Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...

Steven Donziger helped win an $18 billion settlement on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people who were exposed to toxic waste from Chevron’s oil drilling in Ecuador. The company waged a legal campaign against him and when he refused to turn over his computer and cellphone, he was accused of contempt of court. Although not convicted, he has been under house arrest for over 650 days. Federal...

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.use...

Click here for the extended interview. 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. Included also in this week’s free episode of Useful Idiots: — In “Democrats Suck,” Matt excitedly discusses a story about the Biden administration teaming with private entities to circumv...

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Click here for the extended interview. Useful Idiots returns with friend-of-show and the great not-fully-canceled political author of our time, Thomas Frank. The author of books like Listen, Liberal and The People, No and What’s the Matter With Kansas in this episode had occasion to draw on the experience of one of his other words, The Conquest of Cool. The discussion started with the viral sensat...

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...

Click here for the extended interview. 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...

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

Click here for the extended interview. The “ Useful Idiots bump” strikes again. Over the weekend, the New York Times editorial board ran the following headline : Why Are Democrats Pushing a Tax Cut for the Wealthy? In the piece, the Times railed against the actions of congressional Democrats, particularly from the tri-state delegation, who have been pushing for a repeal of the $10,000 cap on State...

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

What separates the human being from the lower animals? Language? Morality? Comfortable shoes? None of the above, says Live Science. The real differentiator, they say, is what lay beneath, explaining in a classic headline about comb jellies that became fodder for this week’s “Isn’t that weird?”: YOUR MOST DISTANT COUSIN DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN ANUS As it turns out, the primitive jellyfish-like creatur...

Click here for the extended interview. “We were on Useful Idiots, bro,” said Gavin, co-host of the Vanguard podcast. “Bro, that was fucking crazy!” said Zac, his other half. “This was super trippy, guys,” agreed Gavin. “They were reacting to us reacting to them.” Now, in the next episode of Useful Idiots, we react to them reacting to us reacting to them, resulting in the following visual: The plan...

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.us...

Click here for the extended interview “Like who the fuck is reading anything from Rolling Stone now?” asked Zac and Gavin, hosts of the Vanguard podcast, when pondering our mysterious — and completely unjust — firing at the hands of the iconic music magazine. Katie and I would like to know the same thing. And, Zac and Gavin? We’re with you. None of it makes any sense to us, either. “I just think i...

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...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/subscribe

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...

The House Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings with the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter this week, the latest in a long series of efforts by Congress to demand “accountability” for fake news, hate speech, and foreign propaganda. “The time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the committee’s chairman. As on...

Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, co-hosts of the podcast Blocked And Reported, join Useful Idiots to talk about the failed campaign to get Singal driven off of Substack and what, according to Herzog, some of Singal's most vocal critics have in common with QAnon. They also talk about how they met and why they started their podcast and how they're not exactly canceled. Singal discusses his new book "Q...

We spoke to legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about the nuclear threat nobody is talking about, the end of the world and how he, despite all that, stays hopeful. But before diving in with Ellsberg, Matt and Katie talk about, of course, Dems sucking, Republicans sucking, things being weird and terrible and even bring you a stoned moment. Stand by for the youtube episode. And,...

Useful Idiots, the podcast Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper started in the summer of 2019 at Rolling Stone, is moving. After eighty episodes that included interviews with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard (our first guest), Roger Waters, Andrew Yang, Erin Brockovich, Michael K. Williams, Noam Chomsky, Marianne Williamson, Adam McKay, Bernie Sanders, Nadya Tolkonnikova of Pussy Riot, Tim Robbins, Adolph Reed,...

This was a crazy one, even by Internet standards. As if it weren’t enough that reporters and editors are being purged at mainstream news organizations all over the world, from the New York Times to the Guardian to Teen Vogue, a new campaign has begun targeting writers already shunned by the regular press, working as independent contractors at Substack. Last week, a series of articles and Tweets, i...

Here is our first truly independent podcast episode of Useful Idiots! [It is audio only and video will be released Tuesday.] We spoke to legendary Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about the nuclear threat nobody is talking about, the end of the world and how he, despite all that, stays hopeful. But before diving in with Ellsberg, Matt and Katie talk about, of course, Dems sucking, Rep...