Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Click here for the full interview with Dave Smith: https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/dave-smith-a-jewish-libertarian-comedian?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=falseWatch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Trump Pins January 6 On Hezbollah https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/trump-pins-january-6-on-hezbollah?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=falseFor $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.comJoin us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show!Dave Smith is Part of the Problem. He’s a Jewish, anti-Zionist, libertarian comedian who makes a lot of people mad – but today he’s on Useful Idiots to make us laugh. And you’ll see very quickly how his no-nonsense approach to foreign policy matches almost perfectly with the progressive anti-war mindset.“My beef with Israel,” Dave explains, “has nothing to do with how I feel about Jewish people. I just think you can't occupy a group of people and then indiscriminately slaughter them. That's not cool.”And here’s where the libertarian comes in: “And why on earth should I be forced to fund that, especially when it's so clearly at the expense of my country and my country's interests? Syria is the perfect example of this. On one side you have Al Qaeda, the enemy of the American people. And on the other side, you have Bashar al-Assad, the enemy of the Israeli government. And who are we picking? We're picking the enemy of my country's people. It's such an outrage.”But as Useful Idiots knows all too well, speaking out brings a flood of outrage and name calling. But outrage and names, Dave explains, is about all they’ve got.“If that's the counter argument then you really must be on weak ground. You know whatever I'm a Putin-apologist or I'm a terrorist-lover or a self-hating Jew or a Nazi or whatever you want to say. It's just so dumb, are we in the third grade?”But his common-sense, anti-war argument is far from mainstream, especially in places where the government can dominate thinking in both the media and the culture itself. “It’s the dynamic under the U.S. dominant culture,” he says. “If joe Biden or Donald Trump or Barack Obama were to drone bomb a wedding in Yemen, which is something they tend to do, and they kill like six children and fourteen adults and a couple hundred others were wounded; and then that same day they gave a press conference and they said ‘I don't believe [x culture issue],’ what would be the big outrage of the day?”Subscribe for the full interview with Dave Smith for his takes on Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Jake Shields, how Israel has created more antisemitism, and a progressive vs libertarian debate on welfare.00:00 Intro01:58 Ro Khanna admits Dems sold out workers07:37 LA mayor cut LAFD funds (and gave them to the LAPD)12:22 Trump thinks Canada should be honored to be annexed18:37 Biden makes the wildfires about himself20:56 ABC reporter's wardrobe trick busted during LA fire23:16 Dave Smith interview24:09 Trump and Obama BFFs27:45 Dems are changing their messaging31:04 Is MAGA a cult?35:31 Trump is untouchable41:21 Chomsky or Trump?43:45 Why Dave rejected Zionism50:25 Welfare: Progressive vs Libertarian DebateOur Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.american-giant.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: CNN Drunkenly Admits It’s Fake News https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/cnn-drunkenly-admits-its-fake-news?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=falseFor $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.comJoin us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show!Healthcare workers are being targeted and killed by Israel in Gaza. This hasn’t stopped American doctor Tanya Haj-Hassan from repeatedly going back.“I think it's normal to have some fear for your own safety,” she tells us. “You're going into a war zone where essentially there is indiscriminate killing of everybody. But at the same time, our colleagues have been enduring this for fifteen months straight. And it's intolerable and unbearable to watch it from the outside.”Despite the oath she and every other doctor took to care for people, Tanya describes a "Palestinian exception": “When you work in the American healthcare system, you aren't given the freedom to show solidarity with Palestinian healthcare workers, with the Palestinian people, with patients, to express outrage about the intentional targeting of the healthcare system and healthcare workers. And you are either directly or indirectly attacked if you show solidarity in this way. True solidarity means risking something. And I can tell you as someone who's working in the North American healthcare system that we are silenced, and that when we speak out, we pay the price.”But to Dr. Haj-Hassan, remaining silent isn’t an option. “Being silent in the face of the intentional decimation of an entire healthcare system, the intentional killing and targeting of healthcare workers, the intentional detention and torture of healthcare workers for no other crime other than providing healthcare is complicity.”So, Tanya shares the harrowing stories of her time in Gaza, and while it’s very hard to hear, it is more important than ever to bear witness to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.Share“You just finish mourning the loss of somebody you know,” Tanya shares, “and then you receive the next bit of news. And I think that's characteristic of everything we've been witnessing since October of last year. Just as an example, on Christmas Day, five journalists in a press marked vehicle were killed by a direct airstrike. A day later, Kamal Adwan Hospital is raided and burned down. Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya, the director, is, we're told, beaten and taken away to Israeli prisons.”Dr. Hassan Abu Safiya, who was photographed bravely walking towards Israeli tanks, was already injured by Israel. His son had already been murdered by Israel. Yet he refused to leave the hospital. His pleas for help to the international community were ignored. His hospital was destroyed. And now he is reported to be in the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was killed and, according to witnesses, essentially raped to death.Dr. Haj-Hassan continues: “And if it happened anywhere else in the world or it had happened in isolation, you'd have time to report on it and to share it with the world. But you just you move on the next day.”Tanya also talks about pushing back on a CNN reporter and explaining that this is not some natural humanitarian crisis. This is genocide. And she reacts to the hateful smearing of child-educator and youtuber Ms. Rachel who is being called an antisemite for saying "children have the right to live." And Tanya debunks the malicious claim that children in Gaza aren't really freezing to death.Listen to and share this interview with Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan. Thanks for your support of independent media and healthcare workers.00:00 Intro01:14 MSNBC has been watching Useful Idiots06:44 Trump blames NOLA terrorism on the border10:25 Patrick Bet-David's Thinking Room14:55 Pentagon "finds" 100% more US troops in Syria19:30 Israelis Say the Racistest Things21:54 Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan interview22:32 Stories from Gaza25:41 Calling out CNN (on CNN)27:56 The media is complicit33:40 The Doctors of Gaza41:12 Dr. Abu Safiya is kidnapped and tortured46:58 The price healthcare workers pay48:24 The Palestinian healthcare system53:19 UNRWA56:36 They burned down a hospital1:00:13 Stories of Gazans1:04:40 Do you fear going to Gaza?1:08:13 Dr. Abu Safiya's Diary1:17:27 Is Ms. Rachel Antisemitic?Our Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.american-giant.