Useful Idiots

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:

We’ll never go corporate: Your support for Useful Idiots keeps us going!

For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, 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 Gina Haspel, who later became the CIA Director in the first Trump Administration.

An order is written. Haspel transmits the orders. The videotapes are destroyed.

And they are actually under a judge's subpoena to preserve all evidence concerning these matters. When Gina Haspel becomes the CIA Director ten years later under Trump, all anything anybody knows about Gina Haspel is that she was at the CIA base when the torture was conducted and she transmitted an order from her boss to destroy the tapes.

Well, it turns out Gina Haspel, when she became the CIA director for the last three years of Trump, was pretty effective at defending the CIA from Trump. Trump hates and fears the CIA. He sees it as the capital of the deep state.

Your second question about the torture report. It is a fact that the CIA launched a counterintelligence investigation into the Senate staff during the final year of the publication, before the publication of the torture report.

Useful Idiots: Let me stop you there. Is that legal for the CIA to launch an investigation of Americans, especially American politicians?

Listen to or watch the episode for our full chat with Tim Weiner. Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Bill Maher Goes FULL PROPAGANDA Bot For Israel

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For nearly 40 years, journalist Tim Weiner has closely covered the CIA, 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

The sleaziest man in media is back! It’s Bill Maher, the man who got his name as the anti-woke, anti-religion, anti-cancel-culture warrior, who mocks anyone weak enough to complain that their feelings were hurt over mere words.

UNLESS: those words are against Israel. In which case you should be swiftly censored and all complaining is fair game.

This week, Maher stepped up his game, shilling out for Israel with such immense propaganda that it exposed a dirty secret he does not want getting out:

Your support keeps Useful Idiots alive!

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

This week we cover not only Israel's starvation siege of Gaza but also another area that has been overshadowed by the genocide: the West Bank, where Israel continues its campaign of terrorism and murder.

Journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who has spent time in the West Bank, talks to us about a recent murder of a Palestinian activist. And Palestinian-American Human Rights Lawyer Huwaida Arraf and Jewish-American activist Bob Suberi join us from Palestine where they're planning what's next after having been captured and arrested while aboard the Handala, the civilian ship carrying aid for Gaza.

Jasper tells us about Yinon Levi, who was sanctioned by the Biden Administration after repeated attacks in the West Bank. Trump lifted the sanctions, setting Levi loose on the people of the West Bank once again. And sure enough, on July 29, Yinon Levi murdered another Palestinian: Awdah Hathaleen, an activist and teacher who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. After a short house arrest, Jasper tells us, Levi was set free, once again.

Huwaida and Bob talk to us about Israel's latest illegal interception of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and why they refuse to stop sailing to Gaza. They also update us about the IDF's brutal arrest and beating of labor activist Chris Smalls who, not coincidentally, was the only Black participant on the ship. Coincidentally, Bob joined us from Umm al-Khair, the Masafer Yatta village, where Hathaleen lived and was killed. Hathaleen's friends and family are trying to mourn his death despite continued raids by grenade-throwing settlers.

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Subscribers get access to a chat in which Jasper who reveals what really happened to Shai Davidai, the disgraced Zionist Columbia University Business professor who left the school under mysterious circumstances, after harassing and doxxing pro-Palestinian students.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fox News Accidentally Reveals Anti-Mamdani Blackmail Plot Live on Air

Thanks for supporting independent media, watch the full episode here: