Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Now I am become Useful Idiot.With the Hollywood blockbuster forcing everyone to remember the nuclear bomb again, Oppenheimer expert Greg Mitchell, who you can find on Substack here and here, joins the Useful Idiots to analyze Hollywood’s portrayal of the man and his bomb.“Only four movies in 75 years” have really dealt with the bomb, he tells us. We have countless movies about World War II, but when the US becomes the killer, Hollywood has fallen silent.So how did the fourth movie, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, do?“What is included in the film is extremely accurate,” Mitchell says, but the details omitted tell a different story. “In the movie we don’t see warnings about the radiation effect, we don’t see the horror in Japan.” Nolan apparently leaves the audience with a grave warning about the future of nuclear warfare, but is he giving a pass to his characters who dropped the bombs already?“There’s tremendous focus on the Trinity test,” he says, explaining something the movie does show. “Every filmmaker loves to focus on Trinity because no one died there and there’s great special effects and it’s a great moment of triumph and celebration.”But what’s omitted: “They’d rather do that than look at happened when we killed 160,000 civilians.”Watch the full interview with author and historian Greg Mitchell where he explains the faults of the “harm reduction” argument, the rising nuclear tensions in North Korea, and how the Ukraine proxy war has brought us dangerously close to nuclear war.Plus, check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Congress Says the Aliens are ComingAnd 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“This poll is earth-shattering.”“I wonder if any media will pick it up.”“Of course not!”Ukrainian-America journalist and author Lev Golinkin joined the show this week to discuss on a new poll that flips everything we’ve been told about “real Ukrainians.” And before you write off the poll as Russian propaganda, check out who conducted it: not Moscow, with its memes of deception to trick Americans, and not Useful Idiots, those secret Putin agents, but Vox!Now the poll:A shocking 43% of respondents in Ukraine disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine.”Guess what percent of respondents agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia.” Check out the interview to find out. But you’ll see that Ukraine is not the monolith of pro-war nationalists that our media claims they are.As Lev goes through the responses of the poll, each one shockingly truthful about the split of what Ukrainians actually believe, he has a dark conclusion about the US government which refuses to look at the data: “These people who have control over our future know nothing about us.”But Vox Ukraine’s conclusion (we give props to them for even publishing the results at all), is very different. “The conducted survey revealed the overall ability of Ukrainians to differentiate narratives of Russian propaganda. In this case, the active promotion of counter-narratives is necessary.”So now it isn’t “listen to Ukrainians” but “these Ukrainians are duped by Russian propaganda and we need to teach the troglodytes that they like the war.” So, don’t listen to them. Join Lev, Katie, and Aaron as we analyze a poll that surely won’t be reported by the New York Times or any other corporate warriors, and watch the extended interview where Lev shares the truth about the real people of the Donbas, the war crimes committed by the West and Russia (“Any war crime you can name that has been committed by one side has been committed by the other”), and the one difference between Wagner neo-Nazis and Azov neo-Nazis:“The Wagner neo-Nazis are not put on MSNBC. The Wagner neo-Nazis are not being trained and armed by the United States. The Wagner neo-Nazis are not being invited to Congress.”It’s an enlightening interview with a Ukrainian voice ignored by the mainstream. Check it out, share the poll, and watch the extended interview with Lev Golinkin.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Anderson Cooper Upset by Cornel West's MoralityAnd 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“The west cannot win.”Former CIA analyst and deputy director of the US Office of Counterterrorism Larry Johnson has a grave outlook for the proxy war in Ukraine. And it ends with a lot of dead Ukrainians.Even with the hundreds of billions of dollars of HIMARS, Stingers, Javelins, and now the potential for F-16s and war-crime cluster munitions, Ukraine, according to Johnson’s military analysis, has not made a single successful stand against fortified Russian forces and will only suffer more losses as the pointless war rages forward.And what’s his solution? Well, you won’t be surprised to hear it’s just about exactly the same as every other Useful Idiots guest’s: diplomacy. The west wins through peace.Johnson covers it all: how Russiagate led to the war, the Wagner Group’s “coup” and Prigozhin’s silly disguises, and the real reason the west hates Putin so much. Hint: it’s not because of the communist/dictator/Hitler/4D-chess super genius stuff they tell us.“We’re angry at Putin because he shut down the money flow from the oligarchs that was going into the pockets of a lot of western capitalists. It’s that simple.”Catch it all in the extended interview with Larry Johnson.Plus watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden throws "Vladimir" Zelensky under the bus.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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“Their crime is to exist,” Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat says of the Palestinians resisting Israel’s state-perpetrated terrorism and the recent attacks on the West Bank city of Jenin in particular.“When they attack, with war planes and tanks, indiscriminately, it’s a message to Palestinians that you are not safe. Anywhere. That unless you completely surrender, we will terrorize you. And the rest of the international community is going to blame you.”But, she tells us, sharing the resilience of Palestinians, “this is not a people that watches this and gives up. We’ll fight. We’ll fight and we’ll die fighting for our freedom.”And their fight is challenging Israel’s illegal violence: “The fact that Palestinians refuse to disappear is the existential threat. It’s not Molotov cocktails, or IEDs, or armed Palestinians. It’s the fact that Palestinians have united themselves across violent geographic demarcations that are meant to separate us, and refuse to disappear.”Watch the full interview with Noura to hear her family’s tragic first-hand experience with Israeli terror and her predictions for the future of the brave people of Palestine.Catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: US “Free Press” Loves State CensorshipAnd 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“How does this war end?” we asked former marine corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. The answer was not pretty.“With a lot of dead Ukrainians,” he told us gravely. “When Lindsay Graham gets out there and does his sick cackling and says we’re going to fight to the last Ukrainian, unfortunately that’s what’s going to happen.”Ritter explains that Putin and Russia will not be beaten militarily, and every day the US extends the proxy war in its attempt to bleed Russia and enrich weapons manufacturers, our “friends” will suffer even more.“We are condemning our friends the Ukrainians, everyday hundreds of families, to a fate that is in many cases worse than death. Bombing houses, people out on the street with their kids; this is what we’re doing to our friends every day of the week.”He finishes, giving the proper name for our relationship with the Ukrainian people: “We’re not friends. We’re the worst enemy one could imagine.”So what would Scott Ritter do if he was president today?“I would stop this war instantly,” he says. “There’s no more weaponry going to Ukraine. It’s over. I’d call Zelenskyy and say it’s done. And then I would call Putin and say we’re going to stop the fighting and we’re never going to start it again. We need to sit down and talk. That’s it, it’s called diplomacy.”Watch the full interview with Scott Ritter where he explains the history of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group, the disastrous Ukrainian counteroffensive, evidence of the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and his full plan for how to end the war.Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown, which we’re giving to you for FREE on Locals: A “Non-Panicky” Nuclear War.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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“We’ve gotten to the point now where we’ve been lied to for so long that people are really pissed off. One major event after the other we’ve been lied to. And we want the truth.”These wise words come from our guest David Talbot, journalist and author of The Devil’s Chessboard and Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.He’s joined by Aaron Good, a historian and host of the American Exception podcast. They both bring their extensive research of the deep state, the secrets of the American empire, and previously-classified info from first-hand interviews and loads of documents. Plus they share their respectful disagreement with Noam Chomsky over JFK.Watch the full interview where they reveal who their research shows killed Robert F. Kennedy, their thoughts on presidential candidate RFK Jr, and how news media has collapsed since David founded Salon in 1995, one of the first online news magazines.The deep state has a lot of secrets, but the Useful Idiots are digging them up. Listen in.Don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown where we watch a newly-resurfaced clip of Biden calling for a 700-mile fence on the Mexican border to keep out the “illegals.”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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:We’re throwing it back to the 1980s with Touré, host of the excellent new podcast Being Black: The 80s (70s and 90s to follow), which breaks down some of the most impactful Black music of the decade, including what was happening in Black America at each moment in time.We listen to Dianna Ross, Public Enemy, Tracy Chapman, Stevie Wonder and more as Touré explains the Black culture history that led to the iconic songs, not just how they reflect the stories of the time, but how they ushered, or forced, in a new era of revolution.Touré, who was a cohost of MSNBC’s The Cycle and a writer for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and The New Yorker, deep dives into the rich political and cultural history of Black life and music, including the influences of gay liberation, the power of MLK, mass incarceration, and the crack epidemic.It’s a fascinating musical episode of Useful Idiots that you won’t want to miss.And watch the full version where things get political: Touré, whose past as an MSNBC host can’t be hidden forever, debates Katie and Aaron on Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, and Obama. It’s a heated back and forth that seems to only prove the power of music, because no matter the disagreements on political issues, the tunes we listen to bring everyone back together. Listen and groove along with us.Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Cornel West Blows Jake Tapper’s Mind.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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Oliver Stone grew up in a world that hates nuclear energy: we heard horror stories of catastrophic “disasters” like in Chernobyl and Fukushima, subconsciously linked it to the nuclear bomb, even died under the trampling feet of its nuclear spawn in Godzilla and Them!So what, after decades of mistrust against the nuclear boogeyman, made Oliver change his mind? He shares it all in today’s interview.His new documentary Nuclear Now debunks years of propaganda, misinformation, and sensationalism, urging us to see that “nuclear energy is the only viable way to get out of this mess.”It turns out, the documentary shows, deaths from nuclear energy are minuscule compared to any other form of energy: “The HBO series Chernobyl is a fear document,” he says. “It’s sensationalism. The World Health Organization and the UN did extensive studies and they came out with 4,000 people who possibly died from cancer. A lot of people say millions died, but it’s not coming out in any scientific evidence.”And the “disaster” at Fukushima caused one (disputed) death. And there are no other cases. So why are we told nuclear energy is so dangerous?Well first, “keep in mind that the fossil fuel industry has benefitted from renewables.” When you have oil and gas and coal lobbies fighting against you, we’ve seen too many times how easy it is to get lost in the propaganda.But while renewables like wind and solar energy are good things, Oliver explains that they “won’t make the gap. It will not make the continental volume to get where we need to be to really have clean energy.”“An Inconvenient Truth popularized renewables, but here we are twenty fucking years later and we still have the same amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It’s not working.”Subscribe for the full interview with Oliver Stone for his take on the Ukraine proxy war and its effect on climate change, his scathing review of the Green Party and their neocon friends, and why he believes “America is divorcing itself from reality.”Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Aaron Maté: Twitter Files.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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: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 siegePlus, 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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 AssangeAnd 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: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.Watch the full interview here:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“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.Watch the full interview here:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here: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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“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:

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 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:“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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview of our interview here: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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview of our interview here:“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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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.The 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe 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:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comWe’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.For more resources from Professor Narvaez:https://evolvednest.org/https://breakingthecyclefilm.org/Watch the full episode here:

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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 FBIIt’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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.“The rail carriers are going to take it as a sign that they can keep doing what they’re doing and we are all going to be worse off for it.” For the rail workers, this has included denying even a single sick day.“Gradually over the years they got tighter and tighter and stingier until it became you’re straight up asking for permission. They believe that they own a right to your life 24/7.”And ‘Union Joe’ Biden, who calls himself a pro-labor president, continues to side with the companies.“This is what happens when the reigning philosophy is to eliminate the cost of treating your workers like human beings. If you treat workers like faceless meatbags and no one stops you, you can exploit the shit out of them.”And corporate media, doing what it does best, all but blames the workers, warning viewers that a rail strike could mean economic catastrophe and cripple the economy — ignoring the crippling conditions the workers face.During the interview, news broke that a Congressional proposal for seven sick days, a meek bill that would do the bare minimum to help workers, would fail.Michael Paul, who’s worked 17 years for the rail industry, laments: “Anyone who works for a living just lost ground on better pay and benefits. You lost today.”So how do we fight for workers’ rights?“This is such a systemic problem for working people and we cannot rely on politicians to just bequeath us some sort of solution to this. Working people need to band together and assert their needs as an independent working class.”Subscribe for the full interview with Michael Paul and Max.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown on how the US decides to censor itself (but only when it accidentally tells the truth).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 is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Click here for the brand new part 2 of our 2-hour interview with Norman Finkelstein.If you heard the free version of Part 1 on Nov 11, the interview continues at 28:50.In Part 2 of the interview, Norman X Finkelstein previews his new book, "I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It," which unleashes his fiery analysis on identity politics and President Obama. To write it, he first had to do some mandatory reading from the experts in those fields.“I felt in order to write [the book],” Norm tells us, already exasperated, “I should sit down and read this new leftist cancel culture. So I sat down, I read Ta-Nehisi Coates, I read Kimberley Crenshaw, I read Ibram X Kendi, I read Robin DiAngelo, and it’s impossible not to conclude that this stuff is intellectually vacuous and worthless.”But it isn’t meaningless in today’s politics. Far from it: “My conclusion was that identity politics is fundamentally a weapon of the Democratic party to derail, deflect, and diffuse a radical class-based politics.”Norm, a classical scholar who understands Left history like the back of his hand, shares proof of his analysis when he quotes Leon Trotsky, who “talked about all these people who pretend to be radical, but when a moment of truth comes, you see their real colors.” “I felt that moment of truth came with the Bernie Sanders campaign. Crenshaw, Coates, Angela Davis, all these people went out and started to attack Bernie Sanders. They all, in the moment of truth, backed the Democratic party establishment and sought to derail and discredit the Bernie Sanders candidacy.”He goes on, even more fired up here, to take down the one politician who is so brazen to flaunt that he won an election by standing for nothing, the “hollow vessel” known as Barack Obama. Norm’s taking no prisoners, and you’re not going to want to miss it.It’s Part 2 of Norm Finkelstein on Useful Idiots. Check it out.For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot and support independent media. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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 propagandaJournalist Kit Klarenberg’s latest article at the Grayzone, “FTX partnership with Ukraine is latest chapter in shady Western aid saga,” sheds new light on the money-grabbing schemes emerging from the Ukraine proxy war.The report details how Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, the crypto exchange that saw its valuation implode from $32B to $0 in a single day, used a Ukraine fundraiser to raise $60 million from donors. This was followed by the mass selloff of FTX currency and a declaration of bankruptcy from the scam company. This raises the question: where did the money for Ukraine go?Kit Klarenberg joins the Useful Idiots with the scoop.He, along with his fellow Grayzone writers, has been the subject of multiple attacks for uncovering stories like this and his other new piece: “Leaked documents: British spies constructing secret terror army in Ukraine.” It seems that when government officials and the corporate media don’t want the truth uncovered, they don’t argue against the story but make personal attacks against the writer as character assassination.And sadly, it works all too often.One such corporate official, Useful-Idiot-favorite of Scary Poppins fame Nina Jankowicz, went after Klarenberg on Twitter. Kit describes the online beef in the extended episode. (turns out we can’t see those tweets because…)Subscribe to hear the full interview, where 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.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.Plus, catch our Thursday Throwdown on the near-nuclear Armageddon, Trump’s big announcement, and Aaron getting canceled by Olena Zelenska.For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot. Hear the extended interview and support independent media. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.’”Historically, he says, Bernie Sanders has upheld this left tradition, calling out the crooks who steal your money.But when it came to Ukraine, “the bunch of crooks metamorphosed into a band of angels. You’re telling me the same people who are cheating you day in and day out, stealing your wealth, stealing your labor, those same people are suddenly heartbroken by what’s happening to the Ukrainian people?”Norm does not pull any punches in his assessment of The Squad and Sanders:“The day the squad and Bernie voted for war credits for Ukraine, that whole progressive enterprise turned into a rotting corpse.”Plus, subscribe to hear the full interview where Norm dissects the midterm election results, the Israel election, and the weaponization of identity politics.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. Hear the extended interview and support independent media. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation. Ken joins Useful Idiots to share how he uncovered the bombshell revelation, what it tells us about our powerful security state, and his predictions for the dark future of information censorship.The story, which reveals collusion between tech companies and the US government, massive CIA incompetence, and Orwellian levels of surveillance, is not a partisan issue, Klippenstein argues. It’s an issue of national security.And yet looking at the headlines from corporate media following The Intercept’s publishing, there was immediate political spin. The Washington Post told its readers that only conservatives would “go after DHS counter-disinformation work,” which means good Democrats should celebrate speech censorship. Meanwhile, as Ken writes in his story, Republicans claim we’ve defeated disinformation by taking down Biden’s disinformation governance board, ignoring that the same DHS tactics happened under Trump.“It’s crammed into this partisan framework,” he explains, “that doesn’t reflect the reality that when someone’s in power they tend not to care about free speech.”And the scariest part, Ken tells us, “this is not formalized in statute. There's no law saying ‘we're going to create the disinformation team.’ They can do this administratively without sign off from Congress. And they probably have beyond what I'm able to report because I'm only able to get details that my sources have access to. We don't know what else might exist.”It’s a huge story that, as with most issues you see on Useful Idiots, is dangerously underreported. Subscribe to hear the full interview with Ken Klippenstein as he shares the government secrets we know about and what still remains covered up.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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 ArenaWhile 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.Jemima Pierre, associate professor at UCLA and the Haiti-America coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace, joins us this week to explain what is actually happening in Haiti.She tells stories of US coups against the government, the purposeful destruction of the Haitian rice and pig industries to prop up those of the US, threats to activists calling for sovereignty, and even a door in the Haiti palace marked: “US OFFICIALS ONLY.”Jemima also points out that Haitians have begun flying Russian flags:“Unlike the people in the US who believe everything they hear in the mainstream media about Ukraine, I think everyone outside of the US understands that what's happening in Ukraine has everything to do with pushing and maintaining US power. Haitians see Russia as a counterweight to US imperialism.”For $5 a month, subscribe to hear the full interview with Jemima Pierre, plus get exclusive access to Thursday Throwdowns and the Absurd Arena where you can get your questions answered by Katie and Aaron on the show.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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?Benjamin, known for such bold acts as announcing “Here comes the war criminal!” as Donald Rumsfeld entered the White House Correspondents Dinner, is the founder of Code Pink, a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism.She discusses how building an anti-war movement was easier during the Iraq War, while the left now has become more divided and often in support of proxy wars like Ukraine. This, she explains, stems from US demoralization efforts:“During the Iraq War, we were able to build a movement that got hundreds of thousands of people out into the street. The problem is, that did not change Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, and so many people were demoralized. It made people question putting their energies in front of this war machine.”But Benjamin urges us not to give up hope.“We have to recognize that it is our absolute responsibility right now. And I do feel as I travel around the country that there are many people recognizing the need to go in front of the offices of their representatives and protest, to educate their friends and families, I think we are in the midst of building up again.”And, importantly, we need to “keep the pressure up on the Biden administration.”To educate yourself, your friends, and family, Medea Benjamin’s book and short video are great learning tools. And follow Code Pink to support their activism and their coalition Peace in Ukraine.Plus, this week we announced two new features:* Thursday Throwdowns: Our new mini-episodes premiering each Thursday to get your exclusive dose of midweek media madness. This week, we watched the Tapper/Biden interview.* The Absurd Arena: The Useful Idiots discussion board for people who think you can talk back to a podcast. Share your opinions and get your questions and comments read on the show.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.In Donetsk, Reed reports, the war is in every moment of daily life. He details the choice of which direction to face when choosing a seat at a restaurant, taking into account which way the bombs will come from, which way the shrapnel will fly. “This is something that people here just live through.”And yet western media refuse to cover these deadly parts of Ukraine. Donetsk, home to many ethnic Russians, is one of the breakaway republics that has fought the Ukrainian government since a US-backed coup in 2014. For them, the war didn’t start when Russia invaded this past February, but eight years earlier. Reed tells us that he can count the number of western journalists in Donetsk on one hand, and that Useful Idiots is one of few western outlets that would share his story. The people just want to be heard, he explains, telling the story of a man who “through tears, said ‘I wish that these so-called western journalists that are saying all this about the situation would have to spend just one day in my shoes.’”But these days, reporting on a perspective from the other side only gets you labeled a Kremlin propagandist. It is important to note that Reed works for a Russian state outlet when analyzing his reporting. But it is impossible to fully assess the situation if you don’t hear from both sides.And Reed is sharing the perspective of the people of Donetsk: “It’s really unimaginable until you come here and you understand this is what people have been enduring for nearly a decade.”Note: We apologize for the poor quality of the interview, wifi and war zones don’t seem to mix well.Subscribe for the full interview with Wyatt Reed.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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?These are today’s two big questions puzzling journalists (and not really bothering Western politicians, it seems). So who better to break down the walls than former army Colonel and senior Pentagon advisor Douglas Macgregor.“In this war, for which nobody voted, you have to set aside rationality,” Macgregor says. “We’re not dealing with reasonable people.”So let’s analyze what we do know.“I think it’s very clear that when President Putin began this campaign, he fully expected that when he demonstrated he was serious, he would have a negotiating partner. He thought Washington would be interested in negotiating an end to the fighting. I don’t think he appreciated the level of ideological commitment and hatred in support of a war with Russia.”And then comes the daunting prediction. Although he doesn’t think that Russia will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he does think that the conflict could get far worse. “If ]Putin] has no success and no one will talk, I think he’s going to unloose hell.”Plus, subscribe for the full interview where Col. Macgregor explains Russian and Western war strategies, his views on “globalism”, and his prediction for the future of NATO.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.“The state is responsible. Period. There’s just no question.”Author and historian Assal Rad joins Useful Idiots to discuss the Iranian protests over the case of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died after being detained by Iran’s “Morality Police” for not adequately covering her hair. “She shouldn’t have been detained in the first place,” Rad says. “The fact that there is this law, this dress code, that doesn’t allow women a basic form of free expression is the problem.”Amini’s death has sparked protests across Iran and the west, with politicians and celebrities weighing in from around the world.“This is a human rights issue,” Rad says. “But so were the sanctions on Iran during the pandemic. It’s problematic when you only cite human rights organizations and international law and the UN when it serves your purpose.”Today, crippling sanctions on Iran are starving its people, and women are affected the most. But Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber aren’t posting on Instagram about it. The West chooses when to call out human rights abuses against women and when to ignore them.“And that’s why outside powers having any kind of intervention is so problematic. They’re not doing it in the interest of those civilians, they’re doing it in their own national interest,” Rad says. “This is why listening to and supporting voices in Iran is so important.”Assad Rad’s new book is “The State of Resistance Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran.”Plus, subscribe to hear the full interview 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.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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, how the west brought war to Ukraine.“The goal of the US,” Abelow says, “is not to save Ukrainians but to degrade Russia’s military until they won’t be able to fight in the future. And while some say stopping Russia is a humanitarian goal, the way one would degrade Russia’s military is to keep an extended war going and fight to the last Ukrainian.”Abelow analyzes the history of this cold war, the aggression by each side, and the hypocrisy of the argument that Ukraine has a sacrosanct right to join NATO.“The right to join NATO is the right to place a western military arsenal on Russia’s border. If Russia made a military alliance with Canada or Mexico, US leaders would not be talking about their right to do so.”And on this week’s news of Putin announcing military escalation and giving a thinly-veiled threat of nuclear war, Dr. Abelow warns:“I hope it’s taken seriously.” These are scary times. So buckle up, cook some Nyquil chicken, and get ready for this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.Once a Useful Idiot, always a Useful Idiot.Matt Taibbi, who’s taken a hiatus from this pod to write his next book (he gives a sneak peek in the extended interview), just can’t stay out of the game. He’s back to talk about Democrats and Republicans sucking, the weird and terrible media, and the scary stories that are ignored by the mainstream.His newest article on taint teams sheds like on a dark new phenomenon. The FBI has given itself the power to raid lawyers, take all of their documents, and then give itself permission to use the stolen documents in unrelated cases. It’s an easy way to skip getting a search warrant, and gives the government unprecedented power to bury its enemies. Matt explains the ominous story in detail.And subscribe for the full interview: 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.Taibbi’s back this week, and you’re not gonna want to miss it. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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, predicts a dark cold war ahead if our leaders continue their craven militarism. The first step, she says, is talking about it openly, which, sadly, the media won’t do. “The crisis is on us. And there’s a lack not only of preparedness but of thinking about the crisis.”Katrina, who was close with the late Mikhail Gorbachev, shares the leader’s personal thoughts on peace, nuclear weapons, and the worsening relationship between US and Russian presidents. She calls Gorbachev “a great reformer in his country’s tormented history.” And shares some private stories about him too. And she reflects on her late husband, scholar Stephen Cohen, when we react to a video of him offering a very prescient analysis of the new Cold War.Plus, Biden does fascist Roger Waters, Liz Truss wants to nuke you, and the latest in terrible Trump-themed drinks.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.When the Useful Idiots decide to go silly, we’re no-nonsense about it. So we also enroll in the new college major Lesbian Dance Theory, chat about stoned (and dry-diapered) President Brandon in a fighter jet, and announce a watch party for the new off-the-wall Hunter Biden movie (watch the trailer with us in the four food groups).And subscribe for the full episode, including the extended interview with Kurt Metzger on call-out culture, YouTube suppression, and whatever the hell is going on with that “robot with salmon eyes” Mark Zuckerberg.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.Professor Noam Chomsky has a stark prediction for the future of humanity if the US refuses to cooperate with other countries:“It is absolutely necessary for the great powers to cooperate if there’s going to be any hope for survival,” he explains. “China, the US, Russia, they have to be cooperating on the major issues of the day: climate, nuclear war, pandemics. You work on them together or you all fall over the cliff together.”And while cooperation sounds like a smart idea, Chomsky doubts the US will go along.“The US orders allies to follow its rules-based international order while China calls for the UN-based international order. And the US doesn’t accept that for a very good reason: the UN rules out US foreign policy explicitly. The UN charter bans the threat or use of force in international affairs. Can you think of a US president who hasn’t engaged in a threat or use of force?”This sparks an analysis of US censorship and how the government can suppress the truth without throwing us in gulags.“Read things carefully that do come out: the Washington Post had a long, comprehensive article in which they reviewed in great detail the background for the war. Nothing in it about possible negotiations. They don’t want it on the agenda.”Plus, subscribe for the extended interview in which Noam Chomsky explains his worst fear if the Republicans take control of Congress, calls out politicians who oppose forgiving student loans, and criticizes the underwhelming US response to climate change.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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.“It’s the US’s attempt to crush the Black liberation movement.”On July 29th, members of the African People’s Socialist Party were raided by the FBI. At the St. Louis home of APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela, armed agents threw flash grenades, drones swooped in to spy, and snipers trained lasers on their targets’ chests — all while the FBI taped over the ‘smart doorbells’ of neighbors to avoid being filmed. Anyone have 1984 bingo yet?And the purpose of the raid? To bust the Russians for, in the FBI’s eyes, secretly running the African People’s Socialist Party. The raid came in conjunction with an indictment that day of Russian national Aleksandr Ionov for an alleged “malign influence campaign” against the United States.“There’s this insidious assumption in the mind of most white people globally that African people are too stupid to know what our own interests are, that somebody else must’ve come and told us that we are mistreated in the United States,” Chairman Yeshitela tells us. “So if Black people are saying something is happening to us, it’s not because it’s happening, it’s because Russia is talking through us. That is what they constructed.”Now, Yeshitela and his team of activists are under intense legal threat from the US government. They’re trying to raise awareness, but very few in the media are covering it.Every American knew about the Trump raid that happened weeks later, and calls to defund the FBI were solely in defense of the former president. No one talked about the Black activists threatened and raided.“Generally speaking,” the Chairman explains, “Americans are the most backwards people in the world in terms of living right in the heart of the most oppressive system while being the most ignorant about what it is that this government does.”Subscribe for the full 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.It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.For more information on the African People’s Socialist Party and Uhuru, visit https://apspuhuru.org/Upcoming events to support the movement:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inpdum-2022-convention-defending-the-black-community-tickets-38818995560714th annual Black People’s March on the White House is happening November 5 and 6. Info will be posted at https://blackisbackcoalition.org/Thumbnail photo courtesy of https://www.theburningspear.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe