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We have another Useful Idiots Double Header this week: former CIA officer and whistleblower of the CIA’s torture program John Kiriakou on the Jeffrey Epstein hoopla; and Visiting Assistant Professor at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Marta Havryshko, on why she believes that Ukraine is becoming a dictatorship.

First up is John Kiriakou, the only person to serve jail time for the CIA’s illegal torture program. He didn’t participate in the program, he only committed the crime of telling the public about it.

Now, John is focusing his sleuthing skills on the Jeffrey Epstein case. If anyone’s got the dirt, it’s John Kiriako.

Useful Idiots: You said that you feel material was probably destroyed. Can you elaborate on that?

John Kiriakou: At the CIA, even though there are laws like the Federal Records Act, which specifically says you cannot destroy documents, they destroy documents all the time.

After Congress specifically told the Director of Central Intelligence that he had to preserve the MKUltra documents, he went back to headquarters and they destroyed eighty percent of the tens of thousands of pages of documents that they had. So now we don't really know what is true about MKUltra.

Same thing at the CIA with the torture videos. As soon as word leaked that there were videos of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being tortured, [CIA Director] Gina Haspel put them in an industrial grinder and destroyed them.

So why would we think that the FBI would be any different, especially when it comes to allegations that some of the most powerful and some of the wealthiest men in the world are implicated in the scandal? I could absolutely see the FBI destroying documents.

Useful Idiots: What is the relationship between Epstein and Israel? And what do we know about who was on the plane, and who engaged in sex crimes?

John Kiriakou: Alexander Auctions of Maryland got the Epstein Black Book. They didn't say who had it, but they put it up for auction. It has everybody in it. Why in the world would that be in private hands? Why is that not in the FBI, being investigated and poured over? Why are the the manifests for the Lolita Express not being poured over? Why are they not questioning every single person who flew to the island?

The real question in my mind is who was Epstein working for? And I've thought about this a lot. I can only conclude that

"He is, in Democratic terms, not much different,” says conservative commentator John Podhoretz, comparing Zohran Mamdani to former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. And it’s a seamless argument, clearly, until Podhoretz admits one tiny flaw in his reasoning:

“David Duke's a Nazi. Of course no one should be a Nazi,” but then, turning his argument back to Mamdani: “Well no one should be a Stalinist either... and he is a supporter of Hamas."

We’re not really sure how to even argue such a nonsense argument, but it’s helpful that Podhoretz helped us out with undermining himself. Similarly to Trump’s “Communist” claims about Mamdani, it isn’t true that Zohran is a Stalinist or a Hamas supporter, which is an easily verifiable fact – just ask him. But when the elite get scared, they pull out their “1001 Insults” book and start throwing everything they’ve got at their boogeyman.

So far, nothing has stuck to Zohran Mamdani.

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Also in this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Hakeem Jeffries is in denial about the progressive plan to primary him, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is doing his journalistic duty of bootlicking Benjamin Netanyahu, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has a hilarious new joke about Russia.

It’s a week of madness – watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

Is Donald Trump afraid of Zohran Mamdani?

This week we’re chatting with two journalists who have followed Mamdani’s campaigns since 2020: Ted Hamm, whose new book Run Zohran Run! looks inside Zohran Mamdani’s sensational campaign to become New York City’s first Democratic Socialist mayor, and Liza Featherstone, a journalist at Jacobin who focuses on student and labor activism.

We hear their takes on why Trump and the establishment are getting nervous about the rise of Mamdani, and why this could harvest success in November’s election, but also danger and threats from both Democrats and Republicans for the young mayor candidate.

Here is an excerpt of their take. Subscribe to hear Ted and Liza’s full analysis of the NYC mayor race and its national implications:

I'm pretty optimistic that a lot of the attacks on Zoran and the failure of the Democratic leadership to stand up for him and get behind him, even though he is overwhelmingly the Democratic nominee, in many ways actually help him. Just because I think that people are mad.

And the crazy attacks by the Trump administration on Zoran worry me a lot because they could just arrest him and send him to El Salvador.

And so I'm honestly more concerned about that in some ways than the election. Because I think their threats to deport him are so outrageous. The things they say about him are so appallingly racist. This is New York City! I think people are really offended by all of that. But great instincts of a body or a population can exist, they just have to be organized into being.

This great consensus behind Zoran has been organized into being, and I think it's going to be really hard for them to stop it.

Subscribe to hear the full interview where Liza and Ted discuss whether Cuomo even wants to be NYC Mayor, proof of how the NY Post manufactures outrage against Zohran, and if a Mayor Mamdani could have any real success making New York affordable with government-run grocery stores and rent freezes.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté & Katie Halper Demand Meeting with “Fraudfather” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt

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