Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Click here for the full interview with Amanda Yee: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/bidens-trumpian-war-on-korea-a0b?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: NATO Chief Spreads "Pro-Putin Talking Points" https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/nato-chief-spreads-pro-putin-talking?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Journalist Amanda Yee of Liberation News joins the show to break up some hardened American propaganda about the “forgotten” war in Korea and what’s actually going on behind the travel ban in North Korea, which Trump started and Biden has renewed each year since. This proves, once again, that despite running as the opposite of Trump, the one campaign promise that Biden has actually kept is the one he made behind closed doors to donors: "Nothing would fundamentally change." Even some of the most jaded skeptics of US propaganda still believe the misrepresentations about North Korea, and the travel ban makes it that much harder to see reality for ourselves. Luckily, Amanda Yee is sharing some first-hand accounts to shed light. She explains the painful family separations caused by Biden’s draconian ban and the untold horrors of the war the US wants us to forget. A war which never ended. Amanda also discusses the national security state’s selective, unprincipled and hypocritical war on independent organizations who dare to criticize U.S. foreign policy. Subscribe now (while the price is still low!) for the full interview with Amanda where we discuss the New York Times disinformation campaign to fuel fear of our “enemies” and the New Cold War with China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full episode with Matt Taibbi: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/matt-taibbi-on-gop-debates-censorship?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Click here for the full interview with Max Blumenthal and Matt Orfalea: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/matt-taibbi-and-max-blumenthal-on?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance" https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/nato-pinky-swears-that-its-a-defensive?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Did you ever wonder what Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman would sound like if she was played by director and actor Werner Herzog? Or what Chris Christie would do if Trump ordered food for him that he was allergic to? Have you wondered what the German word is for a Brazilian spider bite that causes painful, hours-long erections? Do you know the world-record time for drinking 2-liters of soda? Can you guess how many buffalo wings Matt Taibbi has eaten in one hour? Or how many hugs two erotically-charged men can do in one minute? Did you ever wonder if hugs could be counted? Or if an act of love such as a hug can’t be quantified as there is so much more to a hug than a physical entanglement of arms, and that in the same way a competition for who can fall in love more times is a fleeting grasp at ordering the confusing nature of life, it is ultimately an impossible feat, and maybe the point of life isn’t to count but to live, so when you finally allow yourself the freedom of falling out of control instead of waiting indefinitely behind the curtains of a stage that only exists in your own mind, preparing to say the lines you wrote for yourself but know deep down you’ll never perform, when you finally let all that go and “embrace” the lack of control you realize you aren’t falling but flying? Did you ever wonder those things? If so, you’re in luck! Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper have all the answers while they celebrate three and a half years of Useful Idiots with a reunion episode, throwing it back to the four food groups, terrible media clips, a scary new censor, and as always, a whole lotta nonsense. Subscribe to watch the full episode where Matt and Katie do shrooms with Trump in a bowling alley and discuss the dystopian future of government censorship where the word transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with Max Blumenthal: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/matt-taibbi-and-max-blumenthal-on?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at www.usefulidiotspodcast.com Watch the latest Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance" https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/nato-pinky-swears-that-its-a-defensive?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat “The constitution is just a sideshow at this point.” Censorship, no longer just a threat from the government but now from private tech corporations as well, has snowballed into dystopian size. And the scariest part about censorship? It hides itself. So it’s hard to know just how huge it really is. Which makes this an issue on a scale so large that the only team possibly fit to crack into its titanium shroud is the original Useful Idiots: Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper. That’s right, Matt’s joining us for a two-week special. Buckle up. This week, we’re interviewing two journalists recently trampled by the wheels of big tech. First is Max Blumenthal, editor and founder of the Grayzone, which had a recent fundraiser frozen and withheld by GoFundMe “due to some external concerns.” GoFundMe, along with corporations like PayPal, has buried other independent news sites for speaking out against US war. But none as big as the Grayzone. Which means they can speak up and fight back. Tune in and join the fight. The second guest is Matt Orfalea, video editor and Racket News contributor, whose videos on Youtube have been deleted and demonetized for being “potentially harmful,” or for spreading election lies. The main video in question was simply a mashup of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump claiming that the 2016 and 2020 elections were stolen from them. No opinion, just documentation. Check out the video, it’s back up on Youtube but demonetized. You wouldn’t want such a dangerous video to make any money for its creator. Subscribe for the full interviews with Max and Orf where they explain the digital de-democratization of the world under the guise of a NATO proxy war, the terrifying new DIIA app which is creating a new digital passport, and Max Blumenthal’s grim prediction: As the power of corporations takes hold, “the only kind of activism that’s going to be allowed is activism that supports the state’s objectives.” It’s a new world model where transparency no longer means we get to see what they’re doing, but where they get to always keep an eye on us. Subscribe to watch the full episode and support independent media at a dangerous time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with Sohrab Ahmari: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/how-both-parties-work-for-tyranny?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Read Tyranny, Inc. here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/708057/tyranny-inc-by-sohrab-ahmari/ For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: NATO Pinky Swears that it's a "Defensive Alliance" https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/nato-pinky-swears-that-its-a-defensive?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat After claims of fraud in the 2020 election and the rise of Trump’s pseudo-populist wing of the GOP, Sohrab Ahmari wrote Tyranny, Inc. In the book, the journalist and founding editor of Compact magazine gives a tour of our political economy from the point of view of ordinary people who faced private tyranny and paid the price for it. Private being the key word. Ahmari, even as a conservative columnist for the NY Post, can sometimes sound more leftist than some Congressional progressives. “Conservatives are quite used to thinking of government as the only potential source of coercion,” Ahmari tells us, “so the fact that a segment of the right was suddenly alert to what big tech could do to you, seemed to me an opening to say, ‘Hey, let me show you other kinds of private coercion which are less visible, but all the more insidious.’” Sohrab Ahmari’s in-depth reporting and bipartisan critiques emerge as some mix of conservative populism and Marxist theory. It’s a fascinating perspective that, in a world ruled by tech censorship and private coercion, is increasingly rare to hear anywhere other else than on Useful Idiots. Watch the full interview to hear his response to Jacobin excluding him from a left-right coalition because of his cultural views, Oliver Anthony’s controversial country song, the actual difference between his critique of capitalism and the leftist one, and the unprecedented support by the US so-called left of the military industrial complex and the Ukraine proxy war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full episode with Professor Junaid Ahmad: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/exposed-us-backed-regime-change-in?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow Save Democracy https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/hillary-clinton-and-rachel-maddow?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Professor Junaid Ahmad, director for the Center for Global Dialogue, joins Useful Idiots to shed light on a bombshell story that you may not have heard about. And you have western corporate media to thank for that. The Intercept released a secret Pakistan cable which documents US pressure to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. That was achieved in April 2022, when Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote. Since then, the Pakistani government has arrested Khan and banned him from the next election. Ahmad explains the consequences of the findings in the classified documents and shares one of the craziest quotes reported in the Intercept article: “All will be forgiven,” said a U.S. diplomat, “if the no-confidence vote against Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan succeeds.” So why did the US want Khan out? Because he didn’t follow the rules of western imperialism. In a speech, Khan responded directly to Western demands that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us? We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.” Of course, such a statement is blasphemy under US rule, so Imran Khan was swiftly taken care of. Watch the full interview with Junaid Ahmad where he explains in depth what Khan believed as leader of Pakistan, how the regime change happened, and the next steps for the imprisoned prime minister to walk free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full debate: https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/debate-is-trumps-jan-6th-plot-kooky?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: "Livin' on a Prayer (for endless war) https://open.substack.com/pub/usefulidiots/p/livin-on-a-prayer-for-endless-war?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Trump Indictment Season is officially in full swing, and corporate news, in their best attempt to give Trump as much free campaign coverage as possible, is covering it nearly 24/7. Whichever network you tune into, whether Fox News or MSNBC (and we sincerely hope you never tune into either), you’ll find panels with talking-head lawyers professing to know the exact legal implications of the indictment. As is our mission at Useful Idiots, we aim to be fundamentally opposite of corporate media in all ways. So accordingly, we admit to not mastering the legal implications of anything. Which is why Useful Idiots is hosting a proxy debate on the criminality of Trump’s actions around January 6. Congressional Dish host Jennifer Briney argues that Trump did in fact break the law, while writer and substacker Michael Tracey claims this indictment, like the others, is merely political. It’s a debate you could only get from independent media: respectful, evenly-matched, and honestly hard to choose a winning side. So cut the cable, tune into Useful Idiots, and let us know in the comments who wins you over. Did Trump break the law, or are we watching Russiagate 2.0? Subscribe to support independent media and watch the full debate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full episode: https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4381986/nato-is-the-zombie-that-won-t-die For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: MSNBC Celebrates Trump Indictment with 24/7 Campaign Promotion https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4375164/msnbc-celebrates-trump-indictment-with-24-7-campaign-promotion Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat “The likely outcome of the Vilnius summit,” Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, explains, “will be once again to dangle a never ending timetable for Kyiv’s admittance into the alliance.” As we progress further and further into the proxy war against Russia, Ukraine’s roadmap for joining NATO grows foggier and foggier. In 2008, Ukraine was given an explicit list of steps to complete in order to gain acceptance. Today, they’re told something else: “Ukraine can join NATO when allies agree and when certain conditions are met.” This purposefully vague promise seems to be the West’s way of pushing off Ukraine indefinitely while still making sure that they fight to the last Ukrainian. As Lieven says: “At the very least I’d say Ukraine is just as far away as it was in 2008. The case for Ukraine’s NATO membership is the zombie that won’t die.” At Responsible Statecraft, he writes of the danger NATO faces if they ever actually followed through on their promise: “The West will be committed to an endless strategy of arming and financing Ukraine against Russia, while praying that the United States remains fully committed to this and is not drawn away by more important domestic and international threats.” He adds: “For if America ever does pull back, NATO’s European members may find that the only thing more stupid than pulling a bear’s tail and running away is pulling its tail when you can’t run away.” Watch the full interview with Anatol Lieven where he explains how journalists have become part of the elite system they once reported on, the danger of Russophobia, and his scary answer to the question: “Do you have any fear that we’re heading towards World War III?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with Greg Mitchell: https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4350544/oppenheimer-expert-on-what-christopher-nolan-s-movie-gets-wrong For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Congress Says the Aliens are Coming https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4342771/congress-says-the-aliens-are-coming Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat Now I am become Useful Idiot. With the Hollywood blockbuster forcing everyone to remember the nuclear bomb again, Oppenheimer expert Greg Mitchell, who you can find on Substack here and here, joins the Useful Idiots to analyze Hollywood’s portrayal of the man and his bomb. “Only four movies in 75 years” have really dealt with the bomb, he tells us. We have countless movies about World War II, but when the US becomes the killer, Hollywood has fallen silent. So how did the fourth movie, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, do? “What is included in the film is extremely accurate,” Mitchell says, but the details omitted tell a different story. “In the movie we don’t see warnings about the radiation effect, we don’t see the horror in Japan.” Nolan apparently leaves the audience with a grave warning about the future of nuclear warfare, but is he giving a pass to his characters who dropped the bombs already? “There’s tremendous focus on the Trinity test,” he says, explaining something the movie does show. “Every filmmaker loves to focus on Trinity because no one died there and there’s great special effects and it’s a great moment of triumph and celebration.” But what’s omitted: “They’d rather do that than look at happened when we killed 160,000 civilians.” Watch the full interview with author and historian Greg Mitchell where he explains the faults of the “harm reduction” argument, the rising nuclear tensions in North Korea, and how the Ukraine proxy war has brought us dangerously close to nuclear war. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with Lev Golinkin: https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4318784/ukrainian-journalist-shocked-by-new-poll The poll: https://voxukraine.org/en/the-ability-of-ukrainians-to-distinguish-messages-of-russian-propaganda-results-of-public-opinion-research For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Anderson Cooper upset by Cornel West's morality https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4311701/anderson-cooper-upset-by-cornel-wests-morality Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat “This poll is earth-shattering.” “I wonder if any media will pick it up.” “Of course not!” Ukrainian-America journalist and author Lev Golinkin joined the show this week to discuss on a new poll that flips everything we’ve been told about “real Ukrainians.” And before you write off the poll as Russian propaganda, check out who conducted it: not Moscow, with its memes of deception to trick Americans, and not Useful Idiots, those secret Putin agents, but Vox! Now the poll: A shocking 43% of respondents in Ukraine disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine.” Guess what percent of respondents agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia.” Check out the interview to find out. But you’ll see that Ukraine is not the monolith of pro-war nationalists that our media claims they are. As Lev goes through the responses of the poll, each one shockingly truthful about the split of what Ukrainians actually believe, he has a dark conclusion about the US government which refuses to look at the data: “These people who have control over our future know nothing about us.” But Vox Ukraine’s conclusion (we give props to them for even publishing the results at all), is very different. “The conducted survey revealed the overall ability of Ukrainians to differentiate narratives of Russian propaganda. In this case, the active promotion of counter-narratives is necessary.” So now it isn’t “listen to Ukrainians” but “these Ukrainians are duped by Russian propaganda and we need to teach the troglodytes that they like the war.” So, don’t listen to them. Join Lev, Katie, and Aaron as we analyze a poll that surely won’t be reported by the New York Times or any other corporate warriors, and watch the extended interview where Lev shares the truth about the real people of the Donbas, the war crimes committed by the West and Russia (“Any war crime you can name that has been committed by one side has been committed by the other”), and the one difference between Wagner neo-Nazis and Azov neo-Nazis: “The Wagner neo-Nazis are not put on MSNBC. The Wagner neo-Nazis are not being trained and armed by the United States. The Wagner neo-Nazis are not being invited to Congress.” It’s an enlightening interview with a Ukrainian voice ignored by the mainstream. Check it out, share the poll, and watch the extended interview with Lev Golinkin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson: https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4286903/former-cia-analyst-the-west-cannot-defeat-russia-in-ukraine For $5 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and chat live with Katie and Aaron in the Absurd Arena at http://usefulidiots.locals.com Find us on Substack at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Biden Throws "Vladimir" Zelensky Under the Bus https://usefulidiots.locals.com/post/4280521/biden-throws-vladimir-zelensky-under-the-bus Join the Absurd Arena live chat with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/chat “The west cannot win.” Former CIA analyst and deputy director of the US Office of Counterterrorism Larry Johnson has a grave outlook for the proxy war in Ukraine. And it ends with a lot of dead Ukrainians. Even with the hundreds of billions of dollars of HIMARS, Stingers, Javelins, and now the potential for F-16s and war-crime cluster munitions, Ukraine, according to Johnson’s military analysis, has not made a single successful stand against fortified Russian forces and will only suffer more losses as the pointless war rages forward. And what’s his solution? Well, you won’t be surprised to hear it’s just about exactly the same as every other Useful Idiots guest’s: diplomacy. The west wins through peace. Johnson covers it all: how Russiagate led to the war, the Wagner Group’s “coup” and Prigozhin’s silly disguises, and the real reason the west hates Putin so much. Hint: it’s not because of the communist/dictator/Hitler/4D-chess super genius stuff they tell us. “We’re angry at Putin because he shut down the money flow from the oligarchs that was going into the pockets of a lot of western capitalists. It’s that simple.” Catch it all in the extended interview with Larry Johnson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.american-giant.com* Check out MyBookie and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: www.mybookie.agAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy