Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté (private feed for Mazurg@hotmail.com)

Secret Meeting Files PROVE 50-Year Media Conspiracy w/ David Sirota

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots fan-favorite David Sirota returns this week with a new book that dives into the dark money plot for elites to take full and final control of mainstream media. Subscribe for the full interview with David on Bari Weiss’s takeover of CBS News, the rise of tech oligarchs in America, and David’s message for disgruntled leftists.Here’s a preview of our chat:Useful Idiots: You have this great new book out called Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. It’s really relevant to so much of what’s happening today when it comes to media conglomeration, but it’s also relevant to a scary lawsuit that’s being headed by Vice President JD Vance that could have a damaging effect on some of the last campaign finance laws in this country.David Sirota: Master Plan tells the story of the fifty year secret plot to legalize corruption in a systematic way: deregulate the campaign finance system and make it nearly impossible to prosecute bribery. This plot started in the early 1970s with the Powell Memo, a memo written by Lewis Powell before he became a Supreme Court Justice. He was worried about corporations and oligarchs losing power, and he wrote this call to arms about how corporations, oligarchs, and the like had to invest in politics to make sure, essentially, that democracy didn’t continue to get ‘destroyed.’There were secret meetings in which some of the most powerful people in the country laid out how they were executing the Powell Memo. There was an effort to take over media, which we’re now seeing culminating in the Paramount-Skydance takeover with Donald Trump and Bari Weiss.Powell writes these memos that have never been seen before: he engineers a ruling extending constitutional protection for money as speech. Money is speech. Right now, as we speak, JD Vance is spearheading a low profile but huge case at the Supreme Court to try to give the now 6-3 conservative court an opportunity to eliminate all of the remaining limits on campaign contributions directly to candidates. Useful Idiots: So what’s the playbook for selling all this to the public? As a victory for the working class? For freedom? JD Vance fashioned himself as being pro-working class, but I don’t see anything in his record that supports that. So is this just an effort to push this through and hope nobody notices? Or is there a massive propaganda campaign to get people to buy into this agenda?David Sirota: I think their theory is: ‘We don’t care.’ There is no public-facing argument in the effort to deregulate campaign finance. They are making a straight up First-Amendment-legalistic-technical-argument to the Supreme Court, hoping the Supreme Court gives them what they want, because once they get what they want, then it unleashes unlimited spending for them.I don’t think they’re going out to the public saying, ‘hey, we’re deregulating campaign finance. We’re making sure the anti-bribery laws can’t be enforced. We’re doing this for some higher purpose.’ They’re doing this expecting that the media and the public will not follow the ins-and-outs of campaign finance law and anti-bribery law, knowing that if they’re successful, it will give them more power under the law to spend as much money as they want, making the political discourse and public policy whatever it is they want.Subscribe for the full interview with David Sirota. Order his new book Master Plan here.And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Fmr Congressman Reveals What Happens at Closed-Door AIPAC EventsThanks for supporting independent media, watch the full episode here:

Marco Rubio (Accidentally) Explains Why the Gaza Peace Plan is Fake

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Flotilla Attacks, Trump’s Ceasefire & America Turning on Israel w/ Lawyer Diana Buttu

This episode is free to all. Please help us share Diana Buttu’s important message.Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu returns to Useful Idiots, joining us from Haifa, Israel, where she’s based. Diana breaks down Trump’s “peace plan,” which is in no way a peace plan, debunks Israeli talking points, and urges us not to give up, but rather to “disrupt, disrupt, disrupt!” until Palestine is free.We begin our conversation asking about the Global Sumud Flotilla, which, once again, sailed through international waters in an effort to break Israel’s starvation siege on Gaza, this time getting closer than ever before! On Wednesday and Thursday, the IDF kidnapped over 450 Flotilla members including Greta Thunberg and former Useful Idiots guest Thiago Ávila.Useful Idiots: What is your reaction to this news?Diana Buttu: We’ve been spending the past two years watching a live stream genocide. And here we watched 450 people being kidnapped and acts of piracy! And still nobody is doing anything about it. It shows you the lengths to which Israel is willing to go to actually starve the people of Gaza.Useful Idiots: Polls in the US now show that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than they do with Israelis. After decades and decades of pro-Israel propaganda in the US, which now is only intensifying with pro-Israel oligarchs buying TikTok, CBS, Paramount, and possibly even CNN, a majority of Americans oppose U.S. military support to Israel. But in government, there’s so much to overcome. This week, Trump unveiled a new so-called peace plan to Netanyau. It’s basically a complete surrender for Palestinians. And one of the demands that Netanyahu made was an end to what he called lawfare: no more taking Israel to the International Criminal Court. As a Palestinian attorney, what is your response to this?Diana Buttu: This model of thinking of putting conditions on freedom, there’s a word for that. It’s called colonialism.That model ended a long time ago and the fact that they’re still trying to revive it when it comes to Palestinians is really quite repugnant. The Americans have always treated Palestinians by patting us on the head, like, ‘if you’re good Palestinians, if you do exactly what we say, then maybe, just maybe we will give you the things that you want.’ It shouldn’t be a question of what the United States wants, what Israel wants, or what anybody wants. The fact that the country that has perpetrated genocide and the country that is funding the genocide have anything to say about what Palestinians do is so abhorrent. That’s number one. Two is I absolutely insist that these war criminals be held to account. It is step number one!Useful Idiots: I want to talk to you about Israel’s crimes. There’s a pretty scary statement that was tweeted out by Israel’s so-called defense minister, Israel Katz:The IDF has completed the capture of the Netzarim axis up to the Gaza coast, effectively dividing Gaza between north and south.This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza city itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force.Those who remain in Gaza will be considered terrorists and terror supporters.The IDF is prepared for all possibilities and is determined to continue its operations. So this is ominous. What is your response to this statement?Diana Buttu: They’re openly saying that they’re just going to kill everybody.There are hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City. There’s a number of hospitals there. There are old people, there are young people, there are people who are ill, who are in hospital. There are people who are disabled. There’s just a whole range of society. And what he’s saying is, ‘if you remain, you are a fair target.’Again, it’s like flipping this idea of international law on its head, but they’ve done it now for the past two years. In the way that Israel has been operating, anybody in Gaza equals Hamas. They’ve said this. They’ve warned against this. We’ve been tracking their statements. That’s why it’s genocide. And now they’re coming out very clearly and saying, ‘if you remain in Gaza City, we’re going to treat you as Hamas, and therefore we are going to get rid of you.’ I don’t think they’ve made it any clearer than that.Please share this episode to spread Diana’s important words. Thanks for supporting Useful Idiots and independent media.And don’t miss this week’s Thursday Throwdown: “No More Beardos”: Hegseth’s New ‘Professional’ Military Standards Just Dropped 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

Self-Proclaimed Anti-War Politician JD Vance Gets Exposed for Gaza War Plans

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Norman Finkelstein Exposes Israel’s SECRET PLAN for Gaza

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.usefulidiotspodcast.comSubscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:Useful Idiots: Let’s talk about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza. Israel bombed a food distribution site. Doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital in North Gaza are warning of total collapse. And this follows Israel destroying high-rise buildings in the last livable area left in Gaza. So amid all the atrocities that it’s currently committing, what is Israel’s strategy in Gaza right now?Norman Finkelstein: It’s perfectly obvious. It’s gotten the green light from the White House to try to empty out Gaza. The UN report that just came out two weeks ago did the right thing by [dispensing with] the language of the laws of war. The problem in Gaza is not that Israel is committing “disproportionate attacks.” The problem has not been that Israel is in even an egregious breach of the laws of war... The problem is that Israel is acting out the logic of genocide. And that’s very different because ultimately, if you use the framework of the laws of war, then what’s tacit in using that framework is that Israel ultimately wants to achieve a military victory.If you take, for example, the period from March 18th of this year, when Israel terminated the ceasefire, until the end of August, do you know how many Gazans have been killed in that period? The estimate is 12,000. You know how many Israeli soldiers were killed in that period? 50.The ratio is 1 to 240. Does that sound like a war, or does that sound like an extermination?Useful Idiots: That makes it striking how ridiculous it is to call this a war.Norman Finkelstein: Israel’s apologists have a funny argument right now. They say, ‘If you really believe there is a genocide in Gaza, then why don’t you advocate opening up the border [which would be ethnic cleansing]?’Well, I have another idea. How about if I really believe there’s a genocide in Gaza, how about taking out the…While we would love to share Norman’s idea with you, we worry it could get our entire YouTube channel demonetized or even removed… So we posted it exclusively on Substack HERE.