For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and a chance to have your comment read on the show in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com
Click here for the full end of year special on Ukraine, Guantanamo Bay, and Meet the Press’s cringiest moments: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/extended-episode-useful-idiots-2022?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
2022 is nearly dead!
Last year in our year recap with Thomas Frank, we asked “WTF will happen in 2022?” While we predicted correctly some brutal Jan 6 hearings and a nightmare midterm year, none of us thought the biggest news of the year would be a proxy war in Ukraine.
So in our 2022 end of year special, Aaron and Katie deep dive on the latest in Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s Churchillian visit to Congress, Pelosi’s weird kiss, and all the insane politicians, generals, and corporate journalists who can’t seem to stop saying the quiet part out loud.
And now that the year is over, we’re asking you: WTF will happen in 2023? Let us know your craziest theories in the comments.
Subscribe for the full end of year special.
Plus, miss our full interview with Irish members of European parliament (and Useful Idiot rockstars) Claire Daly and Mick Wallace? We’re giving everyone the full extended interview for free.
It’s the Useful Idiots 2022 end of year special. Thanks for sticking with us all year, it’s been a wild ride. Let’s keep mourning and laughing into 2023.
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Useful Idiots 2022 Special plus Claire Daly & Mick Wallace Unlocked

Useful Idiots is an informative and irreverent politics podcast with journalist Aaron Maté and podcaster/writer Katie Halper. Episodes feature analysis of the political news of the week and exclusive interviews, with humor, commentary and dissection of why both Republicans and Democrats suck. Join Aaron and Katie as they examine important stories that have slipped through the cracks and what the media got wrong – and laugh about whatever is left to laugh about.

News

Politics

News Commentary

The first 50 people to click this link get 30% off ONE YEAR of Useful Idiots: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/first50
See the full interview with Susan Abulhawa here: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/palestinian-writer-breaks-down-at?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
See Katie’s mashup of politicians’ and corporate media’s hypocrisy on Zionist violence here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDOlPim1wc0&rco=1&ab_channel=KatieHalper
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: GOP brags Trump hates Palestinians more than Biden does https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/gop-brags-trump-hates-palestinians?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“I really have never seen anything like this, in Palestine or anywhere else in the world.”
Palestinian-American writer and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa has been to Gaza twice since October 7th. Her harrowing experience is hard to hear, but so important to listen to.
“The inhumanity is hard to fathom,” she says as she describes images far worse than what we’ve been told so far about Gaza. “It is a constant state of terror.”
We had Susan on to pull back the curtain of censorship held over Palestine, and she reveals the horrifying truth: zip ties tied tight for children’s hands, a heat wave turning tents into ovens, an epidemic of flies, mosquitos, and scorpions, grandparents who have lost their entire families, and a story of a house cat wounded and orphaned from his family, barely able to survive.
And as the US continues to fund this terror, Susan gives a stark warning: “If we allow this to continue without any accountability or serious consequences, then there will be no more limits for what these fascists will do. And it won’t stop with Gaza.”
But this week after a just-for-show shipments pause, Biden sent another $1 billion of weapons to Israel. So we asked Susan about the 2024 election and the question that keeps coming up: But won’t Trump be worse?
Susan responds: “I don’t know what’s worse than what Biden’s done. What can possibly be worse than genocide? What is worse than besieging two and a half million people in a tiny, densely-populated place and then bombing the hell out of them? Watching for seven months a live-streamed genocide and sending billions upon billions every month to this monstrosity to continue this genocide. What could possibly be worse?”
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Susan Abulhawa about academic censorship, the policing of pro-Palestine speech, and why she was canceled for her comments about Zelensky.
This episode is very hard to hear, but Susan explains that we cannot become desensitized to the horrors our governments are creating. Listen to and share Susan’s reporting. We appreciate your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.
Subscribe to watch the full episode here:
00:00 Intro + Special Offer
01:14 The Four Food Groups of News
19:44 Susan Abulhawa interview
20:43 What's happening in Gaza?
27:43 Susan's harrowing footage at Gaza's mass graves
36:35 The children of Gaza
41:27 Rescuing an orphaned cat
46:04 Will Trump be worse than Biden?
49:32 Canceled over Ukraine
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Palestinian Writer Breaks Down At Gaza’s Mass Graves

Click here for the full interview with Said Arikat: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/israel-is-a-gangster-state-says-palestinian?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Billionaire tech bro calls protesters an "infection inside our society" https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/billionaire-tech-bro-calls-protesters?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Palestinian journalist Said Arikat may have the hardest job in the world: every day he walks into the State Department briefing room to ask serious questions about the United States’ support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, only to be met with the smirking grin of Joker-cosplayer Matthew Miller.
Arikat is one of the last legitimate journalists working in Washington, and his pressure on warmongers like Miller, John Kirby, and the Biden administration is essential in holding their feet to the fire, especially at a time when the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times is working around the clock to cover up their complicity.
So from inside Washington establishment politics, Said shares his thoughts on the US’s plans for more war and the way the Biden admin enables the “gangster state” of Israel.
“This is really an army that is indoctrinated in criminality to kill the Palestinians, to show them they’re not human, to torture them. Shame on the Europeans, shame on the Americans, they’re the ones that should be held in contempt for allowing such a huge crime to take place under their eyes.”
Said, as is sadly the case with all of our Palestinian guests, also has personal stories of family members killed by Israel. Which is why it is so important for him and the rest of us to continue to stand up against the genocide.
But more and more people are seeing through Israel’s lies, which has Israel worried: “They are panicking because Americans can’t be fooled and blackmailed by AIPAC for much longer.”
Subscribe for the full interview with Said Arikat on the power of the college encampments, the House’s racist antisemitism bill, Israel’s attack on Rafah, and the Biden administration’s meaningless “pause” on weapons that will have no impact on Israel’s plans.
00:00 Intro
00:33 The Four Food Groups of News
21:31 Said Arikat interview
22:19 Israel shuts down Al Jazeera
24:35 Invasion of Rafah
26:12 Hamas agrees to ceasefire
27:55 Said vs Matthew Miller
35:01 Jake Tapper's ridiculous take
39:05 Biden and Johnson exploit the Holocaust
50:23 College protests and antisemitism bill
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“Israel is a Gangster State” says Palestinian DC-based Journalist

Click here for the full interview with Dr. Jill Stein and Jason Call: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/jill-stein-on-getting-assaulted-by?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Pervy Prof is Horny for Genocide https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/pervy-prof-is-horny-for-genocide?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
In a disturbing assault caught on camera, Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was attacked and arrested by police at Washington University in St. Louis. She, along with her campaign manager Jason Call and hundreds of others, were arrested for peacefully protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
As they held their ground, cops attacked Dr. Stein with a bike and pinned Jason to the ground. They recount the aggressive story in this week’s interview.
This campus beatdown is the latest in a long line of fascist attacks at colleges around the country, with students and professors hospitalized as US leadership looks on. President Biden, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, corporate media journalists, and countless members of congress have condoned or even encouraged these police attacks, giving them the green light to escalate their violent methods.
And Dr. Stein has a theory for why:
“The red flags are flying all over the place that they really are losing their stranglehold,” she says of the global empire. “It’s a scary moment because the bear has been cornered and knows that it’s under attack. The empire is striking back in every way that it can because its days are numbered.”
The growing protests around the country are a sign that things are changing and people are committed to that change. “It’s a very distressing and disturbing moment but it’s important to also recognize that behind that is this power of a different world rising up.”
Subscribe to watch the full interview with Dr. Jill Stein and Jason Call where we analyze Mayor Adams’ claim that professional protesters are taking over Columbia, debunk CNN’s propaganda that the wife of a terrorist has joined the students, and explain why it is actually the Zionist counter-protesters who are spreading dangerous antisemitism.
And for a full recap of corporate media’s dishonest bias against student protesters, including a sickening speech from CNN’s Dana Bash and a weird rant from NYU Professor Scott Galloway, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Pervy Prof is Horny for Genocide.
00:00 Intro
01:03 The Four Food Groups of News
22:27 Dr. Jill Stein and Jason Call interview
23:51 Assaulted by cops (video)
34:10 Professor attacked (video)
36:04 Why is the US breaking up protests?
39:11 Politicians fuel the fire
41:41 Congress passes $95 billion for war
47:11 Dems make ballot access impossible
51:22 Eric Adams demonizes students
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Jill Stein on getting assaulted by cops & campus crackdown

For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Columbia protests organized by CHINA (say MSNBC conspiracy theorists) https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/columbia-protests-organized-by-china?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Get a copy of Deluge at http://orbooks.com
Jamie Stern-Weiner, Ahmed Alnaouq, and Colter Louwerse, authors of Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm, join the show just in time to check Netanyahu on his sickening new video address instructing the US government to censor college protesters:
“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” begins the Israeli leader in a speech that comes across as desperate. “They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. They want to kill Jews wherever they are. It has to be stopped.”
Israel murdered many family members of our Palestinian guest Ahmed, including fourteen children under the age of 13. When Netanyahu lies that protesters are against Jewish people and not against Israel’s uncountable horrors, it becomes crucial for journalists to thoroughly debunk his dangerous claims.
So Jamie, Ahmed, and Colter lay out a complete history of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, from the mass murder in Jaffa in order to create Tel Aviv, up through the massacre at the Great March of Return (Ahmed shares personal stories from the march). They show the countless attempts at peaceful protests by the Palestinians that were met with Israeli violence, and explain how today’s college protests, including a large contingent of Jewish students, signify that years of peaceful protesting is finally making a global impact.
This week’s interview will not be paywalled because we think Netanyahu’s claims should be debunked for everyone.
If you want a full breakdown of the college campus protests, the Israeli actors posing as protesters to disrupt them, and the professors who are gunning to censor and expel the brave students, subscribe to watch our Thursday Throwdown. We cover it all here: Columbia protests organized by CHINA (say MSNBC conspiracy theorists)
Thanks for supporting Useful Idiots and independent media.
00:00 Intro
01:47 The Four Food Groups of News
24:41 Biden is stoned
31:02 Jamie Stern-Weiner, Ahmed Alnaouq, and Colter Louwerse interview
38:41 We Are Not Numbers co-founder
44:42 Ahmed shares how Israel bombed his family
50:11 Is Hamas to blame?
57:53 Hamas' peace offer
1:11:50 The Great March of Return
1:20:34 A Palestinians vision for the future
1:21:36 Netanyahu's shameful speech
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This book debunks everything Netanyahu just said

Click here for the full interview with As'ad AbuKhalil: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/professor-exposes-campus-free-speech?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Order Karina Gonzalez’ new children’s book, “Churro Stand”: https://booksofwonder.com/products/churro-stand-street-vendor-project-english-vers
For $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Morning Joe begs you to love the US military https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/meltdown-joe-begs-you-to-love-the?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
At a time when genocide is being broadcast live on TV and western democracies are cracking down on free speech in order to enable it, As'ad AbuKhalil, Lebanse-American Professor of Political Science at California State University Stanislaus, finds a silver lining:
“The rest of the world is watching,” he says. “The west is being seen for what it really is: a racist, colonialist west that stands for war crimes.”
And as the United States supplies the weapons that massacre civilians, uses the press to cover up the crimes, and arrests students who speak out against it, it becomes “a full participant in the genocide.”
But will the Western governments that support Israel ever stop supporting it? “I don’t think that Israel can cross any threshold” for its supporters. 
He gives a history of Israel’s crimes. “Every crime of terrorism in our region has been pioneered by the Israelis: throwing bombs in buses and crowded markets, letter bombs against British embassies, booby-trapped cars, the incineration of the people of Jaffa in order to create the greater Tel Aviv region.”
And he shares harrowing stories from his own life in Lebanon, where Israel “incinerated Palestinian refugee camps,” indiscriminately killing “20,000 Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians.”
But instead of condemning any of that, the US is fighting its students who refuse to support a genocide.
“In this country that prides itself on being the freest country in the world, members of Congress are summoning presidents of universities and holding them to account about which views are allowed on college campuses. They’re taking pride that they are clamping down on the freedom of speech of students of the United States. That is very significant. That is western democracy at work.”
Subscribe for the full interview where we watch some of the most outrageous moments from Congress’ questioning of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, discuss why the Zionist lobby has “every reason to be worried,” and get Professor AbuKhalil’s take on the Biden-Trump rematch.
00:00 Intro
04:42 The Four Food Groups of News
19:41 As'ad AbuKhalil interview
20:24 NYT covers up Israel's attack on Iran
30:37 Does the western left care?
31:55 Israels massacre in Lebanon
40:59 US backs Israeli invasion of Rafah
43:41 US vetoes proposal for Palestine statehood
49:04 Will Israel fight Hezbollah?
53:17 Columbia president testimony
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Useful Idiots 2022 Special plus Claire Daly & Mick Wallace Unlocked

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