usefulidiots

Matt and Katie respond to some of the best or worst media clips from the Sunday Morning Shows. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for extended interviews Subscribe for full episodes and clips Follow us on Twitter @UsefulIdiotPod

See the full interview at https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/julian-assanges-brother-gabriel-shipton?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Matt and Katie sit down with Julian Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, and journalist Kevin Gosztola to talk about the astonishing new development in the Julian Assange case, which the mainstream media has kept from you. Namely that the government’s star witness in its extradition case has admitted that he lied about Assange in exchange for immunity. Why has mainstream media reported only on the Biden administration’s continued efforts to extradite Assange--and its recently won right to appeal a UK lower court’s ruling blocking his extradition--and ignored the fact that the government’s case has unraveled with the recanting by a convicted embezzler and sex offender. Why do The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC stay silent as the government criminalizes a pioneering digital journalist they once lauded? In addition, Shipton and Gosztola correct the myth that Assange is charged with anything related to the 2016 election or Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or Paul Manafort and a meeting that never happened. Rather all the government’s charges relate to what Wikileaks published in 2010, like the Collateral Murder video, which depicted the US military indiscriminately killing over a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters news staff. Shipton and Gosztola urge the media and the public to follow the real story. As Gosztola warns, The New York Times may not care now, but a President Mike Pompeo or or another enemy of a free press could easily decide the paper of record was un-American. Also in this episode of Useful Idiots: –Art critic Nina Felshin critiques Hunter Biden’s paintings –Greg Abbott’s plan to arrest all the democrats –Miami mayor calls for airstrikes on Cuba –Plus: Is it ethical to murder a drone? It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Follow us on twitter @usefulidiotpod

For the full interview with Adolph Reed, click here https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/adolph-reed-extended-interview-plus?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Professor Emeritus Adolph Reed has a special stamp for woke white liberals who tell him he doesn't understand the depths and intensity of racism. And not because they're breaking his moral code, but their own. Isn't there something in one of Robin DiAngelo's "books" that says white people can't say anything about racism? For Professor Reed, it feels like he's the only BIPOC who whites feel they can tell him he's wrong. We discuss the BIPOC-infantilizing moral reparations DiAngelo preaches that say we should treat white people collectively and people of color as individuals. And Adolph Reed doesn't want to hear any more of it. Subscribe for more clips and full episodes. To see the full interview, go to usefulidiots.substack.com For clips, games, forums, and more, follow us on twitter @usefulidiotpod

Watch Katie go from inviting a NYT journalist onto the show to realizing he f*cking sucks in a matter of seconds. We think it's a world record. Jonathan Weisman is a demoted Times journalist with a history of bad tweets, and he's back now to help the corporate dems attempt to take down progressive candidate Nina Turner. Weisman's ideology? You're racist to challenge any Black person in office...even if you're also Black. Makes sense, right? By that logic, he better love Clarence Thomas and tweet out his anger at anyone who slanders him. Think this guy sucks? Just wait until you hear Katie's take. It's explosive and just fun to watch. Subscribe for more clips and full episodes. To see the full interview, go to usefulidiots.substack.com For clips, games, forums, and more, follow us on twitter @usefulidiotpod

For the full interview with Adolph Reed, click here https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/adolph-reed-extended-interview-plus?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy In his return to Useful Idiots, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, editor of Nonsite (https://nonsite.org/) & Adolph Reed explains why Robin DiAngelo and "White Fragility" are so "problematic." In addition to reacting to particular passages from DiAngelo's new book, "Nice Racism," Reed shares stories from The Civil Rights Movement, labor history and, while he's at it, defines "racism." Reed attacks a certain brand of mcWokery which doesn't ignore class or undermines class consciousness but sabotages the kinds of universal programs which disproportionately benefit Black people: “Both the discursive and institutional have emerged around a systemic disposition to find ways to evade talking about class and economic inequality [so that] it just grows in that dark environment with other fungi and so forth and so on.” It’s an important episode which also turns out to be surprisingly funny, for a discussion about anti-bias corporate training literature. Here’s what else you’ll get: –Katie Halper’s NBA Finals Predictions –Poor Saudi Arabia tries to defend itself against Yemeni children –Biden and Republicans finally find a chastity belt for their mouths –And of course, it sucks to Zuck It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out and stand by for our Substack only section in which Reed talks about what so-called anti-racists have in common with white supremacists.

Top house democrat Jim Clyburn, with the help of Hillary Clinton and demoted problematic New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman (who we go over in more detail in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2sYdY_s46Q), tries to tank progressive Ohio house candidate Nina Turner. Turner, who is an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders, faces the same fate as the Vermont senator. In Clyburn's now-signature move, he put himself right in the middle of a party primary to endorse the moderate candidate. He decided the presidency, will he decide the winner of Ohio 11? Matt and Katie mock Clinton, Clyburn, and the New York Times in this heated clip. Check it out. Subscribe for more clips and full episodes For extended interviews, visit usefulidiots.substack.com Follow us on twitter @usefulidiotpod for clips, forums, games, and more

Click here for the full interview with Austin Smith https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/austin-smith-extended-interview?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Follow us on Twitter @usefulidiotpod 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 York’s first district to finally get a decent guy to represent them. Smith, who previously worked for the campaigns of both John McCain and Hillary Clinton, has a clear mission in Congress once he unseats Zeldin: help people understand and navigate the ridiculous stupidity of student loans. He discusses his lawsuits against the deceitful companies who keep people buried in debt and shares well-hidden secrets for people who might not know they’re eligible to discharge their loans. Listen here to what he has to say and then support his intellectual and for-the-people campaign here. Or just send him your junk (no, really). Also in this week’s episode of Useful Idiots: –Nina Turner gets the much-coveted “Jim Clyburn backs the other candidate” bump –Katie goes from inviting a NYT writer onto the show to cursing him out in a record-setting 7 minutes –Republicans love their ugly confederate heroes –And Matt laughs louder than he ever has on Useful Idiots It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode. Check it out.

Click here for the full interview with Norm https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/norm-finkelstein-extended-interview?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Subscribe @ 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 cancel culture on the right. But the cancel culture on the right, or the mainstream, the establishment, whatever you want to call it, for a person of the left, is a given. That’s a part of what it means to be on the left. The true Left. You’re going to be marginalized, ignored. That’s the history of the Left.” He critiques MSNBC's Bernie-bashing and identity-politics-weaponizing—Joy Ann Reid and her body-language expert, who diagnoses Bernie Sanders’ self-incriminating “turtling,” in particular— gives Noam Chomksy his due credit and sings the praises of W.E.B. DuBois. Finkelstein also directs his formidable fire at White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo: “And what's her message to white people? Her message to white people is every white person... who's laying out in the street because he or she is homeless, which there are quite a lot in my neighborhood. Every white person from that person to Jeff Bezos, they all profit from racism. And then they, the CEOs, they get to play the enlightened ones because they give money to Black Lives Matter. So, the message to white people is be careful what you're willing to give up, because you're benefiting from this system. Every white person benefits from the system. If you let them climb one rung higher, you are going to go one rung lower. So it's a warning to white people to be cautious, careful, wary, of the demands of black people.... ” Plus, Katie and Matt lament the way Andrew Yang sabotaged his own campaign, depriving himself of what could have been a game-changing “Useful Idiots Show Bump,” and review some important penis-representation-related news stories. Stand by for the substack-only section of the interview where Norman talks more about Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and reveals an early crush.

Click here for the full interview with Ross https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/extended-interview-is-defund-the?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy 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 moderates, or Barack Obama.” We talked to Ross about one of our favorite people — the demented neoliberal monster/