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Useful Idiots takes to the High Seas this week.

We’re looking at two ships: the Venezuelan boat that was bombed by the Trump Administration which they claimed carried drug-smuggling terrorists, and the US Veterans Flotilla attempting to sail to Gaza to break Israel’s deadly blockade.

Calling in from that Flotilla, which took off from shores in Spain during our conversation, is former Army Ranger Greg Stoker. His ship of veterans is bravely leading the charge to Gaza, with the hope that even Israel won’t face the PR battle of keeping a group of US war veterans hostage in torture prisons.

But, as drones fly over the boat and the crew sails closer and closer to Israeli waters, Stoker explains how what he’s seeing in Gaza is different than anything he saw as a soldier.

“I did four combat deployments in the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, which is the U.S. Special Operations Unit to Afghanistan,” he tells us. “I was there in tactical operations centers watching Obama's drone strike campaign play out and kind of got radicalized into an anti-imperialist position.

There was just no standard of proof for who we were killing. Basically if a guy ended up in the wrong contact list on someone's phone, could have been a Taliban sublieutenant's baker, he was probably going to eat a hellfire missile.

And I thought that was bad enough. I just have never seen anything like what Israel's done. As horrible as what we did during the global war on terror, kill millions of people in five different countries, this is completely beyond the pale. And the entire world is less safe because of the precedent set in Gaza over the past two years, a complete disregard for international law and humanity.”

The louder we amplify the voices on the Freedom Flotilla, the better chance they’ll have of breaking the siege. Greg explains:

I hope everybody watching this supports us because we don't have any diplomatic, economic, or military support. We are a humanitarian effort and we will be confronted by a rogue genocidal actor. The only cover that we get is global engagement.

What we're going to try to do is wage an information war against Israeli military propaganda to call out different actions that they will take in the global forum and try to make them politically non-viable. So we appreciate your support and engagement over the next two weeks as we try to break the siege. Because y'all's engagement is the only cover we're getting.

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We also talk to historian and journalist Vijay Prashad after the White House posted a video this week allegedly attacking a ship in what they’re calling a huge drug bust against Venezuelan cartel smugglers.

To find out why Vijay “scoffs” at the Trump administration’s “ridiculous” story and calls it a joke, please become a paid subscriber. Your support keeps us independent.

You’ll also get this week’s Thursday Throwdown: David Pakman PANICS After Dark Money Dems Scandal Revealed

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According to a story by Taylor Lorenz in WIRED, “A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers.”

Lorenz writes: “An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret—and agree to restrictions on their content.”

Liberal YouTuber David Pakman is one of dozens of Democrat influencers exposed in the article as allegedly receiving money from a group called Chorus, which itself is funded by a liberal dark money group called the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The influencers were allegedly instructed to either avoid the topic of Gaza altogether or push the Israeli line.

After being named in the article, Pakman went on tirades online in desperate attempts to claim that he hasn’t received money nor signed any contract. But in a strange move, his arguments have become less about not receiving money from Chorus, and instead about not receiving money from AIPAC, which so far no one has accused him of doing. And here’s how he tried to prove it:

“Some creators [are] suggesting that it’s AIPAC – or IPAC – I don’t even know how it’s pronounced! AIPAC – IPAC? – that is funding this show. Of course not true.”

What?

This episode is free to all. Please help us share Marwan Barghouti’s story:

This week, we’re looking at the case of Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian political prisoner widely regarded as the most popular Palestinian political figure alive. And for this reason, Israel has kept him imprisoned for more than two decades.

Useful Idiots is proud to be joined by his son, Arab Barghouti.

Throughout an unimaginable 23 years in prison, Marwan Barghouti has been subjected to brutal abuse, and evidence just emerged in a recent video of fascist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who went out of his way to visit Marwan Barghouti in his prison cell and film himself threatening Barghouti and the Palestinian people.

Ben Gvir tells Barghouti that Israel is going to “wipe out the Palestinian people.”

This is the first image that we've seen of Marwan Barghouti in many years, looking visibly gaunt from years of Israeli abuse and torture. This was a provocative move by Ben Gvir designed to further humiliate Palestinians at a time when they're enduring a genocide in Gaza and routine pogroms and terror in the occupied West Bank.

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Everyone in the world should know the name of Marwan Barghouti. He cuts through so many of the caricatures that we get of Palestinian resistance in the West: he's a longtime advocate of a Palestinian state, thereby accepting the fact that Israel stole Palestine, but he's willing to compromise and accept 22% of Palestine’s historic homeland. And even though he supports the Palestinian right to armed resistance against occupation, Barghouti still advocated nonviolence as a tactic and opposes attacks that target Israeli civilians.

The fact that Israel has made such a dogged effort to silence him, to keep him behind bars, and recently humiliate him, speaks to the power he has and the fear in the heart of the Israeli government of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

Check out the documentary Tomorrow's Freedom about Marwan Barghouti, and please share our interview with his son Arab Barghouti.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Somehow Hits New Low on Israeli Hospital Strike Justification