For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full interview with Christian Parenti: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/will-the-left-stand-up-to-the-deep?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Democrats' Matt Taibbi Meltdown https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/democrats-matt-taibbi-meltdown?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Will the Left Stand Up to the Deep State?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No Episode This Week! See You Next Week!

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full interview with Glenn Diesen: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/europeans-protest-the-proxy-war?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: The Covid Lab Leak https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/the-covid-lab-leak?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Europeans Protest the Proxy War

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full interview with David Sirota: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/david-sirota-vs-pete-buttigieg?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Biden https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/brave-brave-brave-brave-sir-biden?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Sirota vs Pete Buttigieg

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Watch the full interview with Chris Hedges here: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/chris-hedges-rallies-for-a-left-right?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat
Rage Against the War Machine Rally on Feb 19: https://rageagainstwar.com/#home
Chris Hedges substack: https://chrishedges.substack.com/
“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 wa

Chris Hedges Rallies for a Left-Right Coalition Against War

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full interview with Professor Joshua Landis: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/us-sanctions-block-aid-to-earthquake?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”
Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.
“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”
But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:


(In case you missed it, they changed it from “Syria is not able to receive direct aid from many countries because of sanctions” to “The Syrian government tightly controls what aid it allows into opposition held areas.”) When the Times accidentally tells the truth, they can always be trusted to fix their mistake.

WaPo’s original opinion headline

Their fixed headline, hours later
The original WaPo headline implored “Don’t lift sanctions of Syra 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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

US sanctions block aid to earthquake-hit Syrians

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full interview with Matt Taibbi: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/matt-taibbi-exposes-russiagate-bots?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
﻿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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matt Taibbi Exposes Russiagate Bots

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Or find us on Locals at http://usefulidiots.locals.com
Click here for the full episode: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/how-to-be-human-again?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How to Be a Human Again

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with former CIA counterterrorism officer John Kiriakou: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-cia-whistleblower?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
After CIA officer John Kiriakou blew the whistle on US torture, no one in the CIA was arrested for their crimes. Except, of course, John Kiriakou.
John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. He served 23 months in prison as punishment for his opposition to the Bush administration’s torture program.
This week, he joins Useful Idiots to speak (freely this time) about the torture and war crimes of the US Government, the sickening purpose of Guantanamo Bay and its continuing crimes against humanity, and the hardest question of all:
Who’s worse – The CIA or the FBI?
Don’t worry, John’s got a lot of dirt on each. It’s one of the most jarring, sickening, revealing, scary, and funny episodes of Useful Idiots, which is why you’re probably going to want to watch…
…the extended interview, in which Kiriakou uncovers the CIA’s sadistic psychedelics testing, the hawks in the mainstream media who are gunning for war with China, and his last words spoken to Keith Olbermann and Alec Baldwin:
“Fuck you, Olbermann.” and “Fuck you, Baldwin.”
And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown on Hollywood's New "It" Couple: Volodymyr Seanpenskyy.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: GOP won't do real intel oversight

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with Shahid Buttar: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-force-the-vote-with?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Advocate, artist, lawyer, organizer, musician, and former politician Shahid Buttar joins Useful Idiots to explain why Democrats are failing. Why is he a former politician, you ask? Well after running a campaign against Nancy Pelosi and getting buried by racist attacks from liberals, Shahid realized a sad truth about politics:
“Politicians, as well as journalists and lawyers,” he told us. “Are all about careerism. People care about their careers more than the principles of their profession.” And so self-proclaimed non-racists like Pelosi use racist attacks against opponents of color, like Shahid and Nina Turner, to keep their claws sunk deep into power, shielding themselves from any review of their own anti-democratic voting records.
But Shahid doesn’t put all the blame on these power-hungry, corporate vultures for choosing power over human values: “It’s impossible not to in a fascist country.”
Shahid continues to explain how corporate Democrats cover up their power-hungry policy through distraction, claiming Donald Trump and January 6 are the real threats to democracy — all so that Americans are too beaten down from hearings to realize our government is busy overthrowing democracies around the world and spying on us at home.
Plus, watch the full interview to hear how Shahid got arrested for confronting former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: “Why are you above the law for perjury and mass surveillance while Eric Garner lies dead in the street?”
And catch yesterday’s Thursday Throwdown: Media Wants No $$ for Workers, More for FBI
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Force the Vote with Pelosi Challenger Shahid Buttar

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with Ukrainian Professor Ivan Katchanovski: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-ukrainian-scholar?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
﻿Ivan Katchanovski, Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist who teaches at the University of Ottawa, is exposing US media lies about the Ukraine proxy war. And, like many Useful Idiot guests, no one will report on his story.
This week, Katchanovski shares his research on the Maidan Massacre, a mass killing of Ukrainians protesting the Yanukovich government in February 2014. The US and opposition leaders blamed Yanukovich, triggered a coup and the ensuing civil war that radically escalated with Russia’s invasion eight years later.
But when Professor Katchanovski dug into video, witness testimony, and other evidence which reveals who really committed the massacre — including footage that CNN tried to bury — he was ignored by mainstream media for attempted disruption of the approved narrative.
But now he’s joining the Useful Idiots to tell us what really happened: the massacre, he argues, was carried out by pro-Maidan snipers.
Watch the full interview with Professor Katchanovski for his take on who committed the massacre, how the US media is covering it up, and that weird interview between David Letterman and Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
“We did a survey,” Zelenskyy told Letterman. “It showed that 98% of our country’s population today would rather stay without electricity and water as long as they are free from Russia.”
Ivan responds to that seemingly impossible statistic.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown on how our “free press” is really just US-state media.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ukrainian scholar calls out US media's lies about war

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full end of year special on Ukraine, Guantanamo Bay, and Meet the Press’s cringiest moments: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-useful-idiots-2022?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
2022 is nearly dead!
Last year in our year recap with Thomas Frank, we asked “WTF will happen in 2022?” While we predicted correctly some brutal Jan 6 hearings and a nightmare midterm year, none of us thought the biggest news of the year would be a proxy war in Ukraine.
So in our 2022 end of year special, Aaron and Katie deep dive on the latest in Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s Churchillian visit to Congress, Pelosi’s weird kiss, and all the insane politicians, generals, and corporate journalists who can’t seem to stop saying the quiet part out loud.
And now that the year is over, we’re asking you: WTF will happen in 2023? Let us know your craziest theories in the comments.
Subscribe for the full end of year special.
Plus, miss our full interview with Irish members of European parliament (and Useful Idiot rockstars) Claire Daly and Mick Wallace? We’re giving everyone the full extended interview for free.
It’s the Useful Idiots 2022 end of year special. Thanks for sticking with us all year, it’s been a wild ride. Let’s keep mourning and laughing into 2023.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Useful Idiots 2022 Special plus Claire Daly & Mick Wallace Unlocked

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with Miko Peled: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-far-right-israeli?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Miko Peled, author of “The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” is the son of an Israeli general and former family-friend of Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, he’s an anti-Zionist fighting for Palestinian rights.
He joins Useful Idiots to warn about Israel’s new far-right government, headed by Netanyahu and far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose positions give them newfound power over occupied Palestinians.
“The lives of Palestinians are going to be governed by two men who are dedicated more than anyone to the expulsion and terrorizing of all Palestinians,” Peled says.
“Palestinians are going to be looking back at the years leading up to this government as the good old days. This year has been a record year in terms of killing of Palestinians. But they’re going to be looking back at this year as the good old days. What is coming up is the worst that Palestinians have ever suffered.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Miko Peled on Israeli apartheid, US hypocrisy, and why we ignore Palestinians while funding billions in weapons for Ukraine.
Plus, watch our Thursday Throwdown where we say goodbye to CNN’s Barbara Starr, the Pentagon’s most aggressive cheerleader, and join the holiday Absurd Arena to give presents to this year’s suckiest politicians.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Far-Right Israeli Government is Most Extreme Yet

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with Luhansk Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/how-do-pro-russian-ukrainians-see?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
War in Ukraine did not start with Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Ukraine has been at civil war since 2014, when the US backed a coup to overthrow President Viktor Yanukovych. When the new post-coup government cracked down on ethnic-Russian Ukrainians and their Russian culture, Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region rose up in rebellion, leading to the creation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
Anna Soroka, joining the Useful Idiots from Ukraine, is the former Deputy Foreign Minister of the Luhansk People's Republic. She joins Useful Idiots to share what it’s like being on the other side of a civil war that has now escalated into a full-blown proxy war with Russia.
Sometimes discussions about war can become abstract, but it’s important to go “behind enemy lines” and hear from real people on the other side.
It’s a perspective that you don’t get to hear at all in the NATO states. Unless you follow shows like Useful Idiots.
Plus, watch our Thursday Throwdown where Biden completes his transformation into Trump as he kills Bernie's bid to stop the Saudi war on Yemen.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How Do Pro-Russian Ukrainians See the War?

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with Matt Kennard on the crimes against Julian Assange and the right to free speech: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-why-is-establishment?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“It’s a complete stitch up,” Matt Kennard, author and co-founder of Declassified UK, tells Useful Idiots about Julian Assange’s extradition case. “None of the rules of the game apply.”
Assange, who has been jailed and tortured for nearly a decade for releasing documents which shed light on the crimes of the US government, now faces an extradition trial teeming with corruption.
But after a crucial witness admitted to lying, the US government was caught plotting an assassination, and UK judges were revealed to have major conflicts of interest, the case is somehow still continuing on. “It doesn’t seem like anything can come out that will stop it.” Kennard says.
“That for me is the scariest thing. If certain powerful forces within the deep structure of our country want to get you, they can, and none of the principles we’re taught at school apply. They will get you and you will be ruined and the message will be sent that you can’t play at this level again.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Matt Kennard on the crimes against Julian Assange and the right to free speech, and why corporate media like the New York Times is suddenly backtracking its stance against the journalist.
Plus, Katie and Aaron deep dive into the Twitter Files and mainstream media’s vitriolic reactions to Matt Taibbi in this week’s Thursday Throwdown.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why is Establishment Media Finally Defending Julian Assange?

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview with locomotive engineer Michael Paul Lindsey and host of Working People Maximillian Alvarez: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-union-joe-biden?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
﻿Congress and Joe Biden are pushing through a contract backed by the rail companies and rejected by workers. Michael Paul Lindsey, a locomotive engineer for Union Pacific, and Maximillian Alvarez, editor in chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, join us to explain why this standoff is a dangerous step backward for all working people.
“The rail carriers are going to take it as a sign that they can keep doing what they’re doing and we are all going to be worse off for it.” For the rail workers, this has included denying even a single sick day.
“Gradually over the years they got tighter and tighter and stingier until it became you’re straight up asking for permission. They believe that they own a right to your life 24/7.”
And ‘Union Joe’ Biden, who calls himself a pro-labor president, continues to side with the companies.
“This is what happens when the reigning philosophy is to eliminate the cost of treating your workers like human beings. If you treat workers like faceless meatbags and no one stops you, you can exploit the shit out of them.”
And corporate media, doing what it does best, all but blames the workers, warning viewers that a rail strike could mean economic catastrophe and cripple the economy — ignoring the crippling conditions the workers face.
During the interview, news broke that a Congressional proposal for seven sick days, a meek bill that would do the bare minimum to help workers, would fail.
Michael Paul, who’s worked 17 years for the rail industry, laments: “Anyone who works for a living just lost ground on better pay and benefits. You lost today.”
So how do we fight for workers’ rights?
“This is such a systemic problem for working people and we cannot rely on politicians to just bequeath us some sort of solution to this. Working people need to band together and assert their needs as an independent working class.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Michael Paul and Max.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown on how the US decides to censor itself (but only when it accidentally tells the truth).
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘Union Joe’ Biden sells out rail workers

Click here for Part 2 with Norm Finkelstein: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/norm-finkelstein-part-2-ill-burn?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Head to our homepage for the brand new part 2 of our 2-hour interview with Norman Finkelstein.
If you heard the free version of Part 1 on Nov 11, the interview continues at 28:50.
In Part 2 of the interview, Norman X Finkelstein previews his new book, "I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It," which unleashes his fiery analysis on identity politics and President Obama. To write it, he first had to do some mandatory reading from the experts in those fields.
“I felt in order to write [the book],” Norm tells us, already exasperated, “I should sit down and read this new leftist cancel culture. So I sat down, I read Ta-Nehisi Coates, I read Kimberley Crenshaw, I read Ibram X Kendi, I read Robin DiAngelo, and it’s impossible not to conclude that this stuff is intellectually vacuous and worthless.”
But it isn’t meaningless in today’s politics. Far from it: “My conclusion was that identity politics is fundamentally a weapon of the Democratic party to derail, deflect, and diffuse a radical class-based politics.”
Norm, a classical scholar who understands Left history like the back of his hand, shares proof of his analysis when he quotes Leon Trotsky, who “talked about all these people who pretend to be radical, but when a moment of truth comes, you see their real colors.”
“I felt that moment of truth came with the Bernie Sanders campaign. Crenshaw, Coates, Angela Davis, all these people went out and started to attack Bernie Sanders. They all, in the moment of truth, backed the Democratic party establishment and sought to derail and discredit the Bernie Sanders candidacy.”
He goes on, even more fired up here, to take down the one politician who is so brazen to flaunt that he won an election by standing for nothing, the “hollow vessel” known as Barack Obama. Norm’s taking no prisoners, and you’re not going to want to miss it.
It’s Part 2 of Norm Finkelstein on Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unlocked: Norm Finkelstein Part 1 – "I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It"

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-inside-the-ukraine?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Journalist Kit Klarenberg’s latest article at the Grayzone, “FTX partnership with Ukraine is latest chapter in shady Western aid saga,” sheds new light on the money-grabbing schemes emerging from the Ukraine proxy war.
The report details how Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, the crypto exchange that saw its valuation implode from $32B to $0 in a single day, used a Ukraine fundraiser to raise $60 million from donors. This was followed by the mass selloff of FTX currency and a declaration of bankruptcy from the scam company. This raises the question: where did the money for Ukraine go?
Kit Klarenberg joins the Useful Idiots with the scoop.
He, along with his fellow Grayzone writers, has been the subject of multiple attacks for uncovering stories like this and his other new piece: “Leaked documents: British spies constructing secret terror army in Ukraine.” It seems that when government officials and the corporate media don’t want the truth uncovered, they don’t argue against the story but make personal attacks against the writer as character assassination.
And sadly, it works all too often.
One such corporate official, Useful-Idiot-favorite of Scary Poppins fame Nina Jankowicz, went after Klarenberg on Twitter. Kit describes the online beef in the extended episode. (turns out we can’t see those tweets because…)


Subscribe to hear the full interview, where Klarenberg reveals plots from UK operatives to blow up Ukrainian bridges, more Western destruction of peace talks, and how the US uses Britain to spread propaganda.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Plus, catch our Thursday Throwdown on the near-nuclear Armageddon, Trump’s big announcement, and Aaron getting canceled by Olena Zelenska.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inside the Ukraine-FTX Connection

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the extended interview with Norm Finkelstein: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-norm-finkelstein?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Norman “X” Finkelstein returns to Useful Idiots, fired up and with a scathing critique of Bernie Sanders and The Squad.
He begins with a definition of radicalism and The Left, citing the writing of Rosa Luxemburg: “The whole job of The Left is to constantly point out the conflict of interest between the ruling elite, the capitalist class, and yourself. To constantly point out: ‘Their interests are not your interests. Don’t be fooled.’”
Historically, he says, Bernie Sanders has upheld this left tradition, calling out the crooks who steal your money.
But when it came to Ukraine, “the bunch of crooks metamorphosed into a band of angels. You’re telling me the same people who are cheating you day in and day out, stealing your wealth, stealing your labor, those same people are suddenly heartbroken by what’s happening to the Ukrainian people?”
Norm does not pull any punches in his assessment of The Squad and Sanders:
“The day the squad and Bernie voted for war credits for Ukraine, that whole progressive enterprise turned into a rotting corpse.”
Plus, subscribe to hear the full interview where Norm dissects the midterm election results, the Israel election, and the weaponization of identity politics.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Norm Finkelstein Takes Down Bernie and the Squad

For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full interview: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-leak-us-government?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
﻿“This isn’t a Biden story. It’s not a Trump story either. This is a national security state story.”
This week Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang at The Intercept broke a huge story: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation. Ken joins Useful Idiots to share how he uncovered the bombshell revelation, what it tells us about our powerful security state, and his predictions for the dark future of information censorship.
The story, which reveals collusion between tech companies and the US government, massive CIA incompetence, and Orwellian levels of surveillance, is not a partisan issue, Klippenstein argues. It’s an issue of national security.
And yet looking at the headlines from corporate media following The Intercept’s publishing, there was immediate political spin.
The Washington Post told its readers that only conservatives would “go after DHS counter-disinformation work,” which means good Democrats should celebrate speech censorship. Meanwhile, as Ken writes in his story, Republicans claim we’ve defeated disinformation by taking down Biden’s disinformation governance board, ignoring that the same DHS tactics happened under Trump.
“It’s crammed into this partisan framework,” he explains, “that doesn’t reflect the reality that when someone’s in power they tend not to care about free speech.”
And the scariest part, Ken tells us, “this is not formalized in statute. There's no law saying ‘we're going to create the disinformation team.’ They can do this administratively without sign off from Congress. And they probably have beyond what I'm able to report because I'm only able to get details that my sources have access to. We don't know what else might exist.”
It’s a huge story that, as with most issues you see on Useful Idiots, is dangerously underreported. Subscribe to hear the full interview with Ken Klippenstein as he shares the government secrets we know about and what still remains covered up.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper

Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper

Get Started

Download the App