https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZdbSYCM7hI
The Trump Admin Reveals Its True Plans on Inauguration Day
The first Monday Mourning of a new era
Useful Idiots
What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Articles
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
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.
The full Video is now up on our Locals Channel; Truckers Roost.
Our intrepid reporter, Mr. Fat Flabbie Doobie, reports on the war between Russia and Ukraine in the former Crimean Khanate:
By around 800 a.d. the Kievan Rus was the dominant force in Rus culture, but the Crimea, and all coastal areas, were dominated by nomadic Turkic peoples, with ancient Greek port settlements scattered along the coast. In 1222 Ghengis Khan invaded the Crimea and defeated the Turks there. In the years that followed, his Golden Horde would conquer the entirety of the Crimea and the Kievan Rus. In 1441, the descendants of Ghengis Khan established a new nation, the Krimean Khanate, encompassing the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas region. In the meantime the center of Rus culture had shifted to Moscow and had slowly pushed the Mongols out of the greater Rus. In 1783, Catherine the great finally defeated the Khanate (ruled by Khans of Ghengis' Giray clan) and annexed it into Russia. For the next 134 ...
The TikTok Wars – w/ Entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand
Will Trump lead us into a new era of digital colonialism?
Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:
What is really behind the TikTok wars? According to Arnaud Bertrand, our guest this week, it’s less about Palestine content and more about good, old-fashioned American colonialism and hypocrisy.
Bertrand, a French entrepreneur and political analyst based in Malaysia, who lived in China for eight years and has debated China with the likes of Adrian Zenz, reflects on the hypocrisy of the American government, which claims to respect the free market, but actually intervenes in business in order to ban a company for simply being Chinese:
“This is the kind of stuff that Cuba would get accused of,” he explains, “talking about the evils of communism, like appropriating enterprises. It’s ironic that the United States government, which presents itself as this bastion of entrepreneurship, free market, where the government doesn't meddle, is doing exactly that.”
“If [the Tik Tok ban] goes through, it sets a very worrying precedent because basically what it's saying is that, if as a non-American tech company, you make it big, then basically we're going to try to colonize you. It's digital colonialism.”
The fairness of the free market, Arnaud explains, is reserved only for American companies. Beyond that, the government steps in for control.
“It completely destroys the incentive for any country. It's already so hard to succeed given the odds on how dominated the landscape is by American VCs and American tech companies. If you're one of the lucky few that finally make it, then you're forced to sell to the Americans. It's definitely not right and that's a precedent that I don't think should be set.”
The irony is that the crackdown on TikTok has brought Chinese people and American people together as Americans are migrating to the Chinese platform Red Note.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Arnaud Bertrand on the myths the West tells about Chinese culture, China’s roll in the Ukraine-Russian War, and the claim that China is engaging in a genocide against the Uyghurs.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump’s Creative Excuse for Hiring “Very Stupid Person” John Bolton
Thanks for supporting independent media. Subscribe for the full episode here:
Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Trump’s Creative Excuse for Hiring “Very Stupid Person” John Bolton
If the guy's such a stupid warmonger, why give him so much power?
“I thought he was a very dumb person,” says newly-sworn in President Donald Trump about John Bolton, the man he appointed as National Security Advisor of the United States. “He’s the one, along with Cheney, that convinced Bush to blow up the Middle East and we got nothing out of it except a lot of death. We killed a lot of people, and John Bolton was one of those guys.” He adds once more, for effect: “A stupid guy.”
And honestly, we agree with you on this, Mr. President. But … if he’s so dumb, why’d you hire him? Surprisingly, Trump actually gave (made up) a reason:
“But I used him well,” he claims, “because every time people saw me come into a meeting with John Bolton standing behind me, they thought that he would attack them, because he was a warmonger.”
Huh. Just wonder if there was a way to do that without giving him the power to, among other dangerous acts, withdraw the US from an important nuclear deal, a move that in large part led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But at least you scared some people.
Also in this episode: Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik testifies that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank, Sean Hannity is enraged that a “so-called” bishop would ask Trump to have mercy on people who need help, and if you thought January 6 was over, guess again – now the Republicans are announcing a new Jan 6 subcommittee. Next we need a subcommittee to keep track of all the Jan 6 subcommittees.
It’s a messy week with a new president, 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:
Only for Supporters
To read the rest of this article and access other paid content, you must be a supporter
Is the Ceasefire Real? With Gazan Writer and Israeli Negotiator
Muhammad Shehada and Daniel Levy analyze the ceasefire agreement
Watch the full, unpaywalled episode here. Thanks for supporting independent media.
This week, US officials announced that Israel and Hamas have finally reached a tentative ceasefire after over a year of genocide in Gaza. The deal separates the agreement into phases:
“The giant loophole in this deal is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”
And here’s another trick: this quote isn’t from this week – it’s from our interview with Nathan Thrall in May 2024 regarding the ceasefire deal that was never implemented. But when Gazan writer Muhammad Shehada, who is based in Copenhagen but with family still in Gaza, read through the agreement announced this week, he noticed a striking similarity.
“I started reading through it,” he tells us, “and I looked up the May 27th deal. I read the whole text: word-for-word identical, one hundred percent, not a change. There's only an appendix of elaborations.”
So we’re having onto the show former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy and Muhammad Shehada to analyze why this deal is back, whether it will actually signal an end to the mass killings in Gaza, and what really happened in the negotiations between Trump and Netanyahu.
“Could this then lead to a quid pro quo down the line where Netanyahu gets something from Trump that will be horrific for Palestinians, such as expanded theft of West Bank land?”
Daniel Levy also discusses “Bloody Blinken’s” terrible track record as Secretary of State, which has become a pressing matter as Blinken is now having journalists dragged out of press briefings for challenging him on his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Muhammad Shehada discusses the Biden Administration’s false history of ceasefire negotiations, and shares what it has been like to lose so many friends and family in Gaza.
This week’s interview is free to all viewers. Thanks for your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke
