Useful Idiots

On today’s Thursday Throwdown, we’re watching everyone’s favorite channel: CNN! And Fareed Zakaria’s guest of the week is The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, a neoconservative pundit who has supported every single U.S. regime change war and once advocated the murder of Palestinian journalists.

So naturally, she should be asked for her thoughts on the recent summit that brought together Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi:

Fareed Zakaria: You've been talking about this alliance. What keeps them together? Because there is fundamentally the shared opposition to a Western-led world and American power, right? Is there more to it?

Anne Applebaum: These are powers that have very different ideologies: nationalist, communist, theocratic in the case of Iran. What unites them is their dislike of us, and by us I mean the democratic world, and the language of rule of law, because of course that's the language of their own internal oppositions. And China and Russia in particular, but the rest as well, have been working for many years to delegitimize that language, to get the idea of human rights out of international institutions.

Oh, yes.

It's only those states that hate the language of human rights. As opposed to us who support, for example, Israeli mass murder in Gaza, tried to destroy any type of UN oversight of Israel, and has been trying to undermine the UN Human Rights Council. And they just hate us.

Have we ever considered maybe we hate them, given that we're always blaming them for every single problem under the sun and trying to overthrow their governments? Whereas the entire existence of the establishment Applebaum is a part of is to constantly demonize other states and gin up hatred towards them.

But maybe calling for the murder of journalists in Palestine really is the language of the rule of law…

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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 the U.S. Government claimed was carrying drug-smuggling terrorists), and the US Veterans Boat which joins the Freedom Flotilla headed to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s deadly and illegal blockade.

Calling in from the Freedom Flotilla, which took off for Gaza during our conversation, is former Army Ranger Greg Stoker, who relates what is happening in Gaza to what 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 in 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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But first we 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 leader 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. In a recent video, fascist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir 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 military occupation, Barghouti has 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

Useful Idiots is heralded for it’s scathing nicknames of politicians, pundits, and organizations (see: the Fraudfather, the Apartheid Defense League, BlueAnon, and on), and it’s not often that others can match our witted brutality. So when we come across a worthy opponent, we have no choice but to give them credit:

Charlamagne tha God’s new nickname for the whining, rhyming, Israeli agent from New York known as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is close to perfect. Subscribe to hear the nickname and Aaron and Katie’s reaction to it.

But first on this cringe-worthy Thursday Throwdown, we’re watching Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff go on Fox News to discuss Israel’s “double-tap” attack on a hospital in Gaza, which killed 20 people, including 5 journalists. Double-tap means Israel bombed the hospital, waited for rescue workers, doctors, and journalists to arrive at the hospital, and then bombed it again.

In a mealy-mouthed defense, Witkoff pulled out all the Israeli talking points to cover for their war crime, but the real kicker comes when Fox News’ Bret Baier goes beyond what even Israel has said and comes up with a new lie of his own:

Plus: our fundraiser for the Middle East Children’s Alliance is almost at $20k! Help us hit our goal to get aid to the children of Gaza. To donate, click on the video above and find the fundraiser next to the Youtube video.

We love your support!!!

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Useful Idiots has another Double Header this week as we look at Gaza and Ukraine.

First up we speak with Dr. Omar Abdel-Mannan, founder of Health Workers 4 Palestine, about the State Department’s heartless decision to pause all visitor visas for people from Gaza. This policy shift came after Jewish-supremacist, right-wing-conspiracy-theorist, and self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer took to Twitter (and tagged Secretary of State Marco Rubio) to expose the fact that “Islamic invaders” were infiltrating the U.S. from Gaza. Of course, what was really happening is that children injured in Gaza with weapons from (and/or paid for by) the U.S. were coming to the states for medical treatment (at no expense to U.S. taxpayers) thanks to the non-profit HEAL Palestine.

Dr. Omar knows how important it is to provide children from Gaza with medical treatment in England, where he lives. He himself has worked tirelessly to bring children wounded in Gaza by UK weapons, into the UK.

He also reacts to propagandist outlets like Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which engages in the most disgusting whitewashing of Israel’s crimes: starving children to death isn’t that bad because most of the ones dying have pre-existing conditions. Phew! What a relief.

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?