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Watch our Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté Silences Piers Morgan Panel with Facts on Syria & Palestine https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/aaron-mate-silences-piers-morgan?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=falseFor $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.comJoin us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.If you want to experience smoother digestion, a boost of energy, and an overall healthier body go to http://roundhouseprovisions.com/USEFUL for up to 44% off your regular-priced order plus a 90-day, money-back guarantee!Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show!“I think the reasonable conclusion is that Gaza is no more. There's nothing left in Gaza.”Monday the 7th marked one full year of genocide in Gaza, the darkest era of a decades-long occupation by Israel, which has now begun to spread into the broader Middle East region.This week we’re joined by Gaza expert and Useful Idiots fan-favorite Norman Finkelstein to look back on this genocidal year.Norm points out that this is not, as Western and Israeli media claims, an “Israel-Hamas war.” This is not war. This is genocide. And Israel is not targeting Hamas; they are killing civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, and picking off journalists, health workers, and children.“I read this letter,” he tells us, “from sixty-five physicians from around the world who gave testimony as to what they observed. And every one of the physicians testified that the children who were coming into the hospital had bullet wounds to the skull or to the chest. No shrapnel. It wasn't bombs and shrapnel. It was targeted bullet wounds to the skull and to the chest of children. What does that have to do with war?”“There were fifty-four disabled children who used the school in the convent complex. They fired two shells at it. What does that have to do with war?”Norman also recalls meeting Hezbollah members, and shares what he got wrong about the organization. “Israel, he says, “is willing to kill for material benefit, and Hezbollah and Hamas are willing to die for survival” He also recounts his time meeting Hamas leaders, and explains Israel’s unfair advantage:“Israel is the entrenched, concentrated manifestation of Western imperialism. It's got deep roots. It's got the whole Western system behind it, that Western system which won't let go. It will nuke China before it lets go of its global dominance. And in order to defeat it, it requires a very long-term struggle and intense calculation.”Subscribe for the full interview where Norman explains this despair, and the generational hopelessness which lacks historical precedent.“Our generation,” he laments, “has, for good reason, lost the belief, the conviction that we have the force of history behind us. That we have the force of justice behind us. Our generation believes there's a good chance we'll be defeated. There's a good chance we're not going to win.”But that doesn’t mean we should give up.“The only thing I can say as a conclusion is you never know. You can only know one thing for certain: If you do nothing, it can only get worse.”It’s that certainty that he says keeps him going. “If you resist, there are moments where it looks very grim. And then there's that folk song, it's always darkest before the dawn. It's this hope that keeps me carrying on. It's always darkest before the dawn.”“There's another reality. There's something in the human constitution that simply can't do nothing. In the face of such death and devastation, you just can't.”Our Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.american-giant.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Click here for the full interview with Scott Horton: http://usefulidiotspodcast.comWatch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Aaron Maté Silences Piers Morgan Panel with Facts on Syria & Palestine https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/aaron-mate-silences-piers-morgan?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=falseFor $6 a month, become a Useful Idiot! Get extended interviews, Thursday Throwdowns, and bonus content at http://usefulidiotspodcast.comJoin us LIVE on Youtube every Monday at 10am EST for Monday Mourning, where we watch the Sunday morning news shows so that you don't have to.If you want to experience smoother digestion, a boost of energy, and an overall healthier body go to http://roundhouseprovisions.com/USEFUL for up to 44% off your regular-priced order plus a 90-day, money-back guarantee!Support local jobs and get variety of high-quality clothing and activewear at https://www.american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code USEFUL. Thanks to American Giant for sponsoring the show!He’s the author of the new book Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine and host of the Scott Horton Show – it’s Scott Horton! And he’s joining Useful Idiots this week in a Santa hat to bring us the much-needed gift of finding out WTF is really going on in Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East.A theme of this interview – and much of our reporting these days – is that so much of what was previously dismissed and smeared as Russian propaganda is now admitted openly as fact. Two glaring examples: the US and UK prevented a peace deal that had been negotiated between Ukraine and Russia right after Russia invaded in February 2022. And the idea that this whole conflict is a US proxy war.When we reported these on our show, we were called Putinists, Russian propagandists, and, by some really clever haters, useful idiots.But today, either everyone has fallen for these Russian talking points, or the West has finally realized it can’t hide the truth much longer as mountains of evidence prove these to be true. Just listen to Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister who famously warned Zelensky not to finalize the peace deal, describing the war now:“We are, let's face it, we're waging a proxy war. But we're not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years and years now we've been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, and it has been cruel and we need now to give them what they need.”He admits that this is a proxy war, but using Ukraine as fodder against Russia isn’t the cruel part. The cruel part, according to neocons, is that we’re not giving them all the weapons possible to fight and die on our behalf.That’s the perspective that Scott Horton takes apart in this week’s episode, giving a very detailed account of the US role in provoking the proxy war in Ukraine and the methods to prolong it ever since.Subscribe to hear the full interview with Scott Horton where we discuss how so-called anti-war President Trump has stood as firmly by NATO as anyone else, whether actual Ukrainians want western support, and a complex look at the Middle East where Scott reveals the country that spies on the US more than anyone else.Our Sponsors:* Check out American Giant and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.american-giant.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy