Useful Idiots
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Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow Save Democracy
The century's most prolific election deniers gloat that Donald Trump was caught and they weren't
August 17, 2023
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The two corporate political figures who have done more to hurt election integrity and confidence in democracy than anyone else in the US are taking a victory lap after saving elite democracy. Clinton joined Maddow on MSNBC this week to celebrate the news of Donald Trump’s record-breaking fourth indictment.

And it seems their memories are very short.

Take a stroll down Russiagate memory lane with Aaron and Katie to recall Clinton and Maddow’s proud election-denying prowess, with such gems as: “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.”

It’s a masterclass in elite hypocrisy, yet another example of the ruling class saving democracy for themselves. Anyone can try it, but none succeed like these two.

And as Indictment Fever sweeps the nation’s corporate news channels, the statements from “liberal” pundits get stranger and stranger. CNN’s Van Jones, a Black liberal commentator, calls the US criminal justice system beautiful, while Biden employee Jen Psaki calls out dumb Americans for not realizing Joe Biden has given us the greatest economy of a generation, even as the US homeless rate rose this year at the highest rate since the government began tracking it.

With a new indictment out, there’s too much to throw down on, and I didn’t even mention Zelensky’s neo-Nazi video. Katie and Aaron are warming up in the bullpen. Get ready to throwdown.

It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.

Subscribe for $5 a month to watch the episode here:

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Sanctions Are a Form of Warfare

“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:

The ...

00:01:17
"Shameful" New York Times Changes Headline to Protect Sanctions

“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:

The ...

00:01:24
Free preview: Matt Taibbi Exposes Russiagate Bots

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 ...

00:54:34

Emphasized "Dancing with 88

I have altered space here—   to

a rupture in the silent fabric,

where every atom reclaims its song.

A change, seen on my 90° angle,

becomes the pivot of a daring ballet,

the precise intersection where fate unspools.

In that crisp right-angle lie the secrets

of all absorbed twilight and reborn dawns,

a moment where geometry becomes prophecy,

transmuting static lines into dynamic rhythms,

inviting the cosmos to twirl in unexpected arcs.

And then—

I find myself dancing with 88,

a numeral of resonance, a muse of mystery.

It whispers in binary beats,

each pulse a portal leading into

symphonies scribbled on the canvas of space-time.

This is no choreographed routine,

but a wild, liberated waltz

where dimensions bend and merge—

where the old order crumbles

under the heat of relentless transformation

and every step unearths a layer of being.

At that 90° juncture,

the universe unfolds like a secret map,

revealing uncharted realms in every fracture,

while 88 becomes the score for a cosmic ballet,

...

Has the Gaza Pier Been Beached? | Army Watercraft come ashore off Gaza and Israel

March 26, 2024

Good to be part of the community. I think that Aaron and Katie do a brilliant job in these hellish times when such great in - depth research and reporting are essential.

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Aaron Maté and Katie Halper Demand a Meeting with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt
The Fraudfather "doesn't get to get to pick and choose which Jewish people he talks to"

The Anti-Defamation League (Apartheid Defense League*)’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt embarked on a frantic smear tour across corporate media this week in a desperate effort to break public support for NYC Mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani. What was allegedly an attempt to sound like a worried protection of Jews instead came off like the threats of a mob boss.

Mamdani “doesn’t get to pick and choose which Jewish people he talks to,” the Fraudfather said. “He needs to come to us.

To which we at Useful Idiots respond, Jonathan Greenblatt, you don’t get to pick and choose which Jewish people you talk to. We have two right here that disagree with the antisemitic notion that Israel has a biblical right to occupy, murder, and starve Palestinian children.

You need to come to us.

We hereby demand a meeting with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Come to Useful Idiots.

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And speaking of the ridiculous, genocidal claims of Zionists, we watch a British journalist respond to the fact that “the IDF are sniping children in the head. IDF soldiers were ordered to shoot at Gazans who were waiting for food,” with the mindless talking point: “But how can we not support our allies??”

And one more, just for madness sake: Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) claims that Iran was “days away” from a nuclear bomb before the US attack. When asked whose assessment this was, he responds: “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Subscribe to watch full episode, which also has some One Big Beautiful Bill nonsense for good measure. Thanks for supporting independent media, watch the whole Throwdown here:

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Professor DEBUNKS Trump’s Iran Nuke Lie, Ceasefire, & Israel-US Propaganda
Johns Hopkins Professor Narges Bajoghli gives an insightful talk on what our media is hiding about Israel-Iran

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

The situation and discourse over the escalating US-Israel-Iran conflict are changing fast with civilian strikes, ceasefire talks, sneak attacks, and coverups. Narges Bajoghli, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, helps us parse through the propaganda.

Useful Idiots: The big debate right now in Washington is the Trump administration claiming, ‘Yeah, we basically obliterated Iran's nuclear program.’ And the media saying, ‘No, you didn't.’ And that's the debate, not whether the U.S. had the right to do that, or whether it was right for Trump to pretend to engage in diplomacy just to help Israel kill a bunch of people in Iran, including many civilians. As you're watching all this unfold in Washington, what is your sense of what is missing from the public discussion?

Narges Bajoghli: First of all, this was an unprovoked war that Israel launched inside of Iran. And as much as the framing around it by mainstream media was that Israel was just targeting military infrastructure, military officials, and nuclear facilities, from day one they were targeting civilian infrastructure. Lots of civilians ended up losing their lives in this twelve day war that we had. So the erasure of that and the focus on the civilian infrastructure in Israel, that is important to pay attention to.

The other is that we still talk about nuclear energy as if nuclear energy can only be used to create a bomb. Not only did the IAEA and all US intel agencies say that they had no evidence that Iran was going for a bomb. But what we were not discussing is that nuclear energy is actually used for medical research, it's used for cancer research, it's used for electricity, it's civilian infrastructure. And so targeting civilian infrastructure in this way actually violates international law.

Useful Idiots: There's a lot of talk right now about a ceasefire. Is there a ceasefire?

Narges Bajoghli: So far, there's a ceasefire in the sense that both sides have ceased firing at one another. Trump’s base turned against him so publicly, so loudly that he could not risk starting another war or else he would have to risk losing his base. So it seems like he's put some pressure on the Israelis as well. But Israel is not known for abiding by and honoring ceasefires. I think to date with the ceasefire in Lebanon, it's already violated it over a thousand times. So I know that there's a lot of trepidation about how long this will actually hold. But for the moment, this is where we are.

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Subscribe to hear the full interview with Narges Bajoghli on the impact of US sanctions on working people in Iran, whether sanctions should be considered a war crime, what we can predict about Iran by analyzing the regime change operation in Syria, and a weird CNN propaganda video fear-mongering about Iranian sleeper cells in the US.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump Thinks He’s Hotter Than Zohran Mamdani

Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full interviews here:

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Trump Thinks He’s Hotter Than Zohran Mamdani
Republicans are melting down over the NYC Democratic Primary

“It’s finally happened,” Trump complained in a rant on Truth Social. “The Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting ridiculous. He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart.”

Say what you will about Zohran Mamdani, but it’s not easy to find a picture of him not looking good. And for Trump to say that, well we don’t need to stoop to the president’s level…

Trump then goes on (and on) in his post claiming that “even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him.” So not only is America’s leader using a nationality as a racist, derogatory term, but he’s also wrong. Cryin’ Chuck is one of the most vehement supporters of Israel, receiving at least $1.7 million from AIPAC, and leading the charge to supply Israel to the teeth with weapons. There was one time when he criticized Netanyahu, calling for a different Israeli politician to lead the genocide against Palestinians.

And for that, Trump slanders him as “Palestinian.”

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Trump’s not the only one having a meltdown – we watch Fox News and CNN pundits freak out about a potential Mamdani Mayorship, and for a podcast that doesn’t usually get to feel good about anything, we have to say it’s pretty sweet to watch.

Plus, Joy Reid surprisingly embarrasses some racist, anti-Iranian hooligans on CNN, dropping truths about the US’s history of regime change, the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt is mad at “the woke right” which includes Tucker Carlson, and State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce declares that America is “the greatest country on Earth… next to Israel.”

It’s an embarrassing day for the losers on corporate media – Katie and Aaron are laughing at all of them. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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