story: “In American history there’s never been a story like this.”
Watch the full interview with Matt Taibbi where he responds to the infamous Mehdi Hasan interview, spills some Elon gossip, and reports on a story you won’t hear in corporate media: the indictment of four U.S. citizens accused of being Russian agents for speaking out against the US government. It makes us wonder who’s next.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "Arm Taiwan to the teeth (for peace)"
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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With the report this week that the US spent 10 times more on the military than eduction in 2022, it’s not surprising that Rep. Mike Gallagher chose to ignore Eisenhower’s warning to beware the military industrial complex, instead performing his more fitting quote: “The only way to win this war is to prevent it.”
And how are our brave Congressmen preventing the war with China? War games!
On Monday Mourning, we watched Martha Raddatz fawn over the unprecedented bipartisanship of a Congress who just wants to get along and cosplay nuclear war with China: congressmen from both sides, led by Republican Rep. Gallagher and Dem Rep. Krishnamoorthi, got giddy playing general, laughing and bombing and laughing and bombing. Today we’re watching Gallagher recap what he learned from his playdate:
“If we want to have a hope of stopping World War III, we need to therefore arm Taiwan to the teeth right now.” China will now see US leaders plotting war against them, arming Taiwan, and referring to the Ukraine War as “practice” for the Chinese one. And if the Chinese Communist Overlords somehow take that as a sign of aggression, well that’s their fault. Snowflakes.
Plus, our spirit in the sky Brian Stelter is ready to unveil the cover of his new book, a sequel to the Useful Idiots book club essential Hoax. And Katie and Aaron get secondhand-high from Kamala’s epic stoned moment.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Over the past two years, conversations with other independent journalists like David Sirota, Jordan Chariton, Abby Martin and more have shown a rising importance for a more organized independent media. Instead of the overlapping of topics, competition for subscribers, and scattered information flow, a united front would not only make it easier for subscribers to get real news, but also create a worthy opponent for corporate media.
This idea seems, for now at least, too logistically difficult in a media landscape controlled by corporations. Angry commenters and greedy mainstream journalists often ask why viewers should have to pay for news, but, as Taibbi often points out, we’d much rather have the reader be our boss than the chemical weapons lobby.
So while this unity of legit journalism may not be happening yet, the first step to getting it rolling is to talk about it.
Which means today, (like Thursday for the NFL), is Draft Day. Who would you want on the team of independent journalists? You have all the experts, journalists, pundits, and writers from both the left and right to choose from, a wide range of voices, allowing specialists like Aaron to focus on their main pursuits, knowing others will cover the rest of what’s going on.
It’s a great concept, but difficult to get into action. Today, we’re taking the first step.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm est to share your ideas and draft picks for the conglomerate of non-corporate journalism.
Join the live chat!
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
We recorded this episode before it was revealed that Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett had written Matt Taibbi a letter threatening him with prison time over his Twitter Files testimony. This makes our discussion with Lee even more crucial.
Lee Fang, an independent and highly accomplished investigative journalist, is needed this week more than ever. His in-depth research and reporting, increasingly foreign to “intellectually lazy” corporate pundits like Mehdi Hasan, is a superpower for independent journalism in the fight against a mainstream media which has become little more than a traffic cop for the US government.
Lee explains the contents of the leaked national security documents (something people know very little about thanks to the NYT & co) and corporate media’s response, sharing the importance of one specific unearthed secret he found in the leak: Biden and national security officials, while publicly parading Ukraine’s advantage in the war, privately claim that Ukraine is losing rapidly to Russia. But instead of allowing Ukraine to negotiate peace, they continue the lie to “weaken” Russia and bleed Ukraine dry of any money they can suck out of it.
And then we get to the Twitter Files. Lee, who had exclusive access to Twitter documents, explains what he unearthed about a sweeping Pentagon propaganda campaign.
But the more the Twitter Files reveal about the government, the harder corporate media tries to bury them. After Mehdi Hasan’s embarrassing attack on Matt Taibbi (with enough name-calling and avoidance to make Trump proud), Rep. Stacey Plaskett sent a letter to Taibbi threatening him with jail time for committing perjury in his Congressional testimony. Lee’s response: “That is bullshit. What Matt Taibbi said in his testimony is 100 percent accurate.” He proves it point by point.
One bright side, however, is that Mehdi, whose flashy punditry needs no actual research, clearly chose the wrong people to go after when he attacked real investigative journalists. Lee’s entire career is highlighted by his willingness to go in the weeds with mountains of documents and sift through years of archives. So he decided to comb through Mehdi’s entire career. And what he found: multiple instances of plagiarism.
Watch the full interview with Lee Fang where we read Mehdi’s articles side-by-side with the originals he lifted and decide for yourself if Mehdi Hasan can be considered a journalist.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Build Back Better in Ukraine.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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This week, US government officials and the corporations that pay them met to discuss the economic future of Ukraine at the US-Ukraine Partnership Forum. A diverse array of keynote speakers presented: US economic leaders bought by everyone from Blackrock to Citibank to IBM spoke, stressing the importance of winning the war against Russia (but just not too quickly).
These corporations, recycling the name of Biden’s failed infrastructure bill ‘Build Back Better,’ have calculated the most prudent method for sucking Ukraine dry of as much money as they can get their teeth around.
What their calculations found, sadly enough for the people of Ukraine, is that ending the war now would leave cash on the table, so instead of discussing a path to peace, our economic leaders devised a much longer roadmap for beating Russia, drooling at the promise of the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to rebuild the war torn country.
As Katie questions: “It’s almost like they care about profit more than they care about ending the war.”
Plus, our man on the hill Brian Stelter, who only ever wanted to share the facts, shares that he has no idea why he was fired from CNN.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat
Hey Useful Idiots,
We’re officially in Year 3 of Useful Idiots on Substack and we’re planning out new guests for the upcoming season. And we want your help.
Over the past two years, we’ve had so many incredible interviews, both with people Katie, Matt, and Aaron have connections to, but also with what we call Longshots. A Longshot guest is when you slide into David Cross’s DMs and say “u up?” It doesn’t always get a response, but when you have the journalistic and Twitteristic clout of the Useful Idiots, you get responses you didn’t think were possible.
So we’re asking our listeners who you want to hear from this year on the pod. Journalists who cover mainstream-ignored topics that we haven’t covered yet; politicians who might give a worthwhile interview; Longshot celebrities who actually have something good to say about politics; or past UI guests who you’re itching to hear again.
We’ll use your suggestions and reach out with interview requests. You never know what Longshots may already be listening to Useful Idiots.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm to share your ideas and discuss your favorite Useful Idiots guests that you want back on the podcast.
Join us live!
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
“Something monstrous is taking shape in America,” warns journalist Jacob Siegel in an article at Tablet:
Formally, it exhibits the synergy of state and corporate power in service of a tribal zeal that is the hallmark of fascism… A state organized on the principle that it exists to protect the sovereign rights of individuals is being replaced by a digital leviathan that wields power through opaque algorithms and the manipulation of digital swarms.
America is ruled by a regime of censorship whose aim “is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule. That’s why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation.” What is disinformation? It’s “whatever they say it is.” But, Siegel argues, “if the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind.”
Since 2016, the US has pumped out Orwellian programs like the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act and Nina Jankowicz’s (Scary Poppins) Disinformation Governance Board, claiming that protecting citizens from state spying was jeopardizing national security. The US was losing “influence warfare.”
Make sure to watch the full Substack-only interview, in which Siegel weighs in on the Twitter Files, discusses the significance of Hunter Biden’s laptop story, and pushes back against the claim that they didn’t reveal any censorship.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Matt Taibbi vs Mehdi Hasan.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Perhaps naively, Matt Taibbi accepted an invitation to appear on MSNBC with Medhi Hasan. Before the interview aired, he wrote in a piece forebodingly titled Eat Me, MSNBC: “I accepted the invitation because it would have been wrong to refuse, on the off chance he was planning a good-faith discussion. If you’re reading this, things have gone another way.”
The MSNBC corporate-pro-censorship-CIA-propagandist took the route that most corporate-pro-censorship-CIA-propagandists tend to take: attack the journalist instead of the work, lie when challenged, interrupt at all costs.
What Hasan blindsided Taibbi with were two minor errors (one of which turned out to be not an error after all), and paraded them in an attempt to discredit Matt’s months of work on the Twitter Files. When other independent journalists took to Twitter to explain that Hasan’s errors were not only meaningless but incorrect, Medhi Hasan admitted to his mistake and apologized.
Just kidding, he blocked them on Twitter.
And in the interview, when Matt responded by confronting Medhi about MSNBC’s years of Russiagate lies, Medhi said he wasn’t on the network then so he has nothing to apologize for…
When Matt confronted Medhi about the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Medhi claimed he never wrote a word on it…
But when this was pointed out, Medhi again apologized for his mistake and resigned from MSNBC, announcing journalists must be held to a higher standard.
A Useful Idiot was attacked, which means Katie and Aaron are here to throw down. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
The Twitter Files are back, and leading the pro-government-CIA-propaganda-censorship train against Matt Taibbi and independent journalism this time is MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan. His interview with Taibbi, attacking Matt instead of his work, finding two minor errors and gloating about them, went viral this week.
And the terrible part is that after watching the clips, casual viewers side with Medhi, despite his blatant lies and substance-less attacks.
So for this Absurd Arena, let’s discuss the Twitter Files and the attacks against them. I’m sure that you, like Aaron and I, have had friends or family telling you that the Twitter Files are just Hunter Biden’s dick picks, or that it’s just more Russian disinformation. How do we combat MSNBC lies like Medhi Hasan’s when they spread so widely that even non-CIA-funded-stooges are pushing the propaganda onto us?
Join Aaron and Wilson at 12pm to shout about the Twitter Files and the attacks against independent journalism. And maybe, as absurd as it may be, find a solution for fighting the propaganda.
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Congressman Ro Khanna joins Useful Idiots to answer the question once and for all: can we still call him, or any member of Congress for that matter, a progressive?
Aaron and Katie come ready with hard-hitting questions on the Ukraine proxy war, the strangling sanctions on Syria, Biden’s drilling hypocrisy, and more, challenging the corporate establishment’s propaganda, constantly shoved down the throats of progressive members of Congress.
But did the establishment get to Ro?
Watch the full episode as the interview turns to debate, with Aaron confronting the congressman’s version of history in both Ukraine and Syria; the idea that the US wants peace, even after multiple top officials have denounced a ceasefire as unacceptable; and the blind trust in a president who hasn’t fulfilled a single progressive promise.
Katie and Aaron don’t pull punches, citing facts and history when given the White House narrative, calling out the president’s lies.
In a time when sitting for an opposition interview is almost unheard of for US politicians, it’s a big deal to have Ro Khanna, the last willing member, on the show. Hopefully, other politicians will follow his lead and allow their policy to be challenged. We’re looking at you next, Adam Schiff…
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: even Trump-crazed media can’t get it up for the indictment.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
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It’s indictment season, which means Trump is the only thing liberal-corporate-media is talking about (of course not the fact that Biden is ending Medicaid for millions of Americans). But as stuffed as MSNBC and CNN are with wall-to-wall Trump news, the cracks in the story are beginning to leak.
The seven-year old story of document fraud and hush money is so boring, uninteresting, and irrelevant to Americans who are facing real problems (like Biden ending Medicaid for millions of Americans) that even the Trump-crazed media pundits like Tapper, Todd, and Maddow can’t seem to get it up for the story.
They pretend to be solemn for the tarnishing of the office of president, but when hush money is the first indictment for an office that breathes war crimes, regime changes, and drone strikes, the details of the case put even the tinniest-hatters to sleep. (But not bored enough, apparently, to give any attention to Biden ending Medicaid for millions of Americans).
Plus, Marco Rubio accidentally gives the best argument for ending US-dollar supremacy, and oh boy, does Matt Walsh have a hot take for you: turns out, slavery was actually a good thing. Without it, we wouldn’t have Matt Walsh.
There’s so much BS in the media this week, which means Katie and Aaron have a lot to throw down on. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
This week, our guest on the show is a current member of the US Congress. And Katie and Aaron came locked and loaded with questions, pressing the lawmaker on foreign policy, domestic issues, and government coverups.
So, in preparation for Friday’s interview, we’re sending all Useful Idiots listeners to Washington to interview any politician worth talking to (we know, that’s not many). Who are you finding first?
Will it be one of the warmongers, pressing them on their support of weapons dealers? Or one of the fake progressives who blindly support Biden? A pro-lifer who somehow supports the death penalty? A tin-hatter (Russiagate or Q-Anon)? One of the uber-corrupt who steal from their constituents and sell out to any corporation who will have them? There’s so many options to choose from.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm to share which member of Congress you’re interviewing and which hard-hitting questions your demanding answers to. And then we’ll all shower to wash the grease off from talking to the slimiest people in America.
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“It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I’ve never come across this amount of misinformation.”
The Middle East, known geographically correct as West Asia, is fogged with years of propaganda and misinformation, lies told to us from within and out. And from just reading western media, the perspective of the region is wholly different than what’s really going on.
But Sharmine Narwani, columnist at The Cradle, is actually there, interviewing people in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and more, discovering the real story of West Asia. And now she’s sharing her findings with Useful Idiots.
She explains the truth about the war in Syria and the propaganda coming out of it, lamenting that “a picture is no longer worth a thousand words.” She shares the unreported stories of the women in Iran and the truth about hijab laws. And she reveals a truth about Israel that isn’t told by the protective US media: “Israel is being hit from all sides. It’s so deeply fractured from within.”
It’s a chance to learn about a culturally-rich region, outside the veil of western propaganda. Watch the full interview with Sharmine Narwani on the US’s “no values” policy on dictators in the region, the truth about the morality police in Iran, and the lie of the US fight against ISIS in Syria.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown about Aaron’s testimony at the United Nations: “Aaron Maté vs British Diplomat at UN.”
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
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Useful Idiots’ own Aaron Maté headed to the United Nations Security Council to call out the OPCW's ongoing cover-up of its investigation into the alleged April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Watch as he lays out evidence to debunk the approved narrative in the West.
And then watch as a certain UK diplomat calls Aaron a liar and then runs out of the room before Aaron has a chance to respond. The diplomat, Thomas Phipps, implored the UN not to listen to Aaron, claiming his evidence is misinformation and that all his work has been disproven.
After Phipps fled the scene, Aaron got a chance to respond, and he does here again on Useful Idiots too. So Mr. Phipps, if you’re a fan of Thursday Throwdowns, this one’s for you.
But that’s not all that’s happening at the UN. This week, UN spokesman Faran Haq gets caught in a lie by a journalist who poses a simple question: “Do you think the US military presence in Syria is illegal or not?” Plus, every country except for Brazil, Russia, and China vote against a resolution for a commission to investigate the sabotage of Nord Stream. Wonder if they have anything to hide…
Aaron’s back from the UN, which means he and Katie are ready to throw down. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
In the past two weeks, useful idiots have been busy testifying. Last week, Aaron headed to the UN to teach them what’s going on in Syria, and a few days before that, Taibbi went to Congress to school them on the Twitter Files.
And this week, it’s your turn.
If you were given the platform to testify on the world’s stage, what’s the issue most important to you that needs to be heard? Would you share the truth about the Ukraine War? The coverup in Ohio? The lies about Nord Stream? Or would you testify that the world would be saved if more people just watched Useful Idiots?
Your voice will be broadcasted on CNN and Fox News and everywhere else. What are you testifying?
Join Aaron and me at 12pm est on the Substack app to discuss what issues you would shout at Congress or the UN. And unlike MSM, we’ll actually listen to you.
Join the live chat!
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The US has finally stopped pretending to be pro-peace: with China proposing a plan for a ceasefire, Secretary of War Antony Blinken announced that stopping the war is unacceptable. And when CodePink’s Medea Benjamin called for Blinken to act as a diplomat instead of a war hawk, she was dragged out of the room by security. The US does not want peace.
So to dig deeper into the US’s aggression, we asked Twitter superhero Michael Tracey to help us unearth more evidence of warmongering weapons-dealers calling themselves politicians.
What he found was a 2014 interview with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, after a trip to Ukraine with best bud John McCain, unknowingly giving away the US’s entire efforts of regime change.
“With him being forthright about the decisive role that the United States played in ousting Yanukovych from power,” Tracey explains, noting that Murphy didn’t know this would become a hot topic. “He’s talking about it as though he’s recounting just an average day’s work that wouldn’t have any noteworthy political content.”
But he tells us why Murphy’s confession is so important: “If today somebody who was not a US senator uttered the same exact words that Murphy did in these clips to describe US conduct in 2014 in Kyiv, they would be accused of being a Russian propagandist.”
Watch the full interview with Michael Tracey on the state department-funded report that Russia is kidnapping Ukraine’s children, Ron Desantis pretending not to be a war hawk, and the House hearing on TikTok, where free speech and free market are only cool if the US gets to do it.
Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "Suck on this!" – Thomas Friedman celebrates 20 years in Iraq.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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It’s the twentieth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and if you’re not one of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were killed in the occupation, it may be time to celebrate!
Joe Biden, Thomas Friedman, John Kirby, Judith Miller and more are at the party, laughing that their years of lies, which led to the destruction of a country, have had zero consequences on themselves. Let us know in the comments which psychopath you think is the most gleefully unhinged:
There’s Biden. As a senator, he was one of the leading forces pushing for Bush to invade Iraq and find WMDs. And months after the US invaded, he cheered on the war, saying he would vote that way again. But 2020 Biden tells it differently. You decide which Joe is the liar.
There’s John Kirby. He’s the National Security advisor who said a ceasefire with Russia would be unacceptable. On the 20th Anniversary Spectacular, he lamented only the deaths of the 4000 US soldiers who died. At least he didn’t pretend to care about the 200,000 Iraqis. Maybe he’s the honest one.
And then there’s the folks at the New York Times. Judith Miller, the corporate outlet’s most outspoken pusher of the war, who’s now doubling down on the deadly invasion. And Thomas Friedman, the psychopath who took out his big stick and knocked on Iraqi doors and told them to “suck on this.” It’s a weird psychosexual fantasy that only intensifies with each hundred-thousandth murder.
If you are one of the countless Iraqis who lost their homes, families, or lives, today is not a day to celebrate. But if you are a psychopathic neocon whose power has only grown since the invasion of Iraq, it sadly seems that you’re eating your cake too.
Katie and Aaron throw down on this nightmare celebration. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
My journey as a Useful Idiot took me from cheering for a Biden win in 2020 (I’m telling you this in confidence, please don’t out me) to the disenfranchised, gloomy producer you know and love today who chokes down the Sunday morning news shows so you don’t have to. This week marks two years since Useful Idiots went independent from Rolling Stone and I joined the crew. And now, after countless hours of editing food groups, throwdowns, and interviews, it seems my levels of skepticism, distrust, and anger towards politicians and corporate media are at impenetrable levels.
But yet from time to time I still find propaganda leftovers.
Most of the propaganda seared into my brain from years of school, TV, and newspapers has been wrenched out of my brain by the fantastic guests of this show: experts in foreign policy, radical activists, independent journalists, victims of oppression, free thinkers. But as I continue to learn from them, I’ll run into an old topic which no one has yet yanked out.
Just last weekend, as Navalny won the Oscar for Best Documentary feature and the filmmakers gave a speech about the importance of defending Ukraine, I realized that in my Useful Idiot journey I never questioned the years of articles the New York Times pushed about Navalny the freedom fighter in Russia. The same happened in Taiwan and Syria, and in the US I’ve run into policies that, after being told all my life they were the ‘only way’ to do things, I still believed they were true. Some things are so engrained in me that, as distrusting as I’ve become, I still forget to be skeptical.
Do you ever find propaganda leftovers? From SNL’s outrageous representations of politicians like Marianne Williamson, to the liberal motto that we should help the working class but not the homeless, to the reputations of foreign leaders fed to you by corporate media, do you ever have any propagandistic ideas that you let slip through the cracks?
Join Katie and me at 12pm est on the Substack app to share the propaganda that still has its hold on even the bleakest of skeptics.
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“Why has the Left turned its back on free speech?” asks Christian Parenti, professor of economics and author of Radical Hamilton.
As Democrats censor Matt Taibbi over the Twitter Files, smear journalists Seymour Hersh and Jeff Gerth for reporting facts they don’t like, bury coverage on the Ohio train derailment, and vote for censorship bills in the name of stopping Putin, Parenti recalls a time when it was the Left who were the defenders of the First Amendment.
But now, as US leaders move deeper and darker into warmongering and censorship, lying to us at every turn to grow their power and wealth, Parenti instead asks: “When will the Left stand up to the deep state?”
The most recent move by the rich and powerful is the bailout of Silicon Valley Bank. “This is triage,” Parenti explains. “This is a tourniquet on a shattered leg, and that has to happen. You cannot let the US financial system collapse and not bring down the rest of the economy.” But while he agrees that the bailout is necessary in the short run, Parenti explains that the collapse is the fault of the capitalist system itself. Hear his analysis on how to fix it.
Plus, listen to the full interview on how the FBI intervened in the election, why liberal media is against free speech, and Christian and Aaron’s debate on Trump’s anti-war message.
Check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Democrats’ Matt Taibbi Meltdown where Useful Idiot Matt Taibbi goes to Congress.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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Matt Taibbi went to Washington and it didn’t go very well for the Congressional Democrats. In impassioned, emblazoned, emotional speeches from the heart, they thought they were #slaying Taibbi with soundbites that would break Twitter and cancel him.
Instead, they came off as some of Washington’s most corrupt and wealthy politicians interrupting a journalist, hypocritically lecturing him that he can’t make money in a capitalist system which they routinely exploit.
Taibbi, who somehow stays hilariously polite through the whole circus, simply gives facts back to the sputtering politicians as they bungee between yelling at him for speaking, begging him to believe them, and ignoring him when he proves them wrong. Ranking member Plaskett, after calling Tabbi “dangerous” and a “so-called journalist,” refuses to even look at him when he calmly explains that he is, in fact, a journalist.
Famously-corrupt Debbie Wasserman Schultz, tin-foil-hat Colin Allred, and Dan “Levi Strauss” Goldman all pile on, getting increasingly hysterical as Taibbi remains cool and collected. Let us know in the comments which meltdown was your favorite.
When a Useful Idiot gets attacked, the other two have no choice but to throw down. Katie and Aaron hold nothing back.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
If you’re a listener of this podcast (excluding the hate watchers, CIA infiltrators, and jealous CNN anchors), you’ve probably had a moment of radicalization in your political journey. A moment of realization that shook your worldview, a time when you suddenly were hit over the head with the thought that everything that’s been shouted at you might not be fully true.
Hopefully this podcast has knocked a few brains into awareness (still waiting on you, Jake Tapper), but what’s often more powerful than journalism is music.
Protest, rebel, and punk music have become not just staples but drivers of American movements. These songs have the power to both motivate already-believers while also lifting minds which have been drowning in the propaganda flooded onto us since preschool. From folk songs to rap anthems to punk protests, music has the power to wake us up and energize us to fight.
What was the song that got you?
Join Aaron and me at 12pm est on the Substack app to share the song that brought you down the Useful Idiots path.
I’ll start, here’s mine:
Now it’s your turn:
Join the live chat!
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Hey Useful Idiots,
We watched Chuck Todd this week, and he made some really great points about why World War III would be soooo good and we have to say, he’s been right all along!
So it looks like we don’t need to do this whole Useful Idiots thing anymore.
But maybe by next Monday we’ll change our minds…
See you next week for Monday Mourning, Absurd Arena live chatting, Thursday Throwdown, and a great new interview. Maybe it’ll be the Chuckster.
-wilson
Useful Idiots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Announcement: Useful Idiots is taking a break for the rest of the week, so no Thursday Throwdown and regular Friday episode. We’ll be back next week (March 13-17) as normal. Thanks as always for your support. -Katie, Aaron, and Wilson
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“You either fight to the last Ukrainian or you’re pro-Russian.”
As this motto of CIA-backed corporate media and politics strengthens, there is suddenly a glimmer of hope: people are beginning to wake up. Protests, no matter how “random” Rachel Maddow may claim, are growing across the world, demanding peace, not backing down in the face of increasingly intense propaganda.
Glenn Diesen, professor at the University of Southeastern Norway and author of the book Russophobia: Propaganda in International Politics, joins Useful Idiots to report on the largely-uncovered peace protests and explain what’s actually going on in Ukraine.
“This is what we’re doing,” he says. “We’re shipping weapons in, we’re sabotaging all the peace agreements, and we’re accusing China of doing what we’re doing. I think it’s called projection.” The Chinese, if you ask the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman or MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, are prolonging the war to destroy the West. The truth, Diesen explains, is that China is the only country with a peace plan.
“I think that China is the best actor at the moment to rally the whole world and push for negotiations because the West can’t. We’re part of this conflict. We’re sending the weapons. We’re giving the intelligence. We’re celebrating every time we see a dead Russian general.”
Listen to the full interview, where Diesen explains why the Chinese peace plan is the most practical path to peace and who he believes blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
Plus, check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown on the Covid lab leak and the propaganda around it on MSNBC and Fox News.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
Watch the full interview here:
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The past few weeks have been jam-packed with breaking news and impactful reporting: Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream scoop, Jeff Gerth’s Russiagate reveiw, the Lever’s East Palestine coverage, and the Rage Against the War Machine protests against the proxy war. And Useful Idiots has researched and reported on all of it.
But this is the Thursday Throwdown, your midweek dose of media madness, and, like Monday Mourning, it’s our chance to implement the crucial system of checks and balances over the CIA-backed corporate news.
So this week, as the newest breaking news from the Department of Energy says a lab leak is more of a likely Covid origin than a natural event, we’ll start not with our own research and reporting but with corporate media’s increasingly common reaction of smear-first-debate-never.
With legendary reporters Hersh and Gerth (a great name for a comedy duo), we found no instances in mainstream media of arguments against their facts or sources, only name-calling, smearing, burying. The same happened as David Sirota was accused of profiting off the train explosion by Politico (which is literally sponsored by the train lobby) and with Rachel Maddow’s sickening mockery of an anti-war protest. Now, angry corporate media is rushing to twitter again to silence any discussion that their totally-not-racist “Chinese eat bats” theory is wrong. Never facts or discussion, just smears.
But not everyone’s trying to hide it. Over at Fox News, Tucker Carlson’s show is running rampant in the other directions with conspiracy theories about China’s covert plan to destroy the west with Covid, an Iraq WMD-level claim.
Plus, there’s the Russian’s futuristic sonic weapons and MSNBC’s absurd coverage of Marianne Williamson. So yeah, it’s a pretty big dose of media madness this week. Katie and Aaron are here to throw down on it all.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat.
Hey Useful Idiots,
We’re playing everyone’s favorite game: Innate or Invented! Today’s topic: Boredom! And now, here’s your host: someone who’s been pretty bored lately!
Here’s where the argument started. Take someone entrenched in today’s world of smartphones, flashing ads, social media, and increasingly-short-form entertainment, all designed to shorten their attention span. What would happen if they dropped everything and moved to a remote village with no phones or computers? Would they be bored to death, or is there a way to become free of boredom?
When I compare myself to someone who lived 1000 years ago, I assume they didn’t also struggle to sit in silence for 20 minutes without looking at their phone. Did people without instant and constant access to games and videos and Twitter get bored? And if I moved to a tiny island Banshees of Inisherin style, would I, after a period of withdrawal, learn to not be bored again?
You reading this may be that person who lives off-the-grid, spending hours each day watching the wind blow the grass to and fro. You may also be a short-attention-span-constant-scrolling-phone-addict. I’d like to hear all your theories. Is boredom a human trait, or have we been trained to need distraction? Can I hope to one day live free of my phone and computer, or am I trapped?
Join Katie and me at 12pm est on the Substack app to share your theories. Here’s the prompt:
Is boredom innate or invented? Would we still get bored if we weren’t trained with constant access to distraction? Is there a way to re-learn and reset?
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For all the Pete Buttigieg-defending Democrats who say that the chemical explosion in East Palestine, Ohio isn’t the chief regulator’s fault because Donald Trump repealed the Brake Rule, and for all the Trump-defending Republicans who argue that the Brake Rule wouldn’t have helped this crash because Obama sided with the chemical lobby to narrow safety requirements, David Sirota has good news for you all:
You’re both right.
This story truly does span three presidential administrations,” Sirota explains. “The truth of this story is that this was a bipartisan effort to allow the rail industry and the chemical industry to avoid the safety regulations that needed to be put in place.”
Sirota’s work at Lever News sparked national attention and outrage over the deadly train derailment and pressured Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to visit the explosion site and promise to fix the rules. You can support their important work which is holding politicians accountable and saving lives.
Of course, not everyone supports independent media. As Politico reporter/Buttigieg stenographer Adam Wren tweeted, “David Sirota’s The Lever is fundraising off of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.” Because true journalism isn’t sponsored by the readers, but by the corporations that the corporate media claims to report on:
Subscribe to watch the full interview with David Sirota detailing the bipartisan collusion to peel pack safety rules, the sickening politicians attempting to downplay the disaster, and why journalists should work for their readers, not corporations.
Plus, check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Biden rode forth to Ukraine; and Rachel Maddow is so triggered by a certain politician, she refuses to even say her name in her very disdainful coverage of the Rage Against The War Machine rally.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Watch the full interview here:
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“Bravely, bold Sir Biden rode forth to Ukraine,” marking, according to his minstrels at CNN and MSNBC, a courageous, death-defying journey which sits in the pantheon of presidential trips to war zones.
Sure, he didn’t fly into Kyiv on Air Force One like they said, he flew to Germany and then to Poland and trained into Ukraine. And sure, he told his enemy Russia exactly what his travel plans were to make sure they were okay with his trip. And yes, according to CNN, the air raid sirens blasting were likely just a sound effect. But does that make Biden any less brave? (Yes.)
Some people, however, aren’t as excited as corporate media for all the war and Ukrainian deaths. This Sunday, the Rage Against the War Machine rally marched on Washington, with speakers forming a Left-Right coalition to put more pressure on the warmongering elites. Dennis Kucinich, Tulsi Gabbard, Roger Waters, Chris Hedges, Ron Paul, Jimmy Dore, and more spoke, condemning Russia for its invasion and the US for tanking diplomacy.
But if you watched Rachel Maddow’s show, you’d see a random, weird, tiny group of short straws and loose electrons who were, ummm, supporting Russia? It was just…random? It’s similar to those weird Iraq War protests with all those Iraqi flags that were, um, pro Saddam Hussein, I guess? How…random? The McCarthyite warmonger, however, means no disrespect to the group she mocks.
There’s a whole lot of terrible news this week which means Katie and Aaron have a lot to throw down. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Remember: the teacher rolls out the tv, turns on the news, doesn’t matter what channel. You sit crosslegged on the ground, silent as the rest of the class. And even though you’re young, you know that in every other classroom, in every office building, at every bar, every home, everywhere, the tv is showing the same thing. And everywhere Americans are huddled around it together. It’s a national moment.
What’s that moment for you? JFK? Vietnam protests? Watergate? September 11? An inauguration? Brian Stelter’s final episode of Reliable Sources? It seems that no matter our age, everyone can remember a few of these national moments, whether good or bad, and the intensity of that feeling of togetherness.
Until, possibly, the next generation. With the increasing isolation of iPhones, the speed of information, and the failure of mainstream journalism, it feels like these national moments can’t happen anymore. And that makes it harder to know when something is, as Biden says, a Big Fuckin’ Deal.
So in lieu of teacher rolling out the tv for all the useful idiots sitting on the circle-time rug, let’s hear some of your most impactful news moments of the past few years that, in another time, you’d remember exactly what you were doing when you first heard the news. Something that completely changed your world view, even if no one else was talking about it.
Personally, what got this idea going through my head was Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream story: a report that the president potentially committed a war crime against millions of Europeans that was quickly covered up by mainstream media. That, to me, felt like it would’ve been a BFD when I was growing up.
So join Aaron and me at 12pm est on the Substack app to share your BFD moments of the past few years. Do it for the kids, whose staticky rolling tv has been replaced by an iPad and headphones. Here’s the prompt:
What recent national moment has had the biggest impact on you? Do you agree that national moments are dead, or can they still exist on twitter and corporate news?
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“If we do not build left-right coalitions on issues such as militarism, health care, a living wage and union organizing,” warns Chris Hedges, “we will be impotent in the face of corporate power and the war machine.”
Award-winning journalist Chris Hedges returns to the show to argue for a left-right alliance and explain why he’s speaking at the Rage Against The War Machine rally on Sunday.
The stakes are too high to not form a coalition: “We’re flirting with a nuclear holocaust.”
“The Democrats made a conscious decision to become the Republican Party,” he says. They consciously and very cynically decided to sell out the underclass for political expediency. But the damage they did, the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of families that they destroyed, we don’t talk about it. There’s just no accountability.”
But people, on both the left and right, who were terrorized by these policies, know who hurt them.
“They know what the Democrats did to their neighborhoods by militarizing police and creating internal armies of occupation. I teach at a prison and half the students wouldn’t be there but for Clinton. They know who did that to them.”
But fighting the powerful from just one side has shown not to work: “It’s much scarier for politicians when you have people from both sides of the political spectrum making demands than it is from just one side.” A left-right coalition can’t be bought off, it can’t be smeared as partisan. It’s a movement.
This is why Chris Hedges is joining activists from all across the political spectrum to rally this weekend to Rage Against the War Machine. If you can get to DC this weekend, your voice can make a difference.
Watch the extended episode where Chris Hedges discusses how the silence on the Nord Stream story is an indication of how degraded the media has become, how mainstream consumers may never learn the truth of Russiagate, and his disgust for the leaders in our government:
“These people are really frightening, amoral, they cover themselves in the veneer of Ivy League degrees and cloying snobbery, but they’re very limited intellectually. They’re drunk with their own power and hubris, and of course they have made a very good living being shills for weapons manufacturers. They’re pimps of war.”
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown where the White House takes a break from covering up the chemical explosion that devastated East Palestine, Ohio to cover up the other major story (not) in the news: Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s groundbreaking reporting that the US blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Watch the full interview here:
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Taking a break from covering up the chemical explosion that devastated East Palestine, Ohio this week, the White House went back to covering up the other major story (not) in the news: Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s groundbreaking reporting that the US blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.
“Here’s what Biden did,” Hersh told Democracy Now! this week. “He said ‘I’m in a war in Ukraine, it’s not looking good. I want to be sure I get German and West European support. I know winter’s coming, and if it’s going to be bad, I don’t want the Germans to check out and open up the gas line because they’d be massacred with no cheap fuel.’”
So what did Biden do to fix his problem? “He took away that option.”
Now, people are freezing to death, starving, dying in Europe. And Germany is sending tanks to Ukraine. Biden: 1. Millions of Europeans: 0.
And now that Hersh uncovered the story, Biden, with the help of his corporate media cronies, is running a smear campaign to bury one of the world’s most distinguished journalists. Katie and Aaron throw down on the calculated effort to systematically ignore the story, attack Seymour Hersh, but never argue the facts.
And sadly, as with the terror in East Palestine (which is anything but the chief regulator’s fault), as always, it’s working.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Click here to join the live discussion board with Katie and Wilson in the Substack app chat.
Hey Useful Idiots,
This week on Meet the Press, our favorite conspiracy theorist Chuck Todd scoffed at the idea of entertaining conspiracy theories about the Chinese balloon: “A man like Chuck Todd is far too serious for such lunacy!” the frequent spreader of conspiratorial lies declared, weirdly referring to himself in the third person. “Maybe on Fox News, but never on Chuck Todd’s network!”
He then proceeded to explain how the Russians will steal the 2024 election using only memes and videos of people getting peed on. They will then team up with the Chinese, he told MSNBC’s hundreds of viewers, expertly using balloons to beam up all the Democrat votes, leaving only the GOP votes. This is why World War III is not only necessary, but preferred. Todd ended his monologue by vigorously stroking his notes: a job well done.
We at Useful Idiots, however, do not have the corporate overseers Chuck has, and thus are not forced to maintain such journalistic rigor. That’s why this week’s Absurd Arena is all about: conspiracy theories. What are the craziest theories you’ve ever heard? Which are the funniest? What are the craziest theories that mainstream media believes? Which, of all the crazy ones out there, might actually be true?
Remember, this is the absurd arena, so if your conspiracies get increasingly wild or even made up, we’re all going down that rabbit hole together.
Join Katie and Wilson at 12pm EST in the Substack app chat section here.
It’s the Useful Idiots weekly discussion board. Chat with us live. Here’s the prompt:
What are your favorite crazy conspiracy theories? What are MSM’s craziest conspiracy theories? What’s the craziest one you think might actually be true?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview of our interview here:
“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”
Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.
“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”
But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:
(In case you missed it, they changed it from “Syria is not able to receive direct aid from many countries because of sanctions” to “The Syrian government tightly controls what aid it allows into opposition held areas.”) When the Times accidentally tells the truth, they can always be trusted to fix their mistake.
WaPo’s original opinion headlineTheir fixed headline, hours laterThe original WaPo headline implored “Don’t lift sanctions of Syria to help earthquake victims.” But when they realized they were saying the quiet part too loud, they made a quick change to “Lifting sanctions on Syria won’t help earthquake victims.” Good catch.
Professor Landis knows that sanctions are exacerbating the death toll in Syria, as indicated by both original headlines. Watch the full episode to hear him explain the history of sanctions, why the poor bear the worst of their destruction, and how to help.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown where Seymour Hersh reveals how Lyin’ Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and Katie explains why Joe Rogan’s antisemitic defense of Ilhan Omar’s non-antisemitic statements was so unhelpful. Oy.
And don’t miss the Absurd Arena’s new home: the Substack app chat. Katie and Aaron will now be live in the discussion board each Tuesday at noon EST.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Watch the full interview here:
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Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who is in the running for Aaron Maté’s “greatest journalist of all time” award, published an article on Substack yesterday showing, after months of research, evidence that Biden and the US actually took out the Nord Stream pipeline.
Biden, with the help of the White House staffers at Reuters, quickly tried to bury the story:
Hersh, who has broken some of the most crucial stories of the past 50 years and served as a journalist for mainstream outlets like The New York Times and the Associated Press, is now only a blogger. Later in the article, they announce Hersh’s next story to be “unboxing Scarlett Johansson’s new makeup line.” (probably)
If Hersh’s sources are in fact correct, this is now the latest example in an unending list of Joe Biden’s lies. Another also comes this week from the State of the Union when he admonished House Republicans for wanting to cut Social Security. They pretended to be disgusted with the accusation, just as Biden himself pretended when Bernie Sanders accused him of trying to cut Social Security.
There is video of both Joe Biden and House Republicans saying they want to end Social Security. So at least Joe’s not the only liar.
Plus, the new stunning documentary is finally here. “Progressives for War: The Rachel Maddow Story.” Watch her and other so-called progressives call for more weapons, more Ukrainian deaths, more war.
There’s a lot to throw down on. Katie and Aaron have you covered.
It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Turns out I’m a fool. I thought I’d have a lovely Tuesday, sit at The Bean and type up the fun Absurd Arena I promised after last week’s heavy one. I even opened up the Useful Idiots chat (if you don’t have the Substack app, get it. going to start hosting chats there a lot) to ask my fellow idiots for some fun ideas to write about, like, as I promised, who in Congress would look dumbest in bike shorts.
And then I remembered the awful news, worse than having to watch the Sunday news shows so that you don’t have to: tonight is the self-pleasuring propaganda-spreading war-mongering smarmier-than-ever State of the Union. Now the fool has that to look forward to for the evening.
If, as Walter Kirn put it, the New York Times is now filled with “All the President’s Mice,” then tonight the US Capitol is infested with rats, scurrying into the halls of Congress, screeching for any mention of war, pooping all over the seats of American democracy, gnashing their sharpened teeth, ready to tear apart the Constitution for a chance at more rat power.
But then the chat reminded me of the two things that Useful Idiots have been forced to become better and better at as the world has submerged deeper and deeper into filth: making fun of politicians and drinking games.
So for this Absurd Arena, let’s unveil the official Useful Idiots SOTU Drinking Game rules: Take a sip when Biden says “defend democracy.” Take a shot when he mentions the balloon. Finish the whole bottle if Zelenskyy shows up for a surprise video address. Those are mine, probably already enough to get sufficiently wasted. What do you got?
Comment yours and then watch it live with Katie at 9pm.
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What are more rules for the Useful Idiots State of the Union Drinking Game?
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Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview of our interview here:
With Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Files and Jeff Gerth’s new in-depth reporting for CJR exposing the years of lies spread by Russiagaters, bitter attacks from outed journalists are rolling in.
Gerth and Taibbi, who come from the old style of journalism where you fact check your work and don’t accept government officials’ claims on faith, have each shown clear, indisputable evidence of disinformation campaigns pushed by corporate reporters. And since the so-called journalists can’t argue the facts, they dig themselves a deeper hole with more lies and name-calling.
Jeff Gerth has been working as a reporter for decades and published, in the very mainstream Columbia Journalism Review, a 20,000-word report on his findings, only to be called a liar and misdirecting magician in the most self-important article by Mother Jones’ David Corn (“The true media failure is that Trump got away with it and that articles like this one that you are now reading are still necessary.”) And possibly worse than that is the near complete silence from the rest of mainstream media who, as Gerth reported, refused to follow Bob Woodward’s pleas for introspection.
They’re not silent, however, about Matt Taibbi. These corporate stenographers, either angry that Taibbi called them out for lying or jealous that they didn’t get the Twitter Files story themselves, haven’t made any substantive arguments against his findings both because they can’t, but also because they know they don’t need to. Their audiences are trained to believe them.
There are, however, two people who suggested one substantive criticism of the Twitter Files. Funny enough, they’re two of the real journalists who have been defending Taibbi’s work: Briahna Joy Gray and Glenn Greenwald. Their question: if Musk and Twitter are the guardians of this information, how can you be sure you aren’t being manipulated by the possibility that they are handpicking what they want you to see?
Watch the extended episode to hear Taibbi’s response, plus Matt unveils never-before-shared info on the Twitter Files. It’s a Useful Idiots exclusive.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown where the US says yes to the jets.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Watch the full interview here:
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Exciting news for fans of weapons dealers! It turns out that when Biden said “No” when asked if the US would send fighter jets to Ukraine, he actually meant “Yes! Yes! A million times yes!”
It’s an unforgettable show that is part war mongering, part fashion makeover, part Armageddon, and part family therapy session. It’s Say Yes to the Jets! Only on TLC (comment what TLC could stand for here).
But Ukraine isn’t the only place where the US is down bad for war. We head over to Israel where the US is not-so-subtly supporting an apartheid state. You would almost feel bad for the baby-faced Biden staffer, terrified by such impossibly difficult questions as “How does the US classify Palestine,” or “Who will protect Palestinians from terrorism,” if he wasn’t working for the defenders of that terrorism.
If you, unlike most of the mainstream US these days, aren’t jazzed by the prospect of all this war, we do have a palate cleanser. Fox News and Tucker Carlson, who differ slightly from the go-to-war-with-Russia Democrats as go-to-war-with-China Republicans, get a rant from Jimmy Dore, who finally finds a platform on mainstream media to shout “WE’RE THE AGGRESSORS! WE DON’T NEED WAR!”
Let’s see if anyone will listen.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Everyone has their number one issue that they see as the most important problem in the United States. For me, that’s homelessness. Mostly because I don’t understand it.
We hear liberals and progressives always talking about poverty and protecting the working class: raising wages, fighting for affordable healthcare, defeating hunger. But those same people, when asked about those who live on the street, so often treat it as just another issue, something to be dealt with, and, hopefully, pushed away. What I don’t understand is how a stance against helping the unhoused is an acceptable opinion in circles that claim to fight poverty.
I usually try not to share too much opinion in Absurd Arenas. After all, who wants to hear what the producer thinks? Maybe reading Breakfast of Champions has me looking at everything from a more-than-usual alien perspective, and maybe finding myself agreeing with the crazy man yelling at everyone on the street this week has me in a weird mood, but I’m saying it.
The argument I most frequently hear is that helping the unhoused leads to crime and dirtier neighborhoods. This mindset has made it easier for most people to step over humans who are begging for help.
As Aaron said in last week’s uplifting interview with Darcia Narvaez, “We have an audience that really cares about the world. And they’re troubled by the state of the world right now.” That’s why I want to hear your thoughts on the issue. And don’t worry, next week I’ll go back to something silly like who in Congress would look dumbest in bike shorts.
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What are your thoughts on the homelessness crisis? Should it be seen as another policy issue or an emergency human rights crisis? What questions do you have for Katie and Aaron about homelessness or bike shorts?
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We’re changing up our look, now the free preview and full episode are all in the same place.
If an alien life form (or just someone who watches mainstream media) happened across the Useful Idiots community, watched a few episodes, and read the the Absurd Arena, they might start to think: “Hey, these people seem pretty down.”
We’ve talked extensively about the discouraging nature of constant news and how escaping it feels increasingly impossible, waves of bad news drowning us, the next one always breaking just when we think there’s a moment of peace.
But we also learned from you that 2023 is a year of wellness, a time to fight back and build a boat to sail atop those waves. You shared your tips for feeling good each day, and we promised an expert to teach us how to feel like humans again.
Darcia Narvaez is a professor of psychology emerita at the University of Notre Dame. She joins the Useful Idiots to explain how we’re living in a culture that goes against everything it means to be human, emphasizing toughness over tenderness, isolation over togetherness, making the US the most depressed, anxious, and chronically ill country in the world.
“We’re stuck in a cycle of competitive detachment, where we feel disconnected from others and even ourselves, while at the same time feeling we have to compete for anything worthwhile.” But Professor Narvaez has hope: we can break the cycle.
“There are still societies around the world though that resist this hierarchicalism and think it’s immoral,” she explains. “We have a lot to learn from them because they successfully live in egalitarian and healthy, happy ways. Unlike us.”
Watch the full episode to learn how other cultures and species are able to live rewarding, fulfilling lives, why learning and school is actually one of the biggest detriments to humanity, and everyday, practical tips to help you break your own cycle.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown on the other way we might break the cycle: nuclear Armageddon.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Watch the full episode here:
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As the Washington Post so beautifully stated:
This week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turned the Doomsday Clock, which shows how close we are to nuclear disaster, to 90 seconds. This represents “the closest to widespread calamity humanity has ever been judged to be.” So, by WaPo logic, we’re the safest and richest we’ve ever been. Great.
And how is the US government reacting to the news? “Man of the people” Joe Biden just announced he’s not sending one, but thirty one Abrams tanks to Ukraine, the clearest escalation of conflict with a nuclear power yet. Further ensuring safety and wealth for weapons dealers like himself.
But if you’re not a fan of the implication of war with Russia, you’re in luck. The German foreign war minister decided to stop playing cheeky games and came right out and said it: “We are fighting a war against Russia.”
Katie and Aaron throw down on all this nuclear war nonsense (when are they going to learn to stop worrying?), plus Mike Pompeo’s insane new book which hypocritically calls out terrorists (as if he wasn’t one), and some sad news for Useful Idiots everywhere:
Adam Schiff has been kicked off the House Intelligence Committee. Pour one out for the conspiracy theory GOAT.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
On last week’s Thursday Throwdown, we watched a clip of JP Morgan’s head of healthcare services Lisa Gill explain why Wall Street is banking on Joe Biden running for reelection:
“Joe Biden is a man of the working class,” she explains. “He’s coming through on his promises to give rail workers and nurses a living wage, to help students drowning in debt, to end the Social Security tax break for the rich, and to make healthcare a right for everyone.”
She continued, a tear forming in her eye, smile spreading across her face: “Investors are excited about this sharing of wealth; Wall Street is bullish for a brighter tomorrow. And Union Joe, as we lovingly call him at JP Morgan, is the man to lead us onward down this shining road to equality.”
At this point in the interview, Gill, now sobbing, gave a big hug to the interviewer, who it turns out was an orphan, and announced that JP Morgan would be paying for college for everyone at his orphanage. But hey, on Bloomberg News, that’s just what they call another regular Thursday.
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t quite how it went. It’s possible that she actually said they were banking on Biden running because a Democrat primary could mean discussion of Medicare for All, and even mentioning the idea of giving healthcare to the working class would scare away investors. But with Joe Biden, Wall Street execs need not fear: one promise he is keeping is prohibiting the working class from ever getting healthcare. So rest easy, Lisa Gill. And shut up, orphan.
One thing we’ve heard from people who choose not to vote for president is that if they believed a candidate would enact just one good policy, such as making healthcare affordable or raising the minimum wage, they would vote. However, those voters felt that neither Republican nor Democrat candidates had even one positive promise to come through on.
So on this Absurd Arena, we want to hear from you: If you vote, what is there that you hope to change? Are you voting for something good, or against a worse candidate? If you don’t, what would change your mind? What is better about silence than voting? And is voting between two corporate party candidates truly “having a say in democracy?”
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
If you vote: why? If you don’t: why not? Is voting actually a way to take part in democracy, or just a way for the powerful to make us feel like we have a voice? What questions do you have for Katie and Aaron?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Click here for the full interview with former CIA counterterrorism officer John Kiriakou.
After CIA officer John Kiriakou blew the whistle on US torture, no one in the CIA was arrested for their crimes. Except, of course, John Kiriakou.
John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. He served 23 months in prison as punishment for his opposition to the Bush administration’s torture program.
This week, he joins Useful Idiots to speak (freely this time) about the torture and war crimes of the US Government, the sickening purpose of Guantanamo Bay and its continuing crimes against humanity, and the hardest question of all:
Who’s worse – The CIA or the FBI?
Don’t worry, John’s got a lot of dirt on each. It’s one of the most jarring, sickening, revealing, scary, and funny episodes of Useful Idiots, which is why you’re probably going to want to watch…
…the extended interview, in which Kiriakou uncovers the CIA’s sadistic psychedelics testing, the hawks in the mainstream media who are gunning for war with China, and his last words spoken to Keith Olbermann and Alec Baldwin:
“Fuck you, Olbermann.” and “Fuck you, Baldwin.”
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown on Hollywood's New "It" Couple: Volodymyr Seanpenskyy.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
If the freedom to dream was a spear, the tip of that spear would be the couple that all of Hollywood is calling “Volodymyr Seanpenskyy.”
The Golden Globes, cutting off a Spanish-speaking actor to ensure there was ample time for jingoistic pro-war propaganda, had a very special moment where actor Sean Penn introduced the Ukrainian president to a fawning crowd. No other wartime president in history has spent this much time addressing Hollywood award shows: Zelenskyy spoke at the Grammys, the Golden Globes, and got slimed at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards after winning Coolest Funny Guy.
It says a lot that in his speech, Penn only mentions those suffering under US enemies, Ukrainians, Iranians, and Afghans, but refuses to honor those terrorized by US allies, like Palestinians or Yemenis. It is this jingoistic rhetoric, applauded by the Golden Globes crowd, that has now become the acceptable mainstream in the US.
This is the Thursday Throwdown, which means we also cover Biden’s ongoing Documentgate (Corvettegate?), JP Morgan’s fears about Biden not running (don’t worry JP, the working class won’t be getting healthcare anytime soon, you can breathe easy), and Sean Hannity’s praise of the diverse GOP.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
Upon closer analysis of the past few Absurd Arenas, one fact, if the reader reads extremely carefully, becomes clear: we’re all depressed about the US.
These articles have devolved into venting sessions for whatever terrible news stories happen to be bringing me down that week, with increasingly discouraging messages and sad and absurd song lyrics. This has become the place for a dreary producer, unable to escape the torrent of bleak news which only incentivizes further isolation, to rant.
And you all have been no better. Each week I read every cynical, sarcastic, discouraged, pessimistic, and so so funny response on this discussion board, laughing at your cleverness and smiling that I’m not alone.
But I figured we need some sort of pick-us-up to lift ourselves from the rut. I talked to Katie and Aaron about finding another guest like Chris Ryan, the guy who lives off the grid in a van and jumps into cold rivers each day. It was a refreshing outside perspective with practical ways to improve your life. Now, we’re researching more wellness experts who can teach the Useful Idiots some tips on health and happiness.
But before those guests join the show, I want to know what you all do for wellness. Small things each day that build up your mood, big life changes that you can’t imagine life before them, New Years resolutions that are already working (my roommates and I began ending showers with fully cold water, I’m up to 30 seconds). Running, reading, cooking, painting, gardening, yoga, breathing, or driving your van up to a cold river and just jumping in.
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What wellness tricks work for you? What questions should we ask our upcoming wellness-experts that will help us learn practical and do-able tips that we can implement in daily life? And, most importantly, how are you doing?
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Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Shahid Buttar.
Advocate, artist, lawyer, organizer, musician, and former politician Shahid Buttar joins Useful Idiots to explain why Democrats are failing. Why is he a former politician, you ask? Well after running a campaign against Nancy Pelosi and getting buried by racist attacks from liberals, Shahid realized a sad truth about politics:
“Politicians, as well as journalists and lawyers,” he told us. “Are all about careerism. People care about their careers more than the principles of their profession.” And so self-proclaimed non-racists like Pelosi use racist attacks against opponents of color, like Shahid and Nina Turner, to keep their claws sunk deep into power, shielding themselves from any review of their own anti-democratic voting records.
But Shahid doesn’t put all the blame on these power-hungry, corporate vultures for choosing power over human values: “It’s impossible not to in a fascist country.”
Shahid continues to explain how corporate Democrats cover up their power-hungry policy through distraction, claiming Donald Trump and January 6 are the real threats to democracy — all so that Americans are too beaten down from hearings to realize our government is busy overthrowing democracies around the world and spying on us at home.
Plus, watch the full interview to hear how Shahid got arrested for confronting former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: “Why are you above the law for perjury and mass surveillance while Eric Garner lies dead in the street?”
And catch yesterday’s Thursday Throwdown: Media Wants No $$ for Workers, More for FBI
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
From MSNBC to Fox News, the media can all agree on two huge problems in the US today:
First, these workers have too much damn power! They ask for too much money, too many benefits, crazy things like healthcare, and refuse to work otherwise. Back in (insert Fox Business host)’s day, we worked for $5 an hour. Sure, this was a summer job that we didn’t need to survive on, but let me ask you this: what do nurses really do for us anyway? I’ll wait. Full stop. (Add other insufferable Twitter garbage here).
Second, those crazy far-right Republicans must be stopped from cutting spending on military or the FBI. Liz Cheney knows that weakness is provocative, and if we only spend $800 billion on defense, China and Russia will be storming the beaches of Brooklyn any day now. And on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough and Chuck Schumer claimed to agree that Black Lives Matter, and what proves that more than calling for more money for the FBI, historically a good friend to Black people?
At least we can rest assured that the American Cowboy is safe. What? He’s not? Oh shit. This is NOT good.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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“Arms dealers over Americans.
Millionaires over minimum wage.
Power over the people.”
Brooklyn’s own Hakeem Jeffries, in an embarrassing attempt to show how clever he is, read an acrostic poem to kick off the new Congress. This legislature, Jeffries will proudly announce, is the most diverse Congress ever to crush the American working class.
As the Dems, with the help of Republicans (different corporations, same class), use this new Congress to continue to sacrifice American and Ukrainian lives to enrich themselves, to steal from workers and nurses, to punish students, to lie to us through state-media like Fox and MSNBC, we watch (helplessly?) as millions of Americans go to absurd length to support and defend the corporate rulers. And worse, ignore seemingly all logic and profess that Jeffries’ substance-less rap was good. With constant news like this, it can be hard to stay positive.
Disclaimer for this next question: I mean it much less melodramatically than it sounds.
For those of you who haven’t given up on it all, what’s the hope that keeps you going?
For those who have, what’s next?
I want to hear your thoughts on all the nonsense. But remember, this is the absurd arena, which means you can talk about anything you want: Hakeem Jeffries’ weird poem, the craziest classified files in Biden’s cabinets, McCarthy’s sad win, your hope for the future, the next book Wilson should read (need recs), or the monster under your bed that tells you it’s your duty to vote.
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What hopes can we look to for the future of politics? Is there a way out of the corporate hole? What other alliterations would fit into Jeffries’ rap?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Click here for the full interview with Ukrainian Professor Ivan Katchanovski.
Ivan Katchanovski, Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist who teaches at the University of Ottawa, is exposing US media lies about the Ukraine proxy war. And, like many Useful Idiot guests, no one will report on his story.
This week, Katchanovski shares his research on the Maidan Massacre, a mass killing of Ukrainians protesting the Yanukovich government in February 2014. The US and opposition leaders blamed Yanukovich, triggered a coup and the ensuing civil war that radically escalated with Russia’s invasion eight years later.
But when Professor Katchanovski dug into video, witness testimony, and other evidence which reveals who really committed the massacre — including footage that CNN tried to bury — he was ignored by mainstream media for attempted disruption of the approved narrative.
But now he’s joining the Useful Idiots to tell us what really happened: the massacre, he argues, was carried out by pro-Maidan snipers.
Watch the full interview with Professor Katchanovski for his take on who committed the massacre, how the US media is covering it up, and that weird interview between David Letterman and Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
“We did a survey,” Zelenskyy told Letterman. “It showed that 98% of our country’s population today would rather stay without electricity and water as long as they are free from Russia.”
Ivan responds to that seemingly impossible statistic.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown on how our “free press” is really just US-state media.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
In countries like North Korea, China, and Russia, state-media cheerleads for its government, propagandizing violent policies and refusing to criticize political leaders. It is what separates them from free countries like the US.
In the US, we have a free press with independent journalists.
Sure, they’re hired by huge corporations which benefit from war and taking advantage of Americans. And yes, maybe sometimes they do push violent government policies like escalating nuclear conflict and kicking out immigrants who flee from places terrorized by the US. Perhaps sometimes they refuse to criticize a leader like Pete Buttigieg for letting thousands of working-class travelers suffer while airlines enrich themselves. And occasionally they’ll laugh along with the heads of the CIA when they talk about assassinating people and dropping nuclear bombs.
But other than that…
A totally free press. So don’t be calling MSNBC “state-media.” You can call them corporate-funded-government-cheerleading-pro-war-anti-immigrant-anti-working-class-propagandist media. But technically the state doesn’t fund them.
I think the folk punk band Mischief Brew said it best in “Save a City”
“And she cursed those who would approach her
And hold papers up to her face, and say
"You should feel blessed you live in the U.S
And not some other hellish place.
So take heed if you live in the city
In a part where the tourists won't tread
And beware if you maintain resistance
And choose not to be one of the led
And if you're out in suburban gardens
Don't let them plant lies deep in your head
'Cause you too could come home to no home
Or to find your family dead."
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
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Hey Useful Idiots,
In our end of 2021 episode, Katie and Matt made predictions for 2022. These included:
- Democrats will keep the Senate
- The US will go to war with Russia, using Ukraine as proxy
- Queen Elizabeth will die
- Will Smith will slap Chris Rock at an awards ceremony (we didn’t know which)
- Boris Johnson will resign as Prime Minister, giving the job to Liz Truss for a few months, who would also resign, sending the job to Rishi Sunak, who Joe Biden would refer to as Rasheed Sanook
- And Nancy Pelosi will kiss Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the same spot where the QAnon Shaman once stood
It was a modest list of predictions, and we think we were pretty accurate.
But now comes 2023, with its yet unknown twists and turns. Will this year be turbulent like the past few? Boring and forgettable like others? World-altering like 2020? Will we succumb to all-out nuclear war, have another global-collapse, break out in civil war, or, perhaps worst of all, watch more January 6 hearings?
We want to know your predictions for the new year. But remember, this is the absurd arena, which means you can talk about anything you want: the effects of the incoming (but just as terrible) congress, the new wars our leaders will have us fight in, who will die, who will survive, the movies that will win awards, the teams that will lose championships, the next big celebrity breakup, and whether you’ll finally discover what your neighbor keeps in that scary, dark shed.
As usual, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What are you predictions for 2023? What do you want Katie and Aaron to predict for the new year?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Click here for the full end of year special on Ukraine, Guantanamo Bay, and Meet the Press’s cringiest moments.
2022 is nearly dead!
Last year in our year recap with Thomas Frank, we asked “WTF will happen in 2022?” While we predicted correctly some brutal Jan 6 hearings and a nightmare midterm year, none of us thought the biggest news of the year would be a proxy war in Ukraine.
So in our 2022 end of year special, Aaron and Katie deep dive on the latest in Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s Churchillian visit to Congress, Pelosi’s weird kiss, and all the insane politicians, generals, and corporate journalists who can’t seem to stop saying the quiet part out loud.
And now that the year is over, we’re asking you: WTF will happen in 2023? Let us know your craziest theories in the comments.
Subscribe for the full end of year special.
Plus, miss our full interview with Irish members of European parliament (and Useful Idiot rockstars) Claire Daly and Mick Wallace? We’re giving everyone the full extended interview for free.
It’s the Useful Idiots 2022 end of year special. Thanks for sticking with us all year, it’s been a wild ride. Let’s keep mourning and laughing into 2023.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
Hey Useful Idiots,
We finally did it. We kicked 2022. Now, on the verge of a new chapter, we can ask: will 2023 be any different? And, maybe more importantly, WTF actually happened in 2022?
This week, we’re looking back at a year which began a war, crushed us with an insufferable election season, bored us with Jan 6 hearings, and let so many down (see: workers, teachers, students, anyone with a pulse really).
But, as Useful Idiots do best, the darker the times, the more there is to make fun of, and this year, we’ve been lucky to have you by our side, laughing at sucky politicians as they grasp desperately to extend their power.
In today’s arena, we want to hear your favorite moments from the last year with us, whether it’s the guests you loved to hear from, the weirds and terribles with Katie and Aaron, the awful media moments, or the suckiest Dems and Republicans.
But remember, this is the absurd arena, which means you can talk about anything you want: Useful Idiots outtakes, the funniest live moments from Monday Mourning, election coverage madness, Aaron and Katie’s greatest rants, or the most brutal guest takedowns of politicians.
This week, I’m going to be editing together the best clips from the past year into a Best of Useful Idiots 2022 special. Help me out with today’s prompt:
What are your favorite Useful Idiot moments of 2022?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Hey Useful Idiots,
This year has been a long one. To name a few highlights: a deadly war, a brutal election season, scary Supreme Court rulings, Covid continuation, too many Jan 6 hearings, unchecked mass killing abroad, and huge losses for workers, students, and Assange.
It’s hard (as it’s probably clear from those increasingly depressing Absurd Arena articles), not to internalize the constant news of power, killing, and deception. The job of journalists, in short, is to show the public how much the people in power suck, and that means there’s no escaping the ceaseless bludgeoning of news.
But when we’re dragged down into that darkness, the light that pulls us out week after week is you.
The thousands who join our Monday Mourning livestreams, the tens of thousands who watch each episode with inspiring guests, the three million podcast downloads in 2022.
Knowing you’re out there, by our side, struggling and fighting and laughing through it all, is what keeps this podcast going. It’s what makes fantastic guests like Norm, Noam, even Tobias Fünke (remember that?) keep coming back. And it’s what helps new people each week stumble across this show and slowly fall down the rabbit hole with us.
It’s people who fight to learn what’s really going on in a world hellbent on lying and who fight to share the truth with anyone who still will listen. It’s people who are, as we lovingly call them, Useful Idiots.
Thank you all for sticking with us. This year we added new segments, threw down on crazy media moments, got absurd in the new discussion board, and really began to see the formation of a Useful Idiot community. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun to watch the world burn without you laughing by our side.
Happy holidays to you and your families.
With love,
The Useful Idiots
Katie, Aaron, Matt, and Wilson
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
Click here for the full interview with Miko Peled on Israeli apartheid, US hypocrisy, and why we ignore Palestinians while funding billions in weapons for Ukraine.
Miko Peled, author of “The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” is the son of an Israeli general and former family-friend of Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, he’s an anti-Zionist fighting for Palestinian rights.
He joins Useful Idiots to warn about Israel’s new far-right government, headed by Netanyahu and far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose positions give them newfound power over occupied Palestinians.
“The lives of Palestinians are going to be governed by two men who are dedicated more than anyone to the expulsion and terrorizing of all Palestinians,” Peled says.
“Palestinians are going to be looking back at the years leading up to this government as the good old days. This year has been a record year in terms of killing of Palestinians. But they’re going to be looking back at this year as the good old days. What is coming up is the worst that Palestinians have ever suffered.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Miko Peled on Israeli apartheid, US hypocrisy, and why we ignore Palestinians while funding billions in weapons for Ukraine.
Plus, watch our Thursday Throwdown where we say goodbye to CNN’s Barbara Starr, the Pentagon’s most aggressive cheerleader, and join the holiday Absurd Arena to give presents to this year’s suckiest politicians.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
After two decades as Pentagon Cheerleader at CNN (nobody does it better), Barbara Starr is retiring. And the loving sendoffs from Pentagon officials are warming Useful Idiot hearts.
Or, as Caitlin Johnstone put it:
Caitlin Johnstone @caitozThere is no greater failure in journalism than being thanked by the US military for your lifetime of service. U.S. Central Command @CENTCOMToday closes a remarkable career for @CNN's @barbarastarrcnn, a leader in the Pentagon Press Corps. Her aggressive reporting and tireless commitment to the truth brought this Nation closer to its military. She will forever be missed. https://t.co/iAyFWJmqwR1:13 AM ∙ Dec 21, 2022
4,687Likes876RetweetsSo let’s all cozy up and watch some of Barbara Starr’s greatest hits in service of the US military. Whether it’s cheering on US killings in Libya or spreading Pentagon lies in Syria, there’s something here for everyone.
Barbara Starr, we join the Pentagon in acknowledging your aggressive service in promoting Pentagon lies. We salute you.
Plus, CNN wants to ban TikTok while state-media Morning Joe fawns over the legend of Nancy Pelosi. Katie and Aaron throw down on it all.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
It’s the holiday season (the holiday season), and the Useful Idiots are coming down the chimney. If we have proved nothing else this year, the one thing we can be sure of is that we’re better gift-givers than politicians.
Let’s unwrap:
This year, Biden gave rail workers an unlivable wage and gave millions of students deeper debt.
SCOTUS gave women the ability to go to prison for having an abortion and immigrants the right to be kicked out of the country for no real reason.
Pelosi gave us anti-choice candidates and billions of dollars for weapons instead of food and medicine for children.
Cheney and Schiff gave us countless hours of wasted government resources on Jan 6 hearings.
And Trump gave us $99 drawings of him as a superhero.
So for the holidays this year, let’s give presents back to the politicians who have sucked all year. While many of them surely deserve coal, that’s not the Useful Idiot way (we’re much meaner than that).
As usual, the best responses will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
What presents should we get for each sucky politician? What’s the worst present a politician has given us this year? What holiday questions do you have for Katie and Aaron?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month. (another great holiday gift…)
Click here for the full interview with Luhansk Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka.
War in Ukraine did not start with Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Ukraine has been at civil war since 2014, when the US backed a coup to overthrow President Viktor Yanukovych. When the new post-coup government cracked down on ethnic-Russian Ukrainians and their Russian culture, Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region rose up in rebellion, leading to the creation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
Anna Soroka, joining the Useful Idiots from Ukraine, is the former Deputy Foreign Minister of the Luhansk People's Republic. She joins Useful Idiots to share what it’s like being on the other side of a civil war that has now escalated into a full-blown proxy war with Russia.
Sometimes discussions about war can become abstract, but it’s important to go “behind enemy lines” and hear from real people on the other side.
It’s a perspective that you don’t get to hear at all in the NATO states. Unless you follow shows like Useful Idiots.
Plus, watch our Thursday Throwdown where Biden completes his transformation into Trump as he kills Bernie's bid to stop the Saudi war on Yemen.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
This week in Congress, Bernie Sanders reintroduced a war powers resolution to end US support for the Saudi War on Yemen, which has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The last time he introduced the bill, the Senate passed it and it was ultimately vetoed by President Trump.
Biden, who attacked Trump for his veto, who campaigned on treating Saudi Arabia as a pariah, who promised to end US support for the war, decided he actually agrees with Trump.
At least we can’t say we’re surprised, as this has become a major theme of his presidency.
At the Intercept, Ryan Grim and Ken Klippenstein obtained White House documents giving the administration’s official stance: “If the resolution were presented to the president, his staff will recommend the President veto it. The stakes are too high.”
That’s right. We are fueling the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, but the stakes are too high to approve a resolution that would end our support for the war. The stakes are too high to end a genocidal war.
Aaron and Katie throw down on the story, exposing Biden’s hypocrisy, Bernie’s weakness, and the power of US war mongering in Yemen which has wooed US presidents since Obama.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
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Hey Useful Idiots,
This week has been a weird one.
While listening to the album Thought Gang, some of the lyrics began to sneak into my head and wouldn’t leave for the Absurd Arena. “I look down and my shoes are so far away from me. The ants were walking fast and they disappeared finally into some tall grass. The moon was half full. Everything is moving except for where it is perfectly still.”
Do you feel it? Last week’s Absurd Arena was somewhat of a rant, the culmination of a week-worth of discouraging news of power and war, and the Useful Idiots had an extensive venting session to unpack it. There was stuff to be angry about (see: Biden gutting the rail workers, Twitter Files coverups, the hands of the US government tightening around Julian Assange), so we got angry about it.
But then comes the week after, when the anger levels. Some, like great Useful Idiots guests Medea Benjamin, Abby Martin, and Mansoor Adayfi, get energized and turn their passion to activism. But what about when the passion turns to disillusionment? When the people in power hammer our energy to anarchic disinterest?
That’s when the week gets weird.
So for this aptly absurd week, let’s talk about those seemingly unproductive reactions to the news and ask how we can instead use them to our advantage. Perhaps that anarchic disinterest helps you attack today’s problems from a new perspective, fuels your life in a different creative direction, sparks an idea for your next punk song.
It’s the Absurd Arena, which means, as always, the best comments and questions will be read on the show. Here’s the prompt:
How do you react to the ceaseless bludgeoning of news? How, for those of us not on the front lines of activism, can we turn those weird reactions productive? What questions do you have for Aaron and Katie?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Click here for the full interview with Matt Kennard on the crimes against Julian Assange and the right to free speech.
“It’s a complete stitch up,” Matt Kennard, author and co-founder of Declassified UK, tells Useful Idiots about Julian Assange’s extradition case. “None of the rules of the game apply.”
Assange, who has been jailed and tortured for nearly a decade for releasing documents which shed light on the crimes of the US government, now faces an extradition trial teeming with corruption.
But after a crucial witness admitted to lying, the US government was caught plotting an assassination, and UK judges were revealed to have major conflicts of interest, the case is somehow still continuing on. “It doesn’t seem like anything can come out that will stop it.” Kennard says.
“That for me is the scariest thing. If certain powerful forces within the deep structure of our country want to get you, they can, and none of the principles we’re taught at school apply. They will get you and you will be ruined and the message will be sent that you can’t play at this level again.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Matt Kennard on the crimes against Julian Assange and the right to free speech, and why corporate media like the New York Times is suddenly backtracking its stance against the journalist.
Plus, Katie and Aaron deep dive into the Twitter Files and mainstream media’s vitriolic reactions to Matt Taibbi in this week’s Thursday Throwdown.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media.
It looks like Matt Taibbi got that coveted Useful Idiots Bump.
On Friday night, Taibbi, with help from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, uncovered the Twitter Files. This reporting showed that Twitter, accepting outside requests, censored news, tweets, and accounts that differed from the accepted mainstream narrative, revealing what would be an illegal abuse of power by big tech.
But the response from liberal corporate media like MSNBC, the New York Times, and Pod Save America wasn’t to read the story, debate it, and try find flaws in the reporting, but to attack Matt for the act of journalism itself.
“Wow, Matt Taibbi’s doing PR work for the richest man in the world,” they all said, in haunting unison, marionette jaws clacking up and down, asserting he should have covered up a story he found (like a real journalist).
And then came the fake news, with Pod Save America and company lying that the Twitter Files were only leaks of Hunter Biden’s dick pics, and you’re the weird one for wanting to see those so bad, creep. Did they not read the story, missing the parts about big tech censorship and illegal campaign business deals, or were they willingly helping the ruling class suppress the truth?
A huge problem with this is that a debate on the actual evidence has not yet begun because corporate media is still trying to change what viewers think the Twitter Files actually show. And this could backfire for them, with those who actually read the thread not hearing any arguments about its contents, thus lending it more credibility.
This is a crazy story, so Katie and Aaron throw down on the Twitter Files and the calamitous responses from liberal media.
It’s our Thursday mini-episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.
Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:
Read more
Hey Useful Idiots,
Wilson here. I know these Absurd Arena articles I write are usually comically melodramatic to match the over-the-top bleakness of our world, and if you listen to Useful Idiots for hours every week like I do, it’s hard not to internalize the constant news of power, killing, and deception, but this has honestly been one of the more discouraging weeks for me as Useful Idiots producer.
Start with the rail workers. “Union Joe” Biden promised us he was a pro-labor president, but as Michael Paul Lindsey and Max Alvarez showed us last week, Biden’s happily selling them out like “faceless meatbags” to further enrich his ruling class. And it’s working.
Take student debt. Joe Biden told us if we voted for democrats he’d help millions of people struggling under crippling debt find some relief. But this week it’s become only more clear that, as David Sirota has been trying to tell us, he plans to once again rip out the rug from under the working class, flashing that winning Biden grin.
And now the Twitter Files. Useful Idiot Matt Taibbi broke a huge story that Twitter employees have been accepting requests to censor tweets and shut down or boost certain accounts. This is a major free speech violation, and I bet you can guess who has been one of the big recipients of Twitter’s generous policy…
But the real discouraging part of the week has been the reactions I’ve heard in everyday conversations. Claims that the Twitter Files turned out to be Fake News because the New York Times says so, that it’s just more anti-Biden propaganda, that they’re really just about some nude texts Hunter Biden sent, or about him getting a job he didn’t really deserve, even that it’s good that Twitter is censoring news if it’s negative toward Biden.
I’m not sure if those people hadn’t read the actual stories or if they’re willingly helping suppress the truth, but this blind loyalty, all while workers are getting beaten down at every turn, has been very discouraging, especially for a guy whose job doesn’t let him have a break from the news.
I want to hear your thoughts on the nonsense. But remember, this is the absurd arena, which means you can talk about anything you want: Taibbi’s Twitter Files, the rail workers, student debt relief, your dream last night, a song you can’t quit, the scary blue alien that has started living in your closet.
As usual, the best comments will be read on the show. Here’s the starter prompt:
Are more voters across the political spectrum becoming Trumpian in their loyalty to their candidate? How do we escape the idolization of celebrities in politics? What questions do you have for Katie and Aaron to answer on the show?
Subscribe to join the discussion and support independent media. Only $5 per month.
Listen now (50 min) | Click here for the full interview with locomotive engineer Michael Paul Lindsey and host of Working People Maximillian Alvarez. Congress and Joe Biden are pushing through a contract backed by the rail companies and rejected by workers. Michael Paul Lindsey, a locomotive engineer for Union Pacific, and Maximillian Alvarez, editor in chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, join us to explain why this standoff is a dangerous step backward for all working people.
Listen now (50 min) | The brand new part 2 of our 2-hour interview with Norman Finkelstein
Listen now (47 min) | Click here for the full interview, where Kit Klarenberg reveals plots from UK operatives to blow up Ukrainian bridges, more Western destruction of peace talks, and how the US uses Britain to spread propaganda Journalist Kit Klarenberg’s latest article
Listen now (45 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Norm Finkelstein. Norman “X” Finkelstein returns to Useful Idiots, fired up and with a scathing critique of Bernie Sanders and The Squad. He begins with a definition of radicalism and The Left, citing the writing of Rosa Luxemburg: “The whole job of The Left is to constantly point out the conflict of interest between the ruling elite, the capitalist class, and yourself. To constantly point out: ‘Their interests are not your interests. Don’t be fooled.’”
Listen now (41 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Ken Klippenstein on the DHS leak. “This isn’t a Biden story. It’s not a Trump story either. This is a national security state story.” This week Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang at The Intercept broke a huge story:
Listen now (49 min) | For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get the extended interview with Jemima Pierre, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your question answered on the show in the Absurd Arena While independent media like Useful Idiots try to cover all the important news that corporate media purposefully ignores, Haiti is an especially overlooked story. The US, with its hooks deep in Haiti’s elections, businesses, agriculture, and daily life, has slowly drained the country of autonomy.
Listen now (48 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Medea Benjamin on the AOC protest and the benefits of activism. With AOC (and the Squad by extension) being recently heckled for their support of sending weapons to Ukraine and prolonging the proxy war, Useful Idiots had anti-war activist Medea Benjamin on to explore the question: when did US progressives become pro-war?
It’s our new weekly episode: Thursday Throwdown, the place to get your exclusive dose of midweek media madness. This week, we’re returning to Jake Tapper’s seldom-seen move to primetime, where even having President Biden for a sit-down interview could only land him a distant third place in ratings behind Fox News and MSNBC. It’s an interview with no follow-up questions, pressure on the president, or debate of any kind.
Hey Useful Idiots, Wilson here. This week is a big one for news: the US and Russia are back to tangoing on the brink of armageddon, midterm debates are shining a light down the dark chasm into which US politics have slipped, and Julian Assange protests have erupted around the world with inspiring footage of the only remaining sane people holding hands around different buildings.
Listen now (44 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Wyatt Reed. “Welcome to Donetsk. You survived your baptism by fire.” Wyatt Reed, a US journalist who writes for Sputnik, a Russian-state media outlet, is reporting from the front lines in Ukraine. His hotel was bombed by a Ukrainian strike just hours after he had arrived there — and while he was just steps away. He shares with us his videos of the attack and describes what it’s like in the war zone.
Hey, Useful Idiots, Wilson here. I need to get this off my chest. After countless hours spent recording interviews and editing content, I realized there’s something that’s been bothering me about the amount of time I spend listening to Useful Idiots: it isn’t enough.
Listen now (47 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Col. Macgregor on Russian and Western war strategies, his views on “globalism”, and his prediction for the future of NATO. Who bombed the Nord Stream pipeline? Will we have nuclear war?
Click here for Katie's redux monologue on Breakthrough News: As guest host on The Hill, Katie Halper filmed a monologue in which she criticized Israel as an apartheid state. Her segment was immediately censored and days later she was fired. On a completely unrelated note, the Hill, which has always allowed opinion pieces on Israel from both Katie and Aaron Maté, recently came under new ownership by media conglomerate Nexstar Media Group, who filled the position of Deputy Managing editor with (wait for it) the former media director of the Israeli Consulate General in New York.
Listen now (49 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Assal Rad on why Biden won’t reenter the Iran nuclear deal, the historic suppression of the Iranian left stemming from the Cold War, and how sanctions are crushing Iranian workers.
Listen now (47 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Ben Abelow where the expert plays political chess to show the previous and predicted moves of these cold war leaders. Researcher and writer Dr. Ben Abelow, a scholar who lobbied Congress on nuclear arms policy, joins Useful Idiots to explain, as his new book argues,
Listen now (56 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Matt Taibbi: Matt and Aaron ask why hasn’t Hillary Clinton been questioned for her Russiagate involvement, Matt remembers pranking General Secretary Gorbachev, and we take Matt’s new media quiz.
On this week’s show, Katie dons Mississippi governor Tate Reeves (frequent star of Republicans Suck) with the new name Taint Reeves. This is a call to all Useful Idiots: let’s take down some presidents, governors, senators, and reps. What’s your best pun to make fun of an elected official?
Listen now (53 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Katrina vanden Heuvel on her friend Mikhail Gorbachev. “We need to not treat the idea of peace as subversive.” Katrina vanden Heuvel, publisher and editorial director of The Nation
Listen now (53 min) | Click here for the full interview with comedian Kurt Metzger. Emmy-winning comedian Kurt Metzger, who wrote for Who is America? and Inside Amy Schumer, stops by to talk comedy with the Useful Idiots. We figured since August is wrapped, it’s probably time we all had a Summer Friday. So instead of talking death in Ukraine and poverty in the US, Kurt shares stories of running from Chinese cops, illegal standup comedy in Shanghai, joining (and then ditching) the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, most importantly, how he’d look with Katie’s hair.
Listen now (48 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview in which Noam Chomsky explains his worst fear if the Republicans took control of Congress, calls out politicians against forgiving student loans, and attacks the US response to climate change.
Listen now (61 min) | Useful Idiots mourn the end of Reliable Sources while the Sunday shows fear threats to democracy
Listen now (52 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview where Chairman Yeshitela describes the full raid, the dark history of American colonization, and how he and the APSP are making real change — not “malign influence” — in cities all around the country.
Which Congressmen-and-women make your blood boil the most? Some Useful Idiots picks are Ted Cruz, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Jamie Raskin, Lindsey Graham, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney. Who do you pick?
Listen now (56 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Vijay Prashad on the US expanding control over South America and why Jordan Peterson needs a hug. “The jaws of Hell have opened wide.” Historian and author Vijay Prashad is worried about the next war that the US will provoke. Nukes in Ukraine, a new missile crisis in Taiwan, destabilizing sovereign South American nations, asserting control in Africa. All in the name of US hegemony.
Listen now (52 min) | Click here for the extended episode, including the full interview where Claire and Mick discuss abortion rights in Ireland and the US, mainstream media’s constant attacks and misinformation about them, and why our government and media are too afraid to talk about Assange, the realities of the Ukraine proxy war, and US hegemony.
Listen now (51 min) | Click here for the full interview with Michael R. Jackson on the culture war, racism on Broadway, and his next musical. Plus, Aaron’s heated call with the Guardian’s Mark Townsend. Michael R. Jackson had no idea that a monologue he wrote two decades ago would turn into a Broadway musical that would win countless awards, including a Tony and Pulitzer Prize. And when he criticized the political establishment, including Obama, he had no idea that Michelle Obama would be one of the countless celebrities who would flock to see the show.
Listen now (46 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Professor Wolff on how to stop inflation. Finally! A Marxist economist you can show to your parents and say “See?” Class is in session with economics Professor Emeritus Richard Wolff. He’s here to teach us about inflation, what steps could be taken to tame it, and why the hell no one’s doing anything about it.
Listen now (50 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Briahna Joy Gray, where we pick 2024 candidates, rank the squad, and Briahna and Aaron debate the importance of Jan 6 hearings. Host of Bad Faith podcast and Rising and former Bernie Sanders press secretary Briahna Joy Gray explains why dems are rapidly losing voters:
Listen now (54 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Ryan Grim. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim shares his new article Elephant in the Zoom, which explains how internal struggles have progressive advocacy groups at a standstill during a critical political moment. He argues that workplace problems, while important to deal with, are distracting these groups from the issues they were created to fight for.
Listen now (47 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Max on leaked emails, Bellingcat, and 60 minutes. In secret meetings and leaked emails, Paul Mason and Nina Jankowicz work to silence journalists who don’t promote the approved message. In public, they complain that journalists bully them, and do vile things like publish past things they’ve said.
Listen now (50 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Glenn Greenwald on Jan 6, Ukraine, and Biden’s failures. There’s a whole lot of terrible stuff going on which means Glenn Greenwald has a whole lot to say: •Biden’s failure at the Summit of the Americas: Latin American leaders are boycotting Biden’s summit because he refused to invite the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Meanwhile, Biden’s packing for his big trip to the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia…
Listen now (41 min) | Click here for the full episode, with the Ali Abunimah extended interview on Israel’s racist and violent flag marches, the Biden administration’s hypocritical policies, and the collapsing support for Israel around the world. After another Israeli murder of a Palestinian journalist,
Listen now (50 min) | Become a Useful Idiot to get the extended interview, where Mike Prysner interrupts George Bush and explains how US violence abroad breeds violence at home. Amid growing scrutiny of the police response to the Uvalde school massacre, Mike Prysner, producer of the
Listen now (60 min) | In the newest push for more weapons and war, Sunday news shows threaten us with the possibility of nukes from Putin
Listen now (48 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Lev Golinkin on disinformation, weapons manufacturers, and Aaron’s fight with a Nazi denier. The Nation’s Lev Golinkin has an important message that most people in mainstream news can’t seem to wrap their heads around:
Listen now (48 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Alan MacCleod and fan suggestions for military-grade baby names. This week, Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli forces. The way the New York Times
Biden's got Javelin and Javelina after the javelin missile. What else can we name our babies to celebrate Lockheed Martin and Raytheon? Let us know in the comments. And the only rule, it has to be able to kill lots of people!
Listen now (50 min) | Click here for the full episode, including the extended episode with Mnar Adley, proof that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t care about Roe v. Wade, and a bonus Biden Stoned Moment. MintPress News’ Mnar Adley has bravely reported on Israel, Ukraine, and national security agents running TikTok. In response, PayPal shut down MintPress’s account and threatened to take their money.
Listen now (56 min) | Click here for the full episode, including an explosive extended interview with Scott Ritter. Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter resigned his post in protest of US war mongering. Immediately, he was mocked by Joe Biden. And when the FBI came after him, well, as he puts it, it went something like:
Listen now (51 min) | Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly. Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, professor at Carlton College, coordinating committee member of the Black Alliance for Peace, and author of many books including the upcoming
Listen now (60 min) | The US and the mainstream blame everyone but themselves for the war in Ukraine
Listen now (56 min) | The Lever's David Sirota talks meeting celebrities at the Oscars, the short-term threat of climate change, and Joe Biden's mission to disillusion voters.
Listen now (98 min) | The Lever's David Sirota talks meeting celebrities at the Oscars, the short-term threat of climate change, and Joe Biden's mission to disillusion voters.
Listen now (47 min) | Click here for the the full episode, including an extended interview with Larry Wilkerson on why the FBI is tailing him and why others don’t stand up to the machine. Larry Wilkerson, former US Army Colonel and high-ranking member of Bush’s White House as Colin Powell’s chief of staff, has spent his post-government career criticizing our war-mongering policies.
This week, we’re unpaywalling our extended interview with multiple-Oscar-winner Oliver Stone. His new documentary Ukraine on Fire has been censored by Youtube, but you can still see it on Rumble.
He wrote and directed multiple classic, culture-defining American movies. He created groundbreaking documentaries, interviewing Putin, debunking Russiagate, and uncovering JFK’s murder. He won three Academy Awards.
There was only one thing left for Oliver Stone to do: Become a Useful Idiot.
Stone’s new documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, uses newly declassified and reexamined footage to present a case that conspiracy theories about the president’s death are actually “conspiracy facts.”
And it creates a big debate on Useful Idiots. Watch the pod, watch the doc, then let us know: do you agree with Matt, Katie, or Oliver? Who really killed President John F. Kennedy?
The Oscar-winning filmmaker shares stories of censorship, getting yelled at about Russiagate by Bill Maher (kinda like another Useful Idiot we know), and being pushed out of the mainstream for being a controversial filmmaker, cementing his legacy as a Useful Idiot.
Plus, watch Matt’s reaction when one of his all-time favorite directors quotes his “vampire squid” piece. It’s pretty cool.
It’s Oliver Stone on Useful Idiots. Don’t miss this one.
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Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Abby Martin, the moment when Abby confronted Nancy Pelosi, the latest dishonest attack from The Young Turks against Aaron Maté, and Biden’s stoned moment.
The Empire Files’ Abby Martin returns to Useful Idiots to speak out against censorship and the corporate media’s duplicitous and hypocritical coverage of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Censorship is something Abby knows quite a bit about, given that Youtube has removed every single episode of “Breaking The Set,” the show she hosted at RT from 2012-2014.
Abby, who emphatically condemns all wars, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, can’t help but notice how the corporate media is celebrating Ukrainians for doing things they condemn when the people doing it are, say, Palestinian.
“I feel like I woke up in an alternate universe,” she says. “Where there’s wall-to-wall coverage of anti-war messaging and everyone decided: ‘We hate war and we support occupied people’s right to resist.’
“For people like us who have been sounding the alarm on so many heinous US atrocities that are committed in our names on a daily basis, this… is shocking.”
“Why now?” she asks. “Where were you all these years? Because people have been dying this whole time.”
Why didn’t Rachel Maddow cry on TV for Palestinians or Yemenis. Because they US supports the occupation of Palestine and the siege of Yemen. And it’s good for the arms industry.
And now, Abby, who is bravely calling out the BBC and CNN and New York Times, is, you guessed it, censored. With her videos being scrubbed off Youtube and RT getting banned in so many western countries, it’s scary to think how far this censorship could go.
“None of us should be okay with this and none of us should be celebrating this,” she says. “I believe in critical thinking and media literacy and the answer to all of this is not censorship.”
And as we head closer and closer to war, the danger (and ignorance) grows:
“Censoring media poses a big problem because when you are facing down a conflict that could potentially turn into a hot war with two nuclear-armed powers, don’t you want the Russian perspective? Don’t you want the Chinese perspective?”
But say that on TV and you get blacklisted as a Russian apologist.
So listen here, because it’s getting harder and harder to find real journalists anywhere else. And until we get taken out too, we won’t stop searching for reporting and analysis that challenges, and doesn’t merely regurgitate, state department talking points.
Plus, Trump wants you to lay down your life to fight CRT, Iranian-revenge-killing dating apps, and our new favorite segment: ‘This Week in MSM Nazi Propaganda.’
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
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After a full year of Useful Idiots going rogue from Rolling Stone, we’re asking our viewers how we’re doing:
What do you like about the show?
What do you want to see more of?
What other topics should we discuss?
Who were your favorite interviews? Who else would you like to see interviewed on the show?
Who should run for president in 2024: Katie, Matt, Aaron, or Wilson?
Thanks for sticking with us and proudly calling yourselves Useful Idiots.
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Click here for the extended episode, including the full interview with Afshin Rattansi. And don’t miss Aaron’s take on The Young Turks meltdown over him.
Afshin Rattansi’s show Going Underground is becoming harder and harder to see as the US, UK, and EU have all censored the RT. But Afshin has some good news for viewers:
“With a VPN, you can always say you don’t live in unfree places like the US or Europe or Britain, and say you live in Pyongyang where there is freedom to watch it.”
Rattansi, whose channel RT is attacked as pro-Russia propaganda, regularly calls out the Russian invasion and has guests who condemn Russian aggression. But that doesn’t fit with the western narrative for the channel, so we don’t actually get to see him. If only we lived in North Korea.
In this interview, we examine the problems that led to the crisis in Ukraine and how world leaders dangerously get history wrong.
“Scholars only talk about Putin and Putin’s mind. This is corollary to the idea that WWII was about Adolph Hitler and not the Treaty of Versailles and the impoverishment of the German people after the war of reparations.”
Without understanding the structures around leaders, like the hawkish state department and Russian Duma, “we’re in the realm of Marvel comics and Hollywood individual good and evil.”
This individualism is what leads people to blindly call for a no-fly zone, which sounds good in terms of good-against-evil, but in reality, will only cause more destruction.
Or, as Rattansi puts it: “It’ll be the end of the earth.”
In this episode of Useful Idiots, we analyze no-fly zones, media censorship, and the path to peace in Ukraine. And we get treated to a very fun letter from Donald Trump.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
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The Young Turks are having a meltdown over Aaron Maté once again. This time, Aaron fact-checked Cenk for reporting that the Ukraine soldiers who said “Go fuck yourself” to a Russian warship died.
They didn’t.
This caused TYT to devote a segment to yelling at Aaron for asking Cenk to fact-check his own motto.
He didn’t.
It’s another McCarthyite media moment that underscores how credulous media personalties can be, and how hostile they are to those who aren’t. But it was too funny for us to ignore.
Afshin Rattansi’s show Going Underground is becoming harder and harder to see as the US, UK, and EU have all censored the RT. But Afshin has some good news for viewers:
“With a VPN, you can always say you don’t live in unfree places like the US or Europe or Britain, and say you live in Pyongyang where there is freedom to watch it.”
Rattansi, whose channel RT is attacked as pro-Russia propaganda, regularly calls out the Russian invasion and has guests who condemn Russian aggression. But that doesn’t fit with the western narrative for the channel, so we don’t actually get to see him. If only we lived in North Korea.
In this interview, we examine the problems that led to the crisis in Ukraine and how world leaders dangerously get history wrong.
“Scholars only talk about Putin and Putin’s mind. This is corollary to the idea that WWII was about Adolph Hitler and not the Treaty of Versailles and the impoverishment of the German people after the war of reparations.”
Without understanding the structures around leaders, like the hawkish state department and Russian Duma, “we’re in the realm of Marvel comics and Hollywood individual good and evil.”
This individualism is what leads people to blindly call for a no-fly zone, which sounds good in terms of good-against-evil, but in reality, will only cause more destruction.
Or, as Rattansi puts it: “It’ll be the end of the earth.”
In this episode of Useful Idiots, we analyze no-fly zones, media censorship, and the path to peace in Ukraine. And we get treated to a very fun letter from Donald Trump.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Show links:
Aaron's new article on the 2014 Maidan coup:
Aaron MateBy using Ukraine to fight Russia, the US provoked Putin's war"The United States aids Ukraine and her people," Adam Schiff declared in January 2020, "so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here." Schiff made this statement during the opening of Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, where the…Read more6 days ago · 263 likes · 147 comments · Aaron MatéLev Golinkin, 2019: "Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine"
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
The Grayzone: "How Ukraine’s Jewish president Zelensky made peace with neo-Nazi paramilitaries on front lines of war with Russia"
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
Ukraine on Fire - Oliver Stone documentary
Click here for the extended episode, including the full interview with Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison.
For a while, pundits have been predicting the decline of American superpower. Although some decline is inevitable, don’t expect Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to precipitate it.
As the American Prestige podcast’s Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison explain, the US ability to invade another country and commit war crimes that would merit US sanctions if it was any other country, and without any backlash, underscores America’s overwhelming strength.
“What would these scholars, who say Russian students should be kicked out of schools and that there are no good Russians, have thought if in 2003, scholars in Russia said there are no good Americans because we invaded Iraq? They would have been aghast.”
“They can’t process the thought that those situations are analogous. We’re virtuous and everyone else is evil.”
With the war ramping up, US ghoulishness runs rampant. Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and Nancy Pelosi all giggle at the brink of war while Bucky is left to take the fall.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
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For a while, pundits have been predicting the decline of American superpower. Although some decline is inevitable, don’t expect Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to precipitate it.
As the American Prestige podcast’s Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison explain, the US ability to invade another country and commit war crimes that would merit US sanctions if it was any other country, and without any backlash, underscores America’s overwhelming strength.
“What would these scholars, who say Russian students should be kicked out of schools and that there are no good Russians, have thought if in 2003, scholars in Russia said there are no good Americans because we invaded Iraq? They would have been aghast.”
“They can’t process the thought that those situations are analogous. We’re virtuous and everyone else is evil.”
With the war ramping up, US ghoulishness runs rampant. Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and Nancy Pelosi all giggle at the brink of war while Bucky is left to take the fall.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Branko Marcetic about Ukraine, Epstein & more, plus a chat about Vaush.
Note: This episode was recorded before Russia invaded Ukraine. The interview with Branko Marcetic provides a lot of useful context on how we got here.
When we look at the progression of this war, the Biden administration and cable news hosts will tell you that Mastermind Putin foresaw this six moves back in his chess game, and that the only thing we could’ve done was impose more sanctions earlier.
They won’t tell you about the US escalating tensions for years, stoking the 2014 coup and aiding neo-Nazi forces for its own benefit.
Now, two war-mongering countries, both with bloated militaries, whose people are neglected in favor of entrenched elites, whose politicians profit from war, are back to causing destruction.
And Ukraine is stuck in the middle.
Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic joins us to break down everything happening in the region and the steps that led to Russia’s deadly attack. See the extended episode for the full discussion on Ukraine plus a look at his in-depth reporting on Jeffrey Epstein’s death.
It’s a dark day, but Useful Idiots will always keep speaking the truth. Join us as we follow the news and keep the people of Ukraine in our thoughts.
It’s this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out now.
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Note: This episode was recorded before Russia invaded Ukraine. The interview with Branko Marcetic provides a lot of useful context on how we got here.
When we look at the progression of this war, the Biden administration and cable news hosts will tell you that Mastermind Putin foresaw this six moves back in his chess game, and that the only thing we could’ve done was impose more sanctions earlier.
They won’t tell you about the US escalating tensions for years, stoking the 2014 coup and aiding neo-Nazi forces for its own benefit.
Now, two war-mongering countries, both with bloated militaries, whose people are neglected in favor of entrenched elites, whose politicians profit from war, are back to causing destruction.
And Ukraine is stuck in the middle.
Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic joins us to break down everything happening in the region and the steps that led to Russia’s deadly attack. This extended episode includes the full discussion on Ukraine plus a look at his in-depth reporting on Jeffrey Epstein’s death.
It’s a dark day, but Useful Idiots will always keep speaking the truth. Join us as we follow the news and keep the people of Ukraine in our thoughts.
It’s this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out now.
Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Rania Khalek.
Breakthrough News’ Rania Khalek recounts her horrifying travel nightmare:
“So I went to Cuba and it was terrifying… just like Marco Rubio said.”
Then she laughs and proceeds to share an enlightening and inspiring story of a country perpetually beat down by the US that still continues to survive. Seeing the stellar healthcare, education, and public safety of a poorer nation only underscores that we’re doing something wrong here.
She explains:
“When you see how this poor country, which is poor because of the US, spends all of its revenue providing medical care and education for everybody, it really tells you something about the US system.
I walked around all of Havana and not one person begged for money. That was astounding to me after being in New York.
Plus, Rania, who’s currently based in Beirut, gives her on-the-scene takes on Syria, ISIS, and Ukraine mania. Subscribe now to hear it all.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Subscribe now
Breakthrough News’ Rania Khalek recounts her horrifying travel nightmare:
“So I went to Cuba and it was terrifying… just like Marco Rubio said.”
Then she laughs and proceeds to share an enlightening and inspiring story of a country perpetually beat down by the US that still continues to survive. Seeing the stellar healthcare, education, and public safety of a poorer nation only underscores that we’re doing something wrong here.
She explains:
“When you see how this poor country, which is poor because of the US, spends all of its revenue providing medical care and education for everybody, it really tells you something about the US system.
I walked around all of Havana and not one person begged for money. That was astounding to me after being in New York.
Plus, Rania, who’s currently based in Beirut, gives her on-the-scene takes on Syria, ISIS, and Ukraine mania. Subscribe now to hear it all.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
When left-leaning MSM won’t allow journalists like Aaron to criticize the US for war mongering in Ukraine, they’re going to go wherever they can to share their anti-war message with an audience.
The only place left is Tucker Carlson. Hear our analysis of the appearance here.
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Click here for the full episode, including an extended interview with Margaret Kimberley.
Black Agenda Report’s Margaret Kimberley is fed up with the US progressive caucus. With zero politicians in Congress calling out Biden for escalating tensions with Russia or doing little more for progressive causes than sending hopeful tweets, she believes that US politicians who call themselves left are finally revealing their true colors.
This loss of true progressives worsened under President Obama: “I think Obama’s presidency is one of the worst things to happen to Black people politically.”
“No one talks about what he did to Libya. What he tried to do to Syria. When you see a story about migrants drowning at sea, that’s Barack Obama.” And yet, in the halls of Democratic Congress, he remains infallible.
To Kimberley, if you’re silent on war mongering and profiteering, you shouldn’t be considered left.
Plus, Margaret shares her thoughts on Joe Rogan, Biden’s terrible Covid response, and the fall of progressive news:
“Would the Pentagon Papers be published today? I don’t think so. I think if there was some bombshell revelation about Ukraine, the New York Times and Washington Post wouldn’t touch it. We need people with more courage.”
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
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The US-Russia standoff over Ukraine has sparked bellicose threats and fears of Europe’s biggest ground war in decades. There are ample reasons to question the prospects of a Russian invasion, and US allies including France, Germany's now-ousted navy chief, and even Kiev itself appear to share the skepticism.
Another potential scenario is that Russia draws on the Cuban Missile Crisis and positions offensive weapons within the borders of Latin American allies. Whatever the outcome, the crisis has underscored the perils of a second Cold War between the world's top nuclear powers.
If the path forward is unpredictable, what got us here is easy to trace. The row over Ukraine is the outgrowth of an aggressive US posture toward Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago, driven by hegemonic policymakers and war profiteers in Washington. Understanding that background is key to resolving the current impasse, if the Biden administration can bring itself to alter a dangerous course.
Hear the full discussion of Aaron’s article here.
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The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel is one of the top anti-war Russian experts working today, but possibly the only one still allowed on mainstream media.
How did we get to the point where sending troops and weapons is the only accepted opinion on CNN, Fox, and the New York Times? Katrina explains:
“Part of the reason we’re here is the slurring and defaming of alternative voices and the inability of a system to incorporate alternative voices.”
If lobbyists, politicians, and companies don’t want us to hear anti-war voices (they don’t make money if we don’t buy weapons), they just make journalists like Katrina look like Russian apologists or even operatives. They make her the villain.
And, sadly, Katrina tells us:
“The demonization project has been successful.”
We discuss why war is bad for everyone involved, especially Ukraine, how the media and politicians spread disinformation to make war happen, and watch a great debate between Stephen Cohen and Max Boot.
And it’s pretty cool to see the smile on Katrina’s face as she watches her late-husband completely own Max Boot.
It’s all this, and more, in the Katrina vanden Heuvel extended interview on Useful Idiots. Check it out here.
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There is only one truly bipartisan issue in the United States Congress these days: increasing military spending. Every year it passes, and every year we spend trillions of dollars on weapons and soldiers. Money that could be spent on education, homelessness, and infrastructure all goes to the war chest.
The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel joins the Useful Idiots to warn of the dangers of the US escalating tensions with Russia over Ukraine.
It’s not about helping Ukraine, she explains. It’s about money and power.
We’re at war to show that NATO matters. We’re at war to save Biden’s sinking poll ratings. We’re at war so politicians, lobbyists, and pundits can make money.
“That is not a good reason for a soldier to be away from his family. They’re being used for symbolic fodder.”
And while anti-war groups are speaking up to stop this, mainstream media is a lot louder. CNN, Fox News, and the New York Times are helping shape the propagandist narrative that a Russian invasion is imminent and US troops and weapons are needed to stop it.
So don’t listen to them. Let’s find the facts and figure out for ourselves: are there peaceful solutions?
Plus, attempted cancellations of Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg, Trump’s biggest protest this country has ever seen, and please, don’t inject stuff into your penis.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
And stay tuned for the full interview with Katrina vanden Heuvel on Monday at 7am.
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Biden’s got some fighting words for a Fox reporter, RFK’s got it worse than Anne Frank, Nina the Returner, and, as a special bonus, some footage of Jim Acosta refusing to answer a question about Assange.
There’s a lot to discuss. And when it’s on Useful Idiots, you can expect it all to be terrible. Check the bonus clip out here.
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Status Coup’s Jordan Chariton is a very strange, unconventional reporter. He does this unheard of thing where he actually travels to the story and talks to real people who were affected. He calls it journalism.
But for some reason, big name media companies like the New York Times and CNN don’t want his stories. They wouldn’t get enough clicks.
Besides digging deep into the Flint crisis and coverup, Jordan has been reporting on the worker strikes breaking out across the nation. Some have been successful, like the historic union win at a Buffalo Starbucks. Some, not so much, like the union busting Jeff Bezos has gotten so good at.
But wins or losses, Jordan’s reporting has shone a light on why workers are rising up.
“They’re realizing that the politicians aren’t going to do anything, so they have to take matters into their own hands. They’ve had enough.” He explains. “They don’t really have much more to lose because they’ve already lost so much in wages, benefits, and retirement.”
But when Jordan posts his videos on Youtube? Well, as the marketing person who studied his video analytics said: “I’ve never seen anything like it. Literally no notifications went out.”
It’s a hard world for independent journalists right now. Go follow Status Coup, and remember that a large portion of your Useful Idiots subscription is sent to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, and we thank you for helping independent journalists everywhere.
Check out the full interview here.
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“But if Obama knew,” Aaron and Katie ask Status Coup’s Jordan Chariton, “why didn’t he go to Flint and bust Wall Street and the Republicans for poisoning the city? It would’ve been an easy political win.”
“If Obama didn’t go after Wall Street for tanking the global economy,” responds Chariton, “what makes you think he would’ve done anything to go after them for a fraud financial deal that led to a city being poisoned?”
Today, Chariton is breaking stories in Flint about Obama’s complicity, Wall Street’s greed, a state-government coverup, and the continued pandemic of Flint residents who are still dying.
“I talk to people who are still getting rashes, whose hair falls out in the shower, whose children are growing with learning disabilities, people with early development of Parkinson’s. If you just look at the cherry-picked data, it seems like everything’s fine. These people are still in an 8 year pandemic. It’s not over.”
But why don’t we hear about it? No one wants to run the story.
“The hardest part of investigative journalism should be breaking the story, not getting outlets to pick it up.” Chariton laments. “But the amount of time and money is not worth the amount of clicks for the New York Times and CNN. Some, like Mother Jones, even asked: ‘Is there a connection to Trump?’”
And, darker still, when he publishes his reports himself, it’s hard for people to see them. Youtube refuses to send video notifications even to his subscribers and they dampen every video and livestream. It’s the reason we couldn’t put “Flint” in the title and why Jordan thinks it might be easier to just start making videos about who’s feuding in the political punditry world.
So go subscribe to Status Coup on Youtube. It’s real journalism that you will miss if you look anywhere else.
One silver lining, however, is that the children of Flint may be reassured that the US Government just sent 200,000 pounds of new weapons to Ukraine. So they’ve got that going for them.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Plus, watch the ad-free episode here, and stay tuned for the full interview with Jordan on Monday at 7am. Peace out, Useful Idiots.
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In the latest push to move the (big D) Democratic Party to the center, neolib (or neocon? we’re not sure) Thomas Friedman has an idea so crazy, it just might work. Nominate a Joe Biden–Liz Cheney ticket in 2024.
And where did he get this spicy new idea? You guessed it: Israel!
So does it matter that the Democratic electorate is clearly further to the left than either of these candidates? Or that Cheney is the daughter of a man who hurt democracy far more than Trump ever could? Nope. Not to Friedman.
This is the best way to beat Trump, he argues. But is that his only motive? Is he also trying, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama before him, to use an excuse to move the party right? Listen and share your thoughts.
Plus, stoned moment or lying Biden? Joe talks how he marched and was arrested like all his favorite Black leaders. Hmmmm…
It’s a special, subscriber-only episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out here.
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