Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Matt lost his voice this week, so we’re unpaywalling this extended interview with Adolph Reed. We’ll be back next week with Monday Mourning and a new UI episode. Subscribers can still get their UI fix with Katie’s attempt at the Taibbi dating app, also out today. “But if that doesn’t happen, then that’s gonna be the end of American democracy in the nex...

Subscribe for the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “That was what the unity after 9/11 really concealed: who it was aimed against.” Next week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. And as usual, Obama’s apology-free drone strikes, the domestic racism, the enhanced government surveillance, and curtailed civil liberties will be downplayed, if not completely ignor...

Subscribe for full interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com After 9/11, the US government jumped into war in Afghanistan, giving shells of reasons for their aggression. But at least they still gave reasons. However, after Bin Laden was killed in 2011, even the illusion of a reason for this war was gone. It’s been time to come home for a while. In an April interview with Matt, Adrian Bonenber...

Subscribe for full episodes and extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Lesley Blume is a journalist. She married a journalist. Her father wrote for Walter Cronkite. Her whole community is journalists. So, in 2016, when Trump rose to power, her community was suddenly under attack. “All of a sudden to see your entire community be under assault like that and be designated as enemies...

Subscribe for the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “America finally had enough media awareness after being taught in high school to look for bias that they suddenly were able to see, with new eyes, just how slanted and silly and contradictory and boring [corporate media is.]” Thus spoke Walter Kirn, writer for Time magazine and author of eight novels including Up in the Air (whic...

Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for full episodes and extended interviews Even just days before the election in Ohio’s 11th district, Nina Turner is pulling voters to her side. Just this week, an influential city councilman announced he switched his support from opponent Shontel Brown to Turner because on one side he saw angry attack ads, while on the other he saw policy. And this race is c...

Join our substack for the full interview and bonus content http://usefulidiots.substack.com Subscribe for clips and full episodes Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/UsefulIdiotpod The press is a crucial part of democracy, checking on the government and alerting the public to what’s going on. The water supply has been poisoned––that's the kind of thing we depend on the fourth estate to...

In the past few weeks of the crucial case for free speech and press, Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange was granted a new appeal on his extradition trial and it came out that a key witness (who is a diagnosed sociopath) admitted to lying, a smear campaign distorted much of what we know, and psychological torture was reported in the prison where he’s being held. Remember all that? You don’t? Well, do...

As PC culture, led fearlessly by Miss Woke 2021 Robin DiAngelo, moves deeper into decreeing what terms and actions count as racist, Professor Adolph Reed has a warning for us: “Both the discursive and institutional have emerged around a systemic disposition to find ways to evade talking about class and economic inequality, then it just grows in that dark environment with other fungi and so forth a...

What do you do when your congressman is an a**hole who celebrates the January 6 insurrection and uses it to try propel himself to governor of New York? You run against him and f*cking beat him. At least that’s what attorney and former Onion writer Austin Smith plans to do. And he’s using his “furious, blood-boiling” anger toward Lee Zeldin and the rest of Trump’s losers to help the people of New Y...

Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Norman Finkelstein, the prolific (and widely canceled) political scientist, and author of 11 books, joins the show to give us a sneak preview of his new book on cancel culture and identity politics. He explains what makes today's cancel culture new, what makes it not so new, and why it’s worse, in some ways, when the Left does it: “Obviously there’s cance...

Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Ross Barkan on the New York Mayoral Race and Cuomosexuals, Plus Whale Mouthwash, Republicans Hit the Pipe, and Jeff Bezos Should Eat the Mona Lisa “This is kind of the Holy Grail for the left that can never quite get pulled off,” says Ross Barkan, author of The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York. “It usually gets pulled off by moderat...

“Protest with a guitar? Not this candidate.” This written about a 21-year-old city council candidate with hippy sensibilities and a drive to help the underdog: Dennis Kucinich. Since that article in 1967, Kucinich served 16 years as the US house rep from Ohio, gained national fame in his two presidential bids, and was vindicated by the Washington Post as the future of American politics. Now, Kucin...

After a groundbreaking and enormously successful run at The Hill, Krystal and Saagar have followed the iconic path of a certain former rock music podcast, going solo by launching a subscriber-supported show called Breaking Point that debuts next week. The longtime friends-of-show are true pioneers in the modern media age. At a time when virtually every other political discussion show is aimed excl...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/USEFUL for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/useful fo...

Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger has been trapped in his apartment for two years without a fair trial. Hear his story. Plus: Biden and Republicans kill journalists while the Queen kills her dog Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Che...

Longtime friend-of-show Abby Martin, maker of the remarkable documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom, drops in for a Zoom chat to discuss the outbreak of hostilities in Israel. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use...

Also, we semi mis-predict a patent waiver outcome, discuss a sex work ruling, and relive a beaver attack Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Check out Mint M...

Friend-of-show Dr. Cornel West has been in the news a lot of late, and not always in a happy way. At the end of February, the brilliant professor of Philosophy, Divinity, and African-American studies announced he was leaving his longtime employers at Harvard University, and moving back to Union Theological Seminary, where he began his teaching career back in 1977. Harvard denied his request to be...

David Sirota of The Daily Poster weighs in on SALT deductions, Biden's presidency, and the future of journalism. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Chec...

A nation is gripped by a police-abuse trial, and Republicans and Democrats both find a way to suck about it Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad and use my code USEFUL for a great deal: https://sleep.me * Check out Min...

Talking with the former presidential candidate about the progressive candidate summit, smears, and "liberal bullshit." Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com to hear the extended interview with Marianne Williamso Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Our Sponsors: * Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/IDIOTS * Check out Chilipad...

We interview some guy named Noam Chomsky (extended interview coming next week), get to the bottom of why we broke up with Rolling Stone, and scrutinize the thrilling PBS interview of former al-Nusra/al-Qaeda leader-turned-very-handsome-man Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. Katie taps her beard-crit background, while we both investigate the two most important questions of our time: which four goateed male ce...

[This interview was recorded before the Governor of Arkansas Vetoed the anti-transgender health care bill].] The Arkansas Senate just passed a bill with a title straight out of dystopian fiction: the Arkansas Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act, or SAFE. Roundly denounced as the most extreme law of its type ever passed, the bill is one of about two dozen laws aimed at trans care currently be...

In this Useful Idiots interview, Matt Stoller walks us through some of the myths about big tech. Many members of Congress seem to believe the firms don’t intervene enough; Stoller explains that their massive existing levels of intervention are the problem, that the financial incentives of what he calls “surveillance advertising” move firms like Facebook to push users in the direction of ever more...