Useful Idiots
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CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: "They DESTROYED Epstein Files”
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July 11, 2025
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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

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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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Trump’s Plan: Genocide in Gaza, Peace with Putin?
Watch a free preview of our episode and subscribe for the full chat with Richard Sakwa on the extent of Biden's Ukraine lies

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Useful Idiots has another Double Header this week: we’re looking at Trump from two angles as decision time nears and he’ll be forced to come clean about his motives on Israel and Ukraine. Which side are you on, Donald?

First up we’re speaking with Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan, founder of Health Workers 4 Palestine. The news out of the Trump Admin this week is that Jewish-supremacist, right-wing-conspiracy-theorist, and self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer influenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio to stop all visas for people from Gaza, including wounded children in need of medical care.

Dr. Omar explains how his organization has fought to help Palestinian children reach medical care, how the draconian shift in policy signifies Trump bowing deeper than ever to Israel, and how media propagandists like The Free Press are complicit by fueling lies about the children suffering the worst:

 

Plus, we ask Dr. Omar: is Palantir selling your health data to Israel?

Next we speak with Professor Richard Sakwa to discuss the latest in Russia-Ukraine after Trump’s controversial summit with Putin.

We ask Sakwa: what are Putin’s true motives? Does he see Ukraine as a real country? Does he want revenge on the US and UK after Biden and Boris Johnson colluded to push Ukraine out of peace talks? And is Trump treating Putin as his equal, conning him into taking a worse deal, or bowing down to him just like he does with Netanyahu?

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MSNBC Claims It’s Now Independent Media
After getting booted from NBC, Morning Joe is struggling to spin the split

There’s a new crew in the independent journalism space: the corporate media conglomerate formerly known as MSNBC!

After NBC announced that they would be splitting off from MSNBC, a new logo and name were announced, with the stragglers on the network left swimming in the open seas of independent media. It’s going to be called MS Now, which Joe Scarborough says through clenched jaw and held-back tears stands for My Source Now.

But it’s good, he forces himself to say, no really it’s good. It’s BETTER this way actually. Yeah that’s right, yeah, no yeah, yeah yeah…

It hurts to even imagine a world where MSNBC could be considered independent journalism, but Aaron says there is ONE WAY that the network could prove itself, ONE THING they could do that would get him to accept them:

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Intelligence Expert: Trump Would TAKE OVER the CIA if US was Attacked
Watch a free preview of our episode and subscribe for the full chat with Tim Weiner on how the CIA got CAUGHT spying on the Senate

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For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, finding his way inside crucial meetings, speaking with retired officials, and gaining the trust of people with classified information. And his latest book, The Mission, does something we’ve never seen before:

It gives an in-depth history of the CIA without any anonymous sources. Everyone’s on the record. We don’t know how Tim did it, but he joins Useful Idiots to share what he’s learned from 40 years of digging.

Useful Idiots: You spoke to former CIA Director Richard Helms, and you wrote: “He wanted me to understand that the agency hadn't dreamed up the idea of overthrowing Iran or killing Fidel Castro. Every president since Truman had commanded the CIA to intervene with guns and money to control the fate of nations when sending in the Marines was not an option.” Did you get the sense that the CIA was always just unquestioningly following orders?

Tim Weiner: It took me a while to understand this simple but important point: the CIA is an executor of American foreign policy. It doesn't dream up coups and plots and other nefarious covert activities. With rare exceptions, it does what the president tells it to do.

It's not like a couple of CI officers were sitting around drinking martinis in 1960 saying, ‘Hey, I got a good idea. Let's go kill Fidel Castro.’ Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and President Kennedy's brother, Bobby, wanted Castro gone.

When it came time to investigate the first twenty five years of the CIA, the Church Committee in the 1970s dove deep into this: Frank Church, the senator who ran them, wondered aloud if “the CIA has become a rogue elephant trampling people and nations.”

But, we later find out, after the hearings, Church amended his statement: “When the elephant tramples people and nations, it's not the elephant's fault. It is the fault of the mahout, the elephant driver.” And that was the President of the United States.

The Church Committee, and even the torture report about CIA secret prisons that the Senate finally released ten years ago, really tiptoes around this question of presidential authority for violations of the laws of God and man and the Geneva Convention by the CIA. It's the president's outfit. And it is a unique expression of presidential power to order the CIA to go and kill people or torture them or throw them in secret prisons for the rest of their lives, never to see the light of day.

Useful Idiots: Your book tells the story of the great lengths to which the CIA went to cover up for torture. You have this controversy over an attempt to destroy videotapes of torture at a CIA secret prison in Thailand. And then you also have the CIA spying on the Senate as the Senate is investigating the CIA's torture program.

Tim Weiner: Two unhappy stories. The first is rather dramatic.

The CIA set up this base in Thailand where two of its first so-called high value prisoners were taken and tortured. Present at the base for one of those prisoner tortures was

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