Episodes
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For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Sam Harris thinks Nazis are better than Hamas https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/sam-harris-thinks-nazis-are-better?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
After several connection issues, we were unfortunately unable to record our interview this week. Here is our brand new Food Groups plus the previously-paywalled section of our Jeffrey Sachs interview:
“Biden’s frustrated, because someone told him he was president, and then he found out that it’s actually President Netanyahu who determines US policy.”
This is how Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of economics at Columbia University, sees the “pathetic” administration. “The truth is the Israel lobby is very powerful. Netanyahu has gotten his way on every single thing. If the US is actually going to try to have a US foreign policy, that would be something new.”
But what about The Call, which the White House rushed to leak, where Biden supposedly urged Netanyahu to reach an immediate ceasefire? Well, once Netanyahu finishes “laughing off” anything said on this call, there’s not likely to be any change. Because the United States doesn’t have to convince Israel of anything.
“All it has to do is stop providing munitions. Biden can say ‘the munitions stop, period.’ That’s what an immediate ceasefire is. We don’t have to convince the Israeli government, we have to stop arming the war. That’s all.”
Biden is still pushing votes in Congress to arm Israel with fighter jets, weapons, and money. But while we at Useful Idiots have focused on Biden’s storied career of obsession with Israel, Sachs disagrees on what Biden’s true motive is. He says it’s not a deep, emotional attachment to Israel.
“I think he’s got a deep, emotional attachment to becoming president. And he determined early on that never show light with the Israel lobby and someday you might grow up to be president. I don’t think Biden has too many deep attachments to public policy. This was the politics necessary to get him to the presidency.”
But then he found out “being president isn’t as good as being prime minister of Israel. That’s the part that frustrates him. He found out it doesn’t have that much power for the same reason he towed the line for forty years.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Jeffrey Sachs on the US’s disastrous wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the upcoming wars with Iran and China, and the recent mania around TikTok.
00:00 Aaron at the Knicks game
04:39 Nancy Pelosi works for Putin??
08:30 AZ Republicans pray in anti-choice tongues
11:27 John Bolton reveals who he's voting for in 2024
13:32 Testicles stabbed by what??
15:55 Our guest mixup
18:31 Jeffrey Sachs on Biden's call with Netanyahu
26:34 US troops in Taiwan
29:24 TikTok mania
31:48 $61 billion to Ukraine
41:15 NYT admits Ukraine proxy war is a failure
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Click here for the full interview with Jeffrey Sachs: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/jeffrey-sachs-biden-is-a-miserable?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: CNN says Israel killed food workers because of workflow breakdown https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/cnn-says-israel-killed-food-workers?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“Biden’s frustrated, because someone told him he was president, and then he found out that it’s actually President Netanyahu who determines US policy.”
This is how Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of economics at Columbia University, sees the “pathetic” administration. “The truth is the Israel lobby is very powerful. Netanyahu has gotten his way on every single thing. If the US is actually going to try to have a US foreign policy, that would be something new.”
But what about The Call, which the White House rushed to leak, where Biden supposedly urged Netanyahu to reach an immediate ceasefire? Well, once Netanyahu finishes “laughing off” anything said on this call, there’s not likely to be any change. Because the United States doesn’t have to convince Israel of anything.
“All it has to do is stop providing munitions. Biden can say ‘the munitions stop, period.’ That’s what an immediate ceasefire is. We don’t have to convince the Israeli government, we have to stop arming the war. That’s all.”
Biden is still pushing votes in Congress to arm Israel with fighter jets, weapons, and money. But while we at Useful Idiots have focused on Biden’s storied career of obsession with Israel, Sachs disagrees on what Biden’s true motive is. He says it’s not a deep, emotional attachment to Israel.
“I think he’s got a deep, emotional attachment to becoming president. And he determined early on that never show light with the Israel lobby and someday you might grow up to be president. I don’t think Biden has too many deep attachments to public policy. This was the politics necessary to get him to the presidency.”
But then he found out “being president isn’t as good as being prime minister of Israel. That’s the part that frustrates him. He found out it doesn’t have that much power for the same reason he towed the line for forty years.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Jeffrey Sachs on the US’s disastrous wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the upcoming wars with Iran and China, and the recent mania around TikTok.
00:00 Intro
00:41 The Four Food Groups of News
21:27 Jeffrey Sachs interview
22:22 How to end four wars
27:20 Kicked off MSNBC
30:47 Blocked by the New York Times
35:51 US coups
39:21 Biden's war in Ukraine
45:26 Israel wars with Iran
47:32 What is US hegemony
54:35 Biden's ceasefire call with Netanyahu
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Missing episodes?
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Click here for the full interview with Norm Finkelstein: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/norman-finkelstein-un-ceasefire-resolution?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: MSNBC's Hypocritical Meltdown Over Ronna McDaniel's Hiring https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/msnbcs-hypocritical-meltdown-over?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Israel is confronting a legitimation crisis, political scientist and prolific author Norman Finkelstein observes, as international pressure on Israel grows from both global protesters and the UN.
He flashes back to before the current war for context: “Another war was inevitable, senior Israeli officials observed in 2016. We cannot conduct a constant war of attrition. Therefore, the next conflict has to be the last conflict.”
This conflict will be the last one. They’re not going to mow the lawn again, Norm explains. They’re going to extirpate every blade of grass from Gaza.
“It’s not about Hamas,” he says, shedding light on Israel’s real plan to solve the Gaza question. “It’s about the refusal on the part of the people of Gaza to accept the fate that has been meted out to them by the state of Israel to languish and die in a concentration camp.”
That’s the dark part, but Norm also gives his reason why we can’t give up.
“During the Iraq War, many young people concluded in despair that here are the largest anti-war demonstrations in world history and nonetheless the Cheney-Rumsfeld administration goes ahead with the war in Iraq. That to me is a naive understanding of how formidable and concentrated the power we’re up against is. It’s a very long battle.”
But though it’s hard to see, the protests are working: “The pressures on Biden gradually accumulate and accumulate until they reach the proverbial critical mass and have a real political impact.
“You’re not going to see it. You’re not going to see the connection between your demonstration in your town square and the abstention in the UN Security Council, but it’s there. And so we should always remember not to despair.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Norman Finkelstein where we discuss Bernie Sanders’ recent comments on Israel and Golda Meir, the history of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, and what comes next in this genocide.
00:00 Intro
00:39 The Four Food Groups of News
12:29 Norman Finkelstein interview
13:12 UN Security Council ceasefire resolution
20:43 Why did the US let it pass?
31:14 Biden vs Netanyahu?
52:57 Bernie Sanders on Israel
53:32 Katie tells Norm a joke
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For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: US Politicians Ban TikTok to Save Free Speech https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/us-politicians-ban-tiktok-to-save?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Preorder Karina N. González’s new children’s book “Churro Stand” here: https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/churro-stand_9781951836955/
Our full, unpaywalled interview with John Mearsheimer from 02.23.24:
Professor John Mearsheimer, whose political analysis predicted today’s horrors in Ukraine and Palestine, joins Useful Idiots to give his take on what’s next in the world’s biggest wars.
And since he’s been largely excluded from corporate media for his dissenting views, it’s more important than ever to get his word out.
“What you have here is a real disjuncture between what the elites think and what the publics think,” he says of the two conflicts, in what is already a clear affront to the narratives of elitist western media. “There are recent polls produced by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Quincy Institute that show that only 10% of Europeans and 12% of Americans think that Ukraine can win the war.”
And when it comes to Israel, Mearsheimer explains that US policy is even further from what the people want. It’s not the voters who have a say, and even Congress (as pro-Israel as they are) isn’t in control: “I believe that 90% of it is accounted for by the [Israel] lobby.”
Professor Mearsheimer deep dives into each war: he explains why the US tanked Ukraine’s peace talks to further instigate Russia and what he would do now if he was in Biden’s or Putin’s position. He also delves into the influence of the Israel lobby and how Biden has given impunity to Israel’s killing Gaza killing spree.
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For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.comWatch this week's Thursday Throwdown: US Politicians Ban TikTok to Save Free Speech https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/us-politicians-ban-tiktok-to-save?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web“This propaganda is a weapon to kill Palestinians.”The New York Times, the US government’s most prestigious arm of state media, has continued to churn out headlines accusing Hamas of a systematic and deliberate campaign of sexual violence as a weapon of war. An independent UN investigation, as well as countless journalists and primary sources, has shown these claims to be completely evidence-free. Even factions within the Times have refused to go along with the story.This has not stopped the paper of record.Throughout history, rape accusations have been a tool of dehumanization. Claims of sexual violence have been used to justify colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, and the West’s violent regime change in Libya.“The bottom line,” explains guest Ali Abunimah, editor of the Electronic Intifada, “is we are now well into the sixth month of this genocide which is partly justified on the basis of these allegations and other claims of atrocities that have turned out to be false. To this day, not a single specific victim, living or dead, has been identified. We keep hearing the refrain ‘believe Israeli women;’ to this date there is not a single Israeli woman who has come forward to say that she was a victim of this kind of assault.”So where are these rumors coming from? After the lies were debunked by journalists, a UN report was published though as it admits it was not “investigative in nature.” Ali explains, “What the UN report did was simply to compile allegations from the Israeli military.”Even this biased non-investigation debunks specific claims of violence and proves that sexual violence was not systemic, and yet you’d never know that from the way legacy media is covering the report. But while journalists like Ali Abunimah are kept busy debunking these dehumanizing lies, Israel’s assault on Gaza continues. And the independent journalists who are busy covering that are putting themselves in serious danger to shed light on the genocide. Ali reports that four journalists from the Electronic Intifada have been killed and many more are in daily danger.“People do not know from hour to hour if they will live or die.”Hear and share the important voice of Ali Abunimah and the reporting of the brave journalists at the Electronic Intifada. Your support of independent media makes a difference.00:00 Intro02:59 The Four Food Groups of News16:20 Ali Abunimah interview16:51 Claims of sexual violence on Oct 721:29 New York Times LIES26:42 Source revealed: the Israeli government35:52 Israel can't keep its story straight45:35 Hillary Clinton and the history of spreading these lies50:19 Israeli officials in US media55:41 Digging into the dodgy NYT story1:06:13 How the justify the genocide1:17:41 Dems pivot on NetanyahuLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Click here for the full interview with George Galloway: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/george-galloway-returns-to-office?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
See Katie LIVE TONIGHT in-person or on Zoom: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/laughs-for-good-tickets-793162168397
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: "F you!" – Morning Joe gets desperate https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/f-you-morning-joe-gets-desperate?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“This is for Gaza!” announced the veteran British politician George Galloway in his victory speech, shocking the UK establishment with his win in Rochdale to rejoin the country’s parliament nearly forty years after his first election. He addressed his words to Kier Starmer, the leader of the UK Labour Party: “You will pay a high price for the role that you have played in enabling, encouraging, and covering for the catastrophe in occupied Palestine.”
Galloway explains that the parties in the UK aren’t much different than the Democrats and Republicans: you have Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party, who send weapons to Israel and prolong the proxy war in Ukraine, and then you have Starmer and the Labour Party, who are in complete lockstep.
After Biden waited until the very end of his State of the Union address to even mention the crisis in Gaza and Trump recently called for Israel to finish the job, the Uniparty is alive and well in both our countries.
And like everyone brave enough to speak out against the War Party and its genocide in Gaza, Galloway gets accused by good narrative-following Twitter users of spreading hate speech. However they, and the entire UK media, were largely silent when George was viciously assaulted by a pro-Israel supporter. He describes the harrowing attack and shares the origin story of how it led to his iconic hat.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with MP George Galloway on his relationship with former Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn, the immediate goals of the Workers Party, and the smears and lies that he most wants to debunk.
Thank you for supporting independent media.
00:00 Intro
03:13 The Four Food Groups of News
19:51 Something funny
22:00 George Galloway interview
27:53 Rishi Sunak is MAD
31:23 The Hat origin story
34:50 Spanking Kier Starmer
38:27 Running to help Gaza
44:55 UK's role in Ukraine
48:04 BREAKING: Leak from Germany
52:05 Jeremy Corbyn
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Click here for the full interview with Chas Freeman: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/biden-is-a-senile-war-monger-veteran?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: CNN Melts Down Over Uncommitted Voters https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/cnn-melts-down-over-uncommitted-voters?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“Our foreign policy is diplomacy free.”
As he watches the escalating crises in our world today, this is the main takeaway for Chas Freeman, who, as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, knows a thing about diplomacy.
“It’s a lot cheaper and more effective to sit down and talk to someone than to pull a gun on them and shoot them,” he says. “But that’s what we seem to have substituted for our normal course of diplomatic interaction.”
Freeman explains the leading cause of forever wars: “There's nobody quite as bloodthirsty as a civilian with no experience of war.” As shown in the episode thumbnail above (side note: you know it’s a bad crew if the most likable character in the picture is Matthew Miller), the warmongers in charge of foreign policy are all civilians. When the top US general Mark Milley called for peace talks in Ukraine, it was these bad actors who shut it down.
“The military know that they can die in a war, that their comrades will die,” says Freeman. “They know that you should never enter a war without figuring out first how you're going to end it, on what terms, and with whom.” But the ‘leaders’ we do have never had to fight. “Civilians typically define no end state, have no war termination strategy, which is why we get forever wars.”
And the future only looks bleaker.
“Here we have an election which is between someone who is widely regarded as a senile war monger and somebody who has been correctly diagnosed as a malignant narcissist.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Chas Freeman on why the protest vote against Biden in Michigan was “very significant,” how the New York Times has been complicit in the information war, the main similarity between the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza (bet you can guess it), and the main difference between the genocide in Israel and the one in South Africa:
“South Africa was on the verge of having a race war but it never had one. Israel is having a race war.”
Freeman’s important voice makes this an episode of Useful Idiots you’re not going to want to miss. Subscribe now to hear the full interview and support independent media.
00:00 Intro
00:51 The Four Food Groups of News
08:49 Chas Freeman interview
09:29 Uncommitted shocks Biden
14:01 Our foreign policy is diplomacy-free
20:33 Does Israel have a right to exist?
23:43 Israel vs South Africa
28:08 Aaron Bushnell
33:23 Has this ever happened before?
36:47 Palestine vs Ukraine
41:19 Diplomats kill peace in Ukraine
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Click here for the full interview with John Mearsheimer: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/insanity-john-mearsheimer-on-the?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Nancy Pelosi needs Russiagate Detox https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/nancy-pelosi-needs-russiagate-detox?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Professor John Mearsheimer, whose political analysis predicted today’s horrors in Ukraine and Palestine, joins Useful Idiots to give his take on what’s next in the world’s biggest wars.
And since he’s been largely excluded from corporate media for his dissenting views, it’s more important than ever to get his word out.
“What you have here is a real disjuncture between what the elites think and what the publics think,” he says of the two conflicts, in what is already a clear affront to the narratives of elitist western media. “There are recent polls produced by the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Quincy Institute that show that only 10% of Europeans and 12% of Americans think that Ukraine can win the war.”
And when it comes to Israel, Mearsheimer explains that US policy is even further from what the people want. It’s not the voters who have a say, and even Congress (as pro-Israel as they are) isn’t in control: “I believe that 90% of it is accounted for by the [Israel] lobby.”
Professor Mearsheimer deep dives into each war: he explains why the US tanked Ukraine’s peace talks to further instigate Russia and what he would do now if he was in Biden’s or Putin’s position. He also delves into the influence of the Israel lobby and how Biden has given impunity to Israel’s killing Gaza killing spree.
Subscribe for the full interview for his full analysis and predictions on Israel’s assault on Gaza.
00:00 Intro
00:53 The Four Food Groups of News
22:17 Professor John Mearsheimer interview
23:17 Schools of political science thought
26:23 Is Ukraine losing?
29:26 What does Putin want?
38:47 Who's the real puppet?
44:07 Why does the US want war with Russia?
51:21 Western leaders screaming the quiet part
59: 42 When will the truth come out?
1:03:43 Gaza and US support for Israel's assault
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For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: AOC calls Genocide Joe "the most successful US president" https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/aoc-calls-genocide-joe-the-most-successful?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For 30 years, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert has risked his life to give medical care to Palestinians, performing surgeries, training medical students, and supporting their renowned healthcare system. But in their most recent assault, Israel banned Dr. Gilbert from entering Gaza.
“This is the politics of elimination,” Dr. Gilbert tells us. “Israel is the only nation on Earth who has a military strategy to attack, to kill, and to dismantle civilian hospitals.”
Forced to watch the unfolding tragedy from afar, Gilbert struggles to believe the horrors he’s seeing. “It is such an avalanche of human suffering that it is almost incomprehensible. And it’s all done with full will, planning, dedication. It is a 100% man-made disaster, designed to achieve exactly the goals that they have achieved: to maim and destroy Palestinian society.”
What should have led to a huge uproar has instead been tolerated and even encouraged by Western politicians and media outlets, who have laundered false claims about militant hideouts at Palestinian hospitals.
But while the genocide of Palestinians has only just broken through to mainstream consciousness, Dr. Gilbert explains that none of this is new.
“Israel is going against absolutely every international law aimed at protecting civilian hospitals. This is unprecedented, but I’d like to add that for us who have been working with the Palestinians and their healthcare for many years, it’s not a new feature. The Israelis have always been attacking healthcare. In last year’s report from WHO, they reported 600 attacks on healthcare in the last two years.”
And in the latest assault on Gaza, there have been “hundreds and hundreds” more. “We’ve seen attacks in the West Bank where they even dress up as doctors and kill patients in their beds.”
Gilbert gives his scathing post-mortem: “This is a historical low point in human history. This enormous collapse of western morality and principles. We’re back to the jungle.”
Hear the full, unpaywalled interview with Mads Gilbert, and listen to the end for his message on how to help. “We can all do our part: write a poem, sing a song, participate in a demonstration, write a letter to your politician. Take part in history because we need to change history now.”
He finishes, solemnly: “What you are doing now, or what you are not doing now, is what you would have done, or not done, during the Holocaust.”
00:00 Intro
5:55 The Four Food Groups of News
20:57 Dr. Mads Gilbert interview
22:13 Israel warns of new hospital attack
27:35 Stories of killed doctors
40:34 Israeli doctors sign letter to BOMB MORE HOSPITALS
55:13 Israeli protesters block humanitarian aid
1:00:58 Israel shuts of water
1:09:13 Answering Israeli arguments
1:23:40 Rafah update
1:29:01 HOW TO HELP
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Click here for the full interview with Dennis Kucinich: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/dennis-kucinich-takes-on-the-war?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Tucker Carlson's Putin interview enrages MSNBC https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/tucker-carlsons-putin-interview-enrages?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Mayor, Congressman, and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is making his triumphant return to Useful Idiots. Oh, and also to Congress.
After serving as an Ohio Representative for more than 15 years until 2013, Kucinich has been out of politics for over a decade. And after watching his country decline both internationally and domestically, the veteran lawmaker and peace advocate realized that his service is needed once again.
“We have to consciously evolve in our politics as a nation to recognize that human unity is the underlying truth of our existence,” he says. “It’s about time that we called for a ceasefire, we gotta make sure that people aren’t paying another $97,000 out of their pockets for the next war.”
Homelessness rates are at an all time high and half of Americans can’t afford their rent, but instead of fixing anything, Congress is sending all of our money to the military.
“The sons and daughters of America are being sacrificed in unnecessary wars,” Kucinich says. “Their service is honorable. But the people who sent them there? Not honorable.”
Which is why he’s running against Rep. Max Miller (just wait until you hear this war monger boast about turning Gaza into a parking lot) to rejoin Congress as an Independent.
“People are horrified about the direction the world’s going in, and I’m stepping forward as a voice of sanity, common sense, and a willingness to say the obvious: war is stupid!”
Subscribe to hear our full discussion with Dennis Kucinich, and if you want to help kick a psychopath out of Congress and replace him with someone fighting for peace, you can support Dennis’ campaign here.
00:00 Intro
00:27 The Four Food Groups of News
17:24 Dennis Kucinich interview
19:16 Psychopath Max Miller
23:51 Why he's running for Congress
27:31 Homeless as a child
35:27 What can a member of Congress actually achieve?
40:40 $$$ to Israel and Ukraine
44:29 What the US SHOULD be doing
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For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Morning Joe wants to play Battleship with Iran https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/morning-joe-wants-to-play-battleship?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
In early January, a former Israeli Foreign Ministry official said “It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA. This destruction must begin immediately.”
A few weeks later, UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, had its funding cut after Israel accused 12 of its more than 30,000 employees of involvement in Oct. 7th (its since reduced the number of alleged offenders to six — half the original amount). Their purported evidence came mostly from “interrogations” of Palestinian prisoners — aka, most likely torture. The Biden administration admitted that it hadn’t corroborated Israel’s claims, but nonetheless announced a suspension of US funding for UNRWA. Other countries, including Germany and Canada, have followed suit.
Former UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness joins the show to refute Israel’s claims. “Just as UNRWA is being held up to be accountable,” he says. “I think we have to hold the donors up to accountability and ask: ‘What did Israel give you?’ and ‘Did you independently verify it?’”
Antony Blinken himself told the press: “We have not independently verified this evidence but we think it’s very credible.”
Chris asks: “How would you know it’s credible if you haven’t independently investigated?”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called for ending the agency in yet another sign that the move was political. “UNRWA’s mission has to end,” he said. “UNRWA is self-perpetuating in its desire to keep alive the Palestinian refugee issue.”
So the state which is lobbying thousands of munitions every day, including 2,000-pound bombs, is accusing an unarmed refugee agency of perpetuating the conflict?
Chris argues that the opposite is true. “UNRWA wants nothing more than to go out of business. And UNRWA goes out of business when the refugees are granted full dignity, human development, prosperity, justice, and accountability in the context of a just and durable solution.
Someone who is working hard to achieve this goal is the founder of HEAL and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund Steve Sosebee. He shares stories of the many heroes and losses he has encountered in his thirty years working in Palestine.
He also shares a way to help.
“Just to see their entire lives destroyed is very, very saddening and I think all of us have a responsibility to help rebuild and show them love and compassion and give them opportunities to heal. That’s what my goal is for the rest of my life.”
Hear these important voices share their messages in this unpaywalled Useful Idiots double header.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Morning Joe wants to play Battleship with Iran
00:00 Intro
1:51 The Four Food Groups of News
22:43 Chris Gunness interview
25:12 UNRWA funding cut
35:44 Netanyahu wants UNRWA ended
45:06 Are the allegations true?
52:51 Steve Sosebee interview
55:08 Genocide of children
1:03:58 Story of Palestinian child
1:09:29 Israeli doctors call for more bombing
1:13:08 HOW TO HELP
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Click here for the full interviews with Asa Winstanley and Maoz Inon: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/extended-episode-son-of-israeli-victims?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Adam Schiff mourns the genocide he's supporting https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/adam-schiff-mourns-the-genocide-hes?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“I see the government of Israel as accountable for October 7th.”
Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon lost both of his parents on October 7th. And while many Israelis who didn’t lose anyone want increased bloodshed, Maoz’s calls for peace show compassion and bravery.
“It’s very difficult in Israeli society to speak out right now, and he’s one of the few people doing it. He’s not letting his tragedy become weaponized to create even more tragedies.”
While it’s still unclear which side ultimately killed his parents, Maoz says it doesn’t matter:
“Maybe you’re right, maybe they were killed in Israeli crossfire. But what does it matter? What does it matter? My parents died because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And I decided to commit my life to making peace. What does it matter who killed them. They were killed because of the conflict, and I’m going to make peace from the river to the sea.”
And though Israeli police make it dangerous, Maoz is protesting in Israel “with a very direct call and message that the government is accountable and the government must go.”
As information comes out about the events of October 7th, Israel’s role in the death count of its own civilians continues to increase. So we also interviewed Asa Winstanley, a journalist with the Electronic Intifada, whose reporting shows more and more evidence that Israeli forces killed their own people on October 7th.
He explains that even today, with Israeli hostages still in Gaza, the Israeli government shows no signs of letting up their deadly assault.
“It’s starting to seem like the political leaders of Israel do not want those captives to come home alive.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Asa Winstanley where he uncovers more Israeli military fabrications and we discuss an article in the Washington Post that smeared Asa, the Electronic Intifada, and the Grayzone.
00:00 Intro
4:34 The Four Food Groups of News
17:51 Asa Winstanley interview
19:42 What really happened on October 7th?
28:18 The Hannibal Directive
39:00 Israel or Hamas?
46:51 Maoz Inon interview
47:36 What happened to Maoz's parents
53:58 How Israel has responded to October 7
57:08 Could Israel have prevented it?
1:04:56 Who is responsible?
1:17:17 A call for peace
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Click here for the full interview with Andrew Feinstein: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/jewish-south-african-who-worked-under?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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Andrew Feinstein, a Jewish South African son of a Holocaust survivor, who was an ANC Member of Parliament under Nelson Mandela, joins the show to shed light on South Africa’s genocide case of against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
He explains Israel’s history as an occupier, an international arms dealer, and a friend to apartheid-era South Africa itself.
“Israel and apartheid South Africa had an incredibly close relationship,” he says. “Israel really assisted South Africa to remain a brutal apartheid state in that they provided huge amounts of weaponry, significant amounts of military training in the horrific techniques that they had used and continue to use in the occupied territories, but most important of all enabled South Africa to become a nuclear power.”
Israel, he believes, will become a pariah state just like South Africa did. But it isn’t just the occupiers that tie the countries together.
“The South African struggle for liberation was always fraternal with the Palestinian struggle for liberation,” he explains, which explains why South Africa is taking huge political, financial, and security risks by bringing the US’s client state to court.
“When Nelson Mandela emerged after 27 years in imprisonment, he didn’t dance and shout and say yay I’m free, but instead he said: ‘Our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.’
“The struggle of the Palestinian people is really at the forefront of South African politics.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Andrew Feinstein where he explains the extent to which South Africa is taking a risk by challenging Israel and the US, the fight for Palestinian freedom in the International Court of Justice, and the shadow world of international arms trade.
00:00 Intro
00:50 The Four Food Groups of News
14:17 Andrew Feinstein interview
19:02 Israel's dark history with South Africa
26:59 The ICJ Case
35:48 South Africa's huge risk
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Click here for the full interview with Mouin Rabbani: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/genocide-trial-should-convict-blinken?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
And see Katie LIVE this Tuesday at the People’s Forum: https://peoplesforum.org/events/live-at-tpf/
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Palestinian analyst and Middle East expert Mouin Rabbani joined Useful Idiots this week ahead of the International Court of Justice’s genocide trial against Israel. And though the ICJ’s verdict is not actionable (only the Security Council can punish countries, and we already know where who's boss there), Rabbani explains why the case still has huge ramifications.
“This same state that has hid behind the extermination of Europe’s Jews for every one of its actions,” he tells us. “Now itself stands accused of genocide. I think after this case, irrespective of its outcome, Israel will forever be tainted by what it is doing in the Gaza strip, and people will begin to recognize that Israel is not the Jewish state, but rather it is a Zionist state.”
Meanwhile, as the case begins its first days in court, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the region, trying to convince other Middle East countries to support Israel, bombing those that don’t, and condemning the ICJ case, calling it meritless and galling.
And he should be upset, says Mouin. “Antony Blinken should be outraged because if Israel is guilty of genocide, then not only the United States, but Blinken personally is complicit in genocide and would be hauled before a court and convicted of his role in perpetrating this genocide as well.”
If Israel is convicted, it won’t be hard to show the secretary’s influence: “Blinken’s not only implicated, he’s been giving it a standing ovation since the moment it started.”
Subscribe for the full interview where Mouin Rabbani lays out Israel’s history of ethnic cleansing, exposes the New York Times’ faked claim that Hamas used the Al Shifa hospital as a command center, and explains Biden’s plans to ramp up his support for Israel even further.
00:00 Intro
01:13 The Four Food Groups of News
12:40 Mouin Rabbani interview
18:31 Israel carrying out assassinations
23:27 Israel is creating enemies
26:45 Blinken condemns ICJ case
35:36 PREDICTING the VERDICT
40:09 history of Israeli ethnic cleansing
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Click here for the full interview with Rev. Munther Isaac: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/palestinian-pastor-it-is-hell-on?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Israeli psychotherapist wants 30,000 Palestinians killed https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/israeli-psychotherapist-wants-30000?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“When I say it’s Hell on Earth, it is Hell on Earth. I don’t know if there are levels to Hell, but this is horrifying.”
After Christmas was canceled in Bethlehem, Reverend Munther Isaac gave a liturgy to his church. He stood in front of a nativity scene in which the baby Jesus lay on a pile of rubble.
“If you fail to call this genocide, it is on you,” he said in a biting and now viral speech. “Words of regret won’t suffice. We will not accept your apology after the genocide.”
Rev. Isaac recently visited Washington to speak to US senators in an attempt to educate and change their minds on US policy. While some listened, he told us, most wouldn’t speak with him, and the rest who did told him that they planned to help Israel keep the Gaza massacre going. So while Washington ignores him and corporate media continues its propaganda cycle, we spoke with the pastor, who called us from his church in Bethlehem.
“Israel is destroying everything,” he said. “Churches, cultural centers, schools, universities. If you get sick right now in Gaza, the chances are that you will not survive.”
He explains the frustration with the lack of coverage of Palestinian voices. “If people just walk in our shoes for one day and understand what it means to live under occupation and apartheid, you will understand why people are leaving and why it’s so hard for anybody to build a future here or survive.”
But instead of listening to voices on the ground like his, people in the US are overrun with the corporate and government narratives about Christians in Palestine. “Israel’s main point is to say ‘We’re fighting Hamas and Hamas fights Christians, and they’re come to you next in America.’
“The idea is to demonize all Palestinians and promote the narrative that Christians are persecuted in the Middle East and in Palestine. If people really cared, they would listen to us. We will tell you how we’re doing.”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Munther Isaac, where he shares horrifying stories of life in Palestine under siege, what it’s like to live in constant fear that your life could end at any moment, and why he’s tired with calls for peace.
“I’m tired of the language of peace and praying for reconciliation because it gives the impression that there are two men fighting. We don’t have two men fighting, we have one man literally stepping on the throat of the other and you lecturing the person who’s on the ground about peace.”
Listen to and share our interview with Reverend Munther Isaac.
00:00 Intro
00:56 The Four Food Groups of News
13:18 Rev. Munther Issac interview
16:27 Viral Christmas Liturgy
22:55 US Senators vs Christian Pastor
28:11 Christians in Gaza
31:29 Jerusalem Mayor's racist tirade
37:46 The Lie about Hamas and Christians
44:23 The Bible and the War
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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 www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
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.
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“They’re targeting journalists,” says Anan Quzmar, a volunteer with the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate. “But it’s maybe a wider segment of the Palestinian society. The target is the foundations of Palestinian society.”
Anan speaks to us from the West Bank city of Tulkarm, reporting on the estimated 97 journalists who have been killed by Israel.
“These people represent a portal for hope for the people of Gaza. They deliver their voices to people around the world. And targeting them is basically killing hope.” Anan shares the stories of his journalist friends and heroes who have been hunted, killed, or forced to flee by Israel.
He goes on to explain that it isn’t just Israel, but the US, President Biden, and our corporate media who are inciting this genocide: “They are complicit in justifying, facilitating, and covering up for an ongoing genocide.”
Just this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that it is the Palestinians who are the aggressors and Israel who is the victim. This comes after Biden doubled down on his false claims of seeing photos of beheaded babies and state-media propagandists like Jake Tapper and Dana Bash pushed unverified claims of mass rape. These tactics contribute to the US strategy of dehumanizing Palestinians and selling a genocide.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Anan Quzmar where he debunks claims that Hamas is using human shields (and proves that Israel does use them), calls out Israeli journalists who are cheering on the murder of Palestinian journalists, and what he’s witnessing living in the West Bank.
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Click here for the latest interview with former UN official Craig Mokhiber: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/former-un-official-biden-is-inciting?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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 www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Biden tells Jews they're not safe in America https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/biden-tells-jews-theyre-not-safe?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Gazan writers Muhammad Shehada and Yousef M. Aljamal, both students of Refaat Alareer, join us to remember their teacher. Refaat, who was a guest on Useful Idiots in October at the beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza, was killed this week in a targeted attack by Israel.
Watch the full interview with Refaat here: https://youtu.be/Nk0x_s_h-pU
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Click here for the full interview with Craig Mokhiber: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/former-un-official-biden-is-inciting?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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 www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Biden tells Jews they're not safe in America https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/biden-tells-jews-theyre-not-safe?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
International human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber served as the director for the New York office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, but resigned over the UN’s failure to stop what he, and others, calls a "textbook case of genocide" in Gaza.
He describes the politicalization of the organization and the West’s refusal to follow international law.
“If you have a message coming from the United States and their western allies that says these rules do not apply to us or to our western friends, or in short-hand, they do not apply to white people, but they do apply to the rest of the world, that is maybe the last nail in the coffin of these international laws.”
“The security council belongs in a Cold War museum,” he says. “It is an entity that empowers five permanent members with a veto that is usually used to prevent any action to the benefit of normal human beings. The US in this case used its veto to prevent ceasefire, and after each veto, thousands of more Palestinians are being massacred in Gaza. It’s an act of complicity.”
So when Israel commits war crimes that are empowered by the US, it is no longer only their crime: “Just to put it simply, this assault on Gaza is being perpetrated by Israel and the United States. The US is a party to this.”
And given that Biden has repeatedly claimed that he saw photos of beheaded babies (even after his staff urged him not to and the White House walked it back), we asked Craig: Can the argument be made that Joe Biden is inciting genocide?
His response: “Absolutely.”
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Craig Mokhiber on the fear used to silence UN officials, and Israel’s allegations of rape on October 7.
00:00 Intro
00:43 The Four Food Groups of News
11:45 Craig Mokhiber interview
12:15 Resigning from the UN
20:43 What should the UN do?
30:38 UN staffers protest
34:20 Is it genocide?
46:49 Why is Biden lying?
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Click here for the full interview with Ilan Pappé: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/israeli-historian-ilan-pappe-on-genocide?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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 www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: CNN Declares Palestinian Civilian Death Ratio 'Tremendous' https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/cnn-declares-palestinian-civilian?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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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.
00:00 Intro
01:10 The Four Food Groups of News
16:21 Ilan Pappé interview
16:53 Becoming and anti-Zionist
21:41 Israel is a plan of ethnic cleansing
34:04 Historical context of Oct 7
52:16 Alleged antisemitism on college campuses
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