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:This week, Useful Idiots guest Refaat Alareer was killed by Israel. We interviewed him on October 11 when Israel had just begun its assault on Gaza, and he shared important on-the-ground information all while sheltering 15 children in his Gaza apartment. Bombs could be heard falling in the background of the interview, but still Refaat bravely spoke out. We are heartbroken and angry by this devastating loss.Which means it is more important than ever to continue to expose the crimes of Israel.Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian, joins Useful Idiots from Haifa, Israel to give historical context to both Hamas’ attack and the assault committed by Israel, which he deems a genocide under international law.And he also gives his outlook on the future of the tragedy: “The near future doesn’t look good,” he tells us. “It looks bleak.”“But there is some light at the end of the tunnel. That light is being radiated by the younger Palestinian generation. It’s a far more assertive generation, a far more united generation.”“I draw a lot of inspiration and courage from them,” Pappé continues, “and also hope that together with the amazing solidarity movement, they have the potential to challenge this powerful coalition of multinational corporations, security companies, military industries, and governments that support global Israel. I’ve never seen such a solidarity movement in history as we see now across the globe.”Subscribe for the full interview with Ilan Pappé on the alleged spread of antisemitism in the US and college campuses, the historical difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, his analysis of Hamas, and what needs to happen to end the occupation.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: CNN Declares Palestinian Civilian Death Ratio 'Tremendous'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:Award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy is such a scathing critic of Israel’s policies and outspoken defender of Palestinian human rights that he’s only narrowly escaped physical attacks, even needing to have a bodyguard. But the Haaretz columnist and author wasn’t always like this.He describes his former self as “a full member of the nationalistic religious orgy [of Israel]. We were all under the feeling that the whole project of Israel is in existential danger. We all felt that another Holocaust is around the corner.”So when Israel won its 1967 war on Palestine, he didn’t think of killed Palestinians and Israel’s occupation: “We felt that victory in 1967 was like a messianic miracle, and we were so grateful for this. We didn’t ask any questions. We didn’t see any Palestinians.”Levy was 14 at the time. And, as he realized years later, “totally brainwashed.”He is now one of a very small number of prominent Israeli voices speaking out against Israel’s assault on Gaza and its brutal occupation. Joining Useful Idiots from Tel Aviv, Israel, he shares what he sees happening in his country.“There are three things that let Israelis live in peace with the occupation,” he says. “The belief that they’re the chosen people. The belief that they’re victims. And the dehumanization of Palestinians.”He discusses how Israeli media spreads these three beliefs, and how Netanyahu and his far-right government exploit them to bomb hospitals and humiliate Palestinians on a daily basis without pushback.Levy sees the two state occupation as no longer possible. A one state of apartheid is the status quo and a one state with equal rights as the ideal, but an unlikely one for now: “I don’t see any hope from any direction. Israelis will not wake up one morning and say ‘oh this occupation, this apartheid, we don’t like it so much. Let’s put an end to it.’ This will never happen. It will only happen when Israel is punished for it. And this is not going to happen because the international community basically supports the occupation. The United States supports the occupation.”Subscribe for the full interview with Gideon Levy where he explains how young people in both the US and Israel view the war, the horrors he’s witnessed in the West Bank, Israel’s “Nazi proposals” and why the two-state solution is dead.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Democrat claims that voters LOVE GENOCIDEAnd 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:

Presidential candidate Cornel West and author Gabor Maté met for the first time this week to discuss the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza.“I don’t know about you,” Dr. Maté says to Dr. West, “but for me, what’s going on is one of the heaviest things, if not the heaviest thing, I’ve witnessed in my whole life. I don’t know how to compare tragedies, but there’s something about what’s going on right now that seems heavier and darker.”West responds: “When you watch precious human beings being literally killed, crushed, demeaned, degraded, day after day, it makes you think that this particular historical moment has a certain grimness and darkness that others don’t.”The two men use their complex histories with tragedy and suffering to analyze the horror of the current moment.“I’ve always felt that no evil would surprise me and no despair would paralyze me,” West continues, “because you and I know the history of the species.”But the conversation that stems from this is a much more hopeful one, where the scholars’ vast study of philosophy and history intertwine to create a message not of helplessness but of possibility.Hear the full conversation on how oppressed people create music of rebellion, their favorite philosophers, and a final message to take from the conversation: “Never again is not a tribal slogan. It’s a universal slogan. It applies to everybody.”This week’s special episode is free to everyone. We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving and we thank you for supporting Useful Idiots.Plus, catch this week’s Thanksgiving Throwdown: White House Triggered by “Genocide Joe” nicknameBecome a Useful Idiot for only $6 a month. Get extended episodes, Thursday Throwdowns, 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

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:When Rahma Zein, host of the podcast The Arab Narrative, confronted CNN’s Clarissa Ward on camera at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt over CNN’s biased neglect of Palestinians, the video went viral. More importantly, it exposed Western media’s complicity in Israel’s crimes against Gaza.“The Zionist movement has” influence “not only in major industries but with thought leaders, major politicians, and media outlets,” Zein says. “So who’s left to speak up for the Palestinians?”But can you really blame Clarissa Ward, Zein asks. “I shouldn’t really reprimand her, because the United States president came out and said that he saw beheaded children. So why should I reprimand a mediocre news anchor who is just a puppet of that?”Following the confrontation, Zein went on Piers Morgan to call out the US’s “sick relationship” with Israel. She breaks down the entire story here.Subscribe to watch the full interview with Rahma Zein where she debunks Israel’s malicious claims that the Al-Shifa hospital housed a Hamas command center, shares how it feels to be erased by western media for being an Arab woman, exposes the DNC police for attacking peaceful protesters, and sheds light on Israel’s covered-up history of attacking Jews: “I believe that Israel is one of the most antisemitic entities there ever was.”Important voices like Rahma’s are rarely heard on corporate media. Listen here for a new perspective on Israel’s assault on Gaza.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Sen. Chris Coons Throws Aaron Maté Off a Train 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 United States fully endorses Israel’s war crimes,” says Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “Because that’s what it is. When you switch off the water to two and a half million people, by the Geneva Convention that’s a war crime.”The economist, who shares a European perspective on the war, says that “the West has conspired to ensure a generalized massacre.”And the real question is “how much Palestinian blood is required to cleanse the hands of Europe?”As a European, Varoufakis tells us how his continent’s mix of guilt and cowardice are keeping the war fueled. “You have a situation where the European Union simply doesn’t exist anymore as a geopolitical entity, and therefore it simply mimics whatever is coming from Washington DC.”This wasn’t the case even twenty years ago, but today governments are too afraid to have their own positions. “Even if they secretly oppose what the United States is doing, European presidents and prime ministers are too scared to actually express these disagreements. And that is a major defeat of European democracy.”So for now, without faith in any government to do what’s right, Yanis Varoufakis encourages the people to take the streets.“I try to make the point that the protests in favor of Palestinians are also protests of solidarity with our Israeli and Jewish comrades who are suffering immensely under the apartheid regime of Netanyahu.”Subscribe for the full interview where Varoufakis shares his deep disappointment in Bernie Sanders, the nefarious reasons for NATO’s existence, the disaster that is the war in Ukraine, and a look at his new book Technofeudalism, which posits that capitalism actually ended over a decade ago.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: John Kirby has no tears and no red lines for Gaza, and Norm Finkelstein destroys his debate partner.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 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:“Have you been surprised at all at how extreme Biden has been in supporting Israel,” we asked Professor Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, “refusing to call for a ceasefire and downplaying the death toll?”“Short answer,” he responds. “No.”“I think that what the president said about the Palestinian death toll is absolutely despicable and unforgivable, and requires a public apology by the president himself. When you have, day after day after day after day, the administration harping on Israeli civilian casualties, and you have nine times the number of Palestinian civilian casualties, with the president of the United States disparaging the numbers, it is insulting, demeaning, and repugnant.”Khalidi continues on to explain that Biden’s actions are not just morally untenable, but politically as well.“He will lose the support of vast numbers of people. This administration has been beyond Trumpian in its furtherance of every position put forward by the Trump administration, without exception.” Khalidi predicts that if Biden stays on this track, he’ll not only lose the presidency, but also cost the Democrats the House.“So, was I surprised? No.”Subscribe to hear the full episode with Professor Khalidi where he responds to a recent Atlantic article claiming that Israel is not a settler colonial project, an important update on the occupied West Bank, and his final answer to the question:“What should we be fighting for right now?”Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Israel stuns former Israel lobbyist Wolf BlitzerAnd 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:“I am not anti-Israeli,” explains Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif, who was suspended from the legislature for 45 days after criticizing Israel’s “fascist assault” on Gaza. “The government is anti-Israeli. The government undermines the security and the well-being of the state and its citizens.”Cassif, who is Jewish and served in Israel’s military, goes on: “Because I stand with Israel, I stand against the government of Israel. Because I stand with Israel, I stand with the Palestinians.”Rational, empathetic voices like Ofer’s have become not only controversial in today’s political culture, but illegal.“There is now persecution of every and any voice which is in opposition to the war, to the assault on Gaza, or even expresses any sympathy for the children of Gaza. People who try to demonstrate are violently beaten by police.”And after the interview concluded, Ofer called us back to share an ominous breaking update: “Netanyahu and his thugs use the smokescreen of the war to impose a martial law on Israeli citizens, predominantly Palestinian ones: PROTESTS ARE PROHIBITED AND CAN NOW BE ANSWERED WITH LIVE AMMUNITION, workers and students are suspended and dissidents are persecuted for posts on the social network.“I plea to the world - supporting the Israeli government is not supporting Israeli people - it is supporting fascism, death and dictatorship. If you wish to help Israeli people in this dire time - support the peace movement, not the warmongers who waged a war against their own people!”Subscribe for the full interview with Ofer Cassif where he responds to Bernie Sanders’ refusal to call for a ceasefire, the only way to find a solution to this war, and his dire warning if we continue on this path:“We are on the verge of an international or even world war, and everyone is going to pay the price.”And after listening to the extended interview, we challenge you to find any US politician with half as much journalistic knowledge or bravery to criticize their own government as Ofer Cassif.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Guy is SO Over PalestineAnd 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 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:“Israeli society has always been held together by scotch tape. The scotch tape is falling apart,” says Miko Peled. And he would know. Miko is the son of one of Israel's highest ranking generals and the grandson of a signatory to Israeli independence. He was raised in Israel and served in its army. And he condemns Israel's "savage" attacks on Palestinians.He answers several questions: How was Hamas able to do what it did? Where was the Israeli army? Is the IDF prioritizing keeping the hostages alive or killing Hamas? And explains the history of Israel’s control over Gaza, how it led to the brutal massacre we’re witnessing today, and the way to end this war.“That really is the conversation: how we bring this to an end, for real. Not a ceasefire, but a complete end to the blockade, a complete release of Palestinian prisoners, immediate aid to Palestinians. And all this with no conditions.”He’s not stopping at just a reprieve from the bombings: “To the point that at the end of the day we bring the unconditional surrender of the apartheid state. That should be the main goal.”Subscribe for the full episode to hear Miko’s logical plan for achieving this, and the harsh reality Palestinians face until we do.“Between now and then, we can be certain that Palestinians are going to continue to pay a heavy price. And the world is silent.”The world is silent, for the Palestinians at least. In the US, the president, Congress, and media brazenly cheerlead the genocide, lamenting the deaths of only Israeli citizens, understanding that referring to Palestinians as “civilians” will get you in trouble.“One party explicitly rejects talking about Palestinian civilians and explicitly blames Hamas for whatever happens to them. The other party pays some lip service but doesn’t do anything. And that is American democracy.”Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Senator Chris Murphy (D–CT) believes anything Israel saysAnd 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 public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

This week’s interview with Refaat Alareer, Yumna Patel, and Muhammad Shehada:After Hamas’s attack in Israel on Saturday, the Israeli massacres of Palestinians in Gaza have skyrocketed. This genocidal ethnic cleansing has scarcely been reported by mainstream media at any time in its 50 year history, let alone at a time when western media and politicians openly support a religious war against Palestine. So we’re giving a platform to three Palestinian voices to share their story.We speak with Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian academic currently sheltering 15 children in his Gaza apartment, Yumna Patel, the Palestine news director for Mondoweiss, and Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian writer from Gaza.Their stories of bombings, murder, cruelty, and lies from the Israeli government and malicious rumors from US media and politicians are difficult to hear, but so important when they’re being silenced everywhere else.“The American public and the general public around the world is being sold a genocide,” they tell us. “We are being convinced through the rhetoric of Israeli politicians, the US president, and US state department spokespeople that Palestinians, specifically Gazans, are not human. They are trying to wipe Gaza off the map.”And while the deaths of Israelis must be covered and mourned, the West’s hypocrisy and double standard on the value of life is clear.“I have never seen the amount of profiles and interviews with the families of victims than I’ve seen of mainstream media interviewing these Israeli families. I have never seen this level of attention paid to one singular Palestinian.”Israeli children matter. Why don’t Palestinian children matter? “No attention is being paid to the killing of 270 children just in the span of three or four days.”Refaat, Yumna, and Muhammad share their frustration and disgust with “the fact that our government and the President of the United States is repeating dehumanizing genocidal language, repeating these unsubstantiated claims.”And sadly, we may not be able to hear their voices for long. Refaat, calling from Gaza with the sounds of bombs exploding in the background during the interview, warns that resources are running low. “But in a couple of days, maximum a week or two, if things don’t change, we’re looking at a total blackout, no coverage, no media, no internet. Not that Israel cares, and mainstream media is complicit.”Hear them speak, and share the interview to spread their message. At a dangerous time, we thank you for continuing to support Useful Idiots and our guests.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: US politicians call for religious war against PalestineAnd join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.For $6 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

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:Analyst Gordon Hahn has been covering the Ukraine conflict since long before Russia invaded, focusing on the West’s strategic efforts to use Ukraine as a proxy under the guise of defending its sovereignty.“You have to lie about everything,” Hahn explains, detailing how self-serving Western narratives became so successful. “You have to maintain that Putin is Hitler II.”But the real goal of the west, as independent journalists tirelessly report and US/NATO officials endlessly prove, has nothing to do with the Ukrainians. “The goal is eternal NATO expansion.”“It’s all got to do with the inability to make some kind of a compromise,” Hahn says. “It’s all or nothing. And it’s leading to a disaster. And the greatest sufferers are the Ukrainians.”Subscribe for the full interview with Gordon Hahn where he explains the western sabotage of the Ukrainian-Russian peace deal (and the tens of billions of dollars made from its collapse), the struggle to reach the people who believe the US really does care about Ukrainians, and how to end the war.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Speaker Trump to the Rescue?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 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:Norman Finkelstein, whose latest book is I’ll Burn that Bridge When I Get to It, returns to Useful Idiots with as much heretical bravado as ever: he’s coming out swinging.First, he’s dissecting the embarrassing Nazi celebration in Canada: the Orwellian push to have it erased from history, Trudeau’s fake apology, and the despicable claims that Zelensky, who speaks English and understands Ukrainian history, didn’t know that he was saluting a Nazi soldier.“When he [Zelensky] raised his hand,” Norman explains, “this Jew as we’re constantly told, he was lending himself to the Nazi cause.”Next, Norman’s talking about presidential candidate and celebrated leftist Cornel West. Norm explains he hadn’t read any of West’s books until this month when he prepped for an interview with the candidate. “I was dazzled,” Norm says. “He’s better than me!” The interview, which drops soon on Norman Finkelstein’s Podcast, will be a three-hour wide-ranging intellectual conversation. Norm gives us a preview.Subscribe (before prices rise on Oct 1!) to hear our full 90-minute interview where Norm shares his take on Cornel West’s candidacy, and we get into a long debate about Norm’s favorite pseudo-intellectual millionaire Ibram X Kendi.You’re not going to want to miss it.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: US Govt Shutdown threatens workers' salaries – but not Ukraine'sAnd join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.Katie’s award-winning documentary Commie Camp, about the legendary Camp Kinderland, is screening at the historic DCTV Firehouse Cinema at 87 Lafayette Street on October 4th at 6:30PM, followed by a Q&A with Katie, Kinderlander Judee Rosenbaum, and more surprise guests! You can buy tickets here.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:In the old world of journalism, reporters forced themselves through rounds of fact checks, dug through sources, interviewed every witness and expert they could find, and even then wouldn’t publish a story until they were absolutely sure of its veracity. And if all that failed and their story was wrong, they swallowed hard and published a correction. An embarrassing yet humbling check on the press that only added points to their credibility.That was the old world. The old world is dead.“Russian missile attack hits market in Ukraine, kills 16,” read headlines from every major news outlet. Weeks later, once the story had spread into the public consciousness, the New York Times quietly posted an update to the story: “Evidence suggests Ukrainian missile caused market tragedy.”The same happened with the evil Chinese spy balloon (later revealed to be a spy balloon that did no spying), the Nord Stream pipeline, and countless other stories in which the US media shaped the war instead of report on it.Journalist Bryce Greene joins Useful Idiots to shed light on the truth, break down the lies, debunk the corporate media. Subscribe to watch the full episode where Bryce explains the US path to peace (and the lies used to sabotage it), the extent of the corporate lies used to blame the missile strike on Russia, the terrifyingly weird English-speaking Ukrainian spokesperson who wants to “hunt down” Russian propagandists (which is extra scary when we’re constantly labeled as Putin puppets…), and how western media is shaping the Ukraine proxy war against Russia as a proxy for the larger proxy war against China.There’s a lot of lies, so let Bryce Greene be your tour guide through the truth.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Nikki Haley's Unhinged China RantAnd join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.Katie’s award-winning documentary Commie Camp, about the legendary Camp Kinderland, is screening at the historic DCTV Firehouse Cinema at 87 Lafayette Street on October 4th at 6:30PM, followed by a Q&A with Katie, Kinderlander Judee Rosenbaum, and more surprise guests! You can buy tickets here.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:Journalist Amanda Yee of Liberation News joins the show to break up some hardened American propaganda about the “forgotten” war in Korea and what’s actually going on behind the travel ban in North Korea, which Trump started and Biden has renewed each year since. This proves, once again, that despite running as the opposite of Trump, the one campaign promise that Biden has actually kept is the one he made behind closed doors to donors: "Nothing would fundamentally change." Even some of the most jaded skeptics of US propaganda still believe the misrepresentations about North Korea, and the travel ban makes it that much harder to see reality for ourselves. Luckily, Amanda Yee is sharing some first-hand accounts to shed light.She explains the painful family separations caused by Biden’s draconian ban and the untold horrors of the war the US wants us to forget. A war which never ended.Amanda also discusses the national security state’s selective, unprincipled and hypocritical war on independent organizations who dare to criticize U.S. foreign policy.Subscribe now (while the price is still low!) for the full interview with Amanda where we discuss the New York Times disinformation campaign to fuel fear of our “enemies” and the New Cold War with China.Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: NATO Chief Spreads “Pro-Putin Talking Points.” Find out why Rachel Maddow is so mad at Elon Musk, and hear Victoria Nuland say the quiet part out loud.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:Did you ever wonder what Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman would sound like if she was played by director and actor Werner Herzog? Or what Chris Christie would do if Trump ordered food for him that he was allergic to? Have you wondered what the German word is for a Brazilian spider bite that causes painful, hours-long erections? Do you know the world-record time for drinking 2-liters of soda? Can you guess how many buffalo wings Matt Taibbi has eaten in one hour? Or how many hugs two erotically-charged men can do in one minute? Did you ever wonder if hugs could be counted? Or if an act of love such as a hug can’t be quantified as there is so much more to a hug than a physical entanglement of arms, and that in the same way a competition for who can fall in love more times is a fleeting grasp at ordering the confusing nature of life, it is ultimately an impossible feat, and maybe the point of life isn’t to count but to live, so when you finally allow yourself the freedom of falling out of control instead of waiting indefinitely behind the curtains of a stage that only exists in your own mind, preparing to say the lines you wrote for yourself but know deep down you’ll never perform, when you finally let all that go and “embrace” the lack of control you realize you aren’t falling but flying?Did you ever wonder those things?If so, you’re in luck! Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper have all the answers while they celebrate three and a half years of Useful Idiots with a reunion episode, throwing it back to the four food groups, terrible media clips, a scary new censor, and as always, a whole lotta nonsense.Subscribe to watch the full episode where Matt and Katie do shrooms with Trump in a bowling alley and discuss the dystopian future of government censorship where the word transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us.Plus, watch the latest Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance."And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.Watch the full interview here:

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 constitution is just a sideshow at this point.”Censorship, no longer just a threat from the government but now from private tech corporations as well, has snowballed into dystopian size. And the scariest part about censorship? It hides itself. So it’s hard to know just how huge it really is.Which makes this an issue on a scale so large that the only team possibly fit to crack into its titanium shroud is the original Useful Idiots: Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. That’s right, Matt’s joining us for a two-week special. Buckle up.This week, we’re interviewing two journalists recently trampled by the wheels of big tech. First is Max Blumenthal, editor and founder of the Grayzone, which had a recent fundraiser frozen and withheld by GoFundMe “due to some external concerns.” GoFundMe, along with corporations like PayPal, has buried other independent news sites for speaking out against US war. But none as big as the Grayzone. Which means they can speak up and fight back. Tune in and join the fight.The second guest is Matt Orfalea, video editor and Racket News contributor, whose videos on Youtube have been deleted and demonetized for being “potentially harmful,” or for spreading election lies. The main video in question was simply a mashup of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump claiming that the 2016 and 2020 elections were stolen from them. No opinion, just documentation. Check out the video, it’s back up on Youtube but demonetized. You wouldn’t want such a dangerous video to make any money for its creator.Subscribe for the full interviews with Max and Orf where they explain the digital de-democratization of the world under the guise of a NATO proxy war, the terrifying new DIIA app which is creating a new digital passport, and Max Blumenthal’s grim prediction:As the power of corporations takes hold, “the only kind of activism that’s going to be allowed is activism that supports the state’s objectives.” It’s a new world model where transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us.Subscribe to watch the full episode below and support independent media at a dangerous time.Plus, watch the latest Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance."And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.Watch the full interview here:

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:After claims of fraud in the 2020 election and the rise of Trump’s pseudo-populist wing of the GOP, Sohrab Ahmari wrote Tyranny, Inc. In the book, the journalist and founding editor of Compact magazine gives a tour of our political economy from the point of view of ordinary people who faced private tyranny and paid the price for it.Private being the key word.Ahmari, even as a conservative columnist for the NY Post, can sometimes sound more leftist than some Congressional progressives.“Conservatives are quite used to thinking of government as the only potential source of coercion,” Ahmari tells us, “so the fact that a segment of the right was suddenly alert to what big tech could do to you, seemed to me an opening to say, ‘Hey, let me show you other kinds of private coercion which are less visible, but all the more insidious.’”Sohrab Ahmari’s in-depth reporting and bipartisan critiques emerge as some mix of conservative populism and Marxist theory. It’s a fascinating perspective that, in a world ruled by tech censorship and private coercion, is increasingly rare to hear anywhere other else than on Useful Idiots.Watch the full interview to hear his response to Jacobin excluding him from a left-right coalition because of his cultural views, Oliver Anthony’s controversial country song, the actual difference between his critique of capitalism and the leftist one, and the unprecedented support by the US so-called left of the military industrial complex and the Ukraine proxy war.Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance."And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Wilson every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.Watch the full interview here:

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:Professor Junaid Ahmad, director for the Center for Global Dialogue, joins Useful Idiots to shed light on a bombshell story that you may not have heard about. And you have western corporate media to thank for that.The Intercept released a secret Pakistan cable which documents US pressure to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. That was achieved in April 2022, when Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote. Since then, the Pakistani government has arrested Khan and banned him from the next election. Ahmad explains the consequences of the findings in the classified documents and shares one of the craziest quotes reported in the Intercept article: “All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, “if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.”So why did the US want Khan out? Because he didn’t follow the rules of western imperialism.In a speech, Khan responded directly to Western demands that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us? We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”Of course, such a statement is blasphemy under US rule, so Imran Khan was swiftly taken care of.Watch the full interview with Junaid Ahmad where he explains in depth what Khan believed as leader of Pakistan, how the regime change happened, and the next steps for the imprisoned prime minister to walk free.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow Save DemocracyAnd 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:Trump Indictment Season is officially in full swing, and corporate news, in their best attempt to give Trump as much free campaign coverage as possible, is covering it nearly 24/7. Whichever network you tune into, whether Fox News or MSNBC (and we sincerely hope you never tune into either), you’ll find panels with talking-head lawyers professing to know the exact legal implications of the indictment.As is our mission at Useful Idiots, we aim to be fundamentally opposite of corporate media in all ways. So accordingly, we admit to not mastering the legal implications of anything. Which is why Useful Idiots is hosting a proxy debate on the criminality of Trump’s actions around January 6.Congressional Dish host Jennifer Briney argues that Trump did in fact break the law, while writer and substacker Michael Tracey claims this indictment, like the others, is merely political.It’s a debate you could only get from independent media: respectful, evenly-matched, and honestly hard to choose a winning side. So cut the cable, tune into Useful Idiots, and let us know in the comments who wins you over. Did Trump break the law, or are we watching Russiagate 2.0?Subscribe to support independent media and watch the full debate below.Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "Livin' on a Prayer (for endless 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:“The likely outcome of the Vilnius summit,” Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, explains, “will be once again to dangle a never ending timetable for Kyiv’s admittance into the alliance.”As we progress further and further into the proxy war against Russia, Ukraine’s roadmap for joining NATO grows foggier and foggier. In 2008, Ukraine was given an explicit list of steps to complete in order to gain acceptance. Today, they’re told something else:“Ukraine can join NATO when allies agree and when certain conditions are met.”This purposefully vague promise seems to be the West’s way of pushing off Ukraine indefinitely while still making sure that they fight to the last Ukrainian. As Lieven says: “At the very least I’d say Ukraine is just as far away as it was in 2008. The case for Ukraine’s NATO membership is the zombie that won’t die.”At Responsible Statecraft, he writes of the danger NATO faces if they ever actually followed through on their promise: “The West will be committed to an endless strategy of arming and financing Ukraine against Russia, while praying that the United States remains fully committed to this and is not drawn away by more important domestic and international threats.”He adds: “For if America ever does pull back, NATO’s European members may find that the only thing more stupid than pulling a bear’s tail and running away is pulling its tail when you can’t run away.”Watch the full interview with Anatol Lieven where he explains how journalists have become part of the elite system they once reported on, the danger of Russophobia, and his fear that we’re heading towards World War III.Plus, check out this week’s Thursday Throwdown: MSNBC Celebrates Trump Indictment with 24/7 Campaign PromotionAnd 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: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: