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Useful Idiots: Let’s talk about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza. Israel bombed a food distribution site. Doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital in North Gaza are warning of total collapse. And this follows Israel destroying high-rise buildings in the last livable area left in Gaza. So amid all the atrocities that it’s currently committing, what is Israel’s strategy in Gaza right now?

Norman Finkelstein: It’s perfectly obvious. It’s gotten the green light from the White House to try to empty out Gaza. The UN report that just came out two weeks ago did the right thing by [dispensing with] the language of the laws of war. The problem in Gaza is not that Israel is committing “disproportionate attacks.” The problem has not been that Israel is in even an egregious breach of the laws of war...

The problem is that Israel is acting out the logic of genocide. And that’s very different because ultimately, if you use the framework of the laws of war, then what’s tacit in using that framework is that Israel ultimately wants to achieve a military victory.

If you take, for example, the period from March 18th of this year, when Israel terminated the ceasefire, until the end of August, do you know how many Gazans have been killed in that period? The estimate is 12,000. You know how many Israeli soldiers were killed in that period? 50.

The ratio is 1 to 240. Does that sound like a war, or does that sound like an extermination?

Useful Idiots: That makes it striking how ridiculous it is to call this a war.

Norman Finkelstein: Israel’s apologists have a funny argument right now. They say, ‘If you really believe there is a genocide in Gaza, then why don’t you advocate opening up the border [which would be ethnic cleansing]?’

Well, I have another idea. How about if I really believe there’s a genocide in Gaza, how about taking out the…

While we would love to share Norman’s idea with you, we worry it could get our entire YouTube channel demonetized or even removed… So we posted it exclusively on Substack HERE.

In a cringey moment on Fox News, Jesse Watters asks Katie Miller, the husband of skin-walker Stephen Miller, what it’s like to be married to him:

“You are married to Stephen Miller,” Watters says with the mugging seriousness he uses before a sarcastic comment. “So you are the envy of all women. What is that like?”

“The sexual matador, right?” Katie Miller responds, smirking.

“What is it like,” Watters repeats, laughing now, “being married to such a sexual matador?”

We honestly can’t tell: is Stephen Miller’s wife making fun of him on Fox News? Apparently, we learn through more laughter out of Katie Miller, that Stephen wakes up every morning and fires out speeches at her, proclaiming “I am going to defeat the left!”

And judging from the thin-skinned tantrums he consistently throws on camera, we can’t imagine he’ll have much of a sense of humor about this one. For our money, it’ll be most similar to the Charlie Kirk-demon meltdown we just saw from Megyn Kelly:

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In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, we speak to Chris Hedges, the leading chronicler of America's slide into authoritarianism and how a society that's built around empire fuels an internal decay.

Useful Idiots: Where are you seeing the country now in the response to Charlie Kirk's murder?

Chris Hedges: As soon as Kirk was assassinated, he was elevated within the canon of his movement to the status of a martyr. That was instant. Even before they had apprehended Robinson as the suspect, you had Trump declare him a martyr. You had flags lowered and half-mast. He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom instantly. I've watched this before in other conflicts, and it's very dangerous because the martyr is really the lifeblood of radical movements

Any kind of dialogue, any kind of compassion with the opposing movement is a betrayal of the sanctity of the martyr. It is to essentially collaborate with people who, through the eyes of the radical movement that you're in, have killed the martyr. And that's, of course, precisely what's happening. They are deadly serious, and they will use the death of Kirk to essentially sanctify this crusade against what is left of our open society.

Useful Idiots: You talked about the sanctification of Charlie Kirk when it comes from the right, but I'm curious what you think of it when it comes from the liberal side. Ezra Klein, who is a prominent liberal columnist for the New York Times, the paper of record, wrote an article called Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.

Chris Hedges: Well, that's why I don't read Ezra Klein. That's ridiculous.

Charlie Kirk was fomenting hate and demonization. Let's begin with the kinds of things he said about Muslims, the kinds of things he said about people of color, in particular Black people, the kinds of things he said about the LGBTQ community, the kinds of things he said about feminists. This was really vitriolic hate speech. And it is, like all hate speech, giving license to people to act upon that hate speech.

When I heard about the assassination, I was appalled and horrified, not because I have any love for Kirk, but because I know how it would be weaponized. And in all totalitarian states, vigilante groups are vitally important. And they serve this strange purpose: at once, the formal structures of power. They have a kind of deniability because it's not them. It's one step removed. On the other hand, the vigilante group carries out a lot of the dirty work that whatever police state or totalitarian state wants carried out.

Useful Idiots: What do you make of the fallout on the right when it comes to the issue of Israel? A number of sources reported that Charlie Kirk was shifting a little bit on Israel after some unpleasant experiences with pro-Israel donors, including Bill Ackman, and Charlie Kirk was insisting that he was going to keep on giving space to people like Tucker Carlson. The Trump Administration is so completely beholden to the Israeli agenda, and Charlie Kirk, whether it's accurate or not, is being upheld now as a voice of dissent on that. What do you make of that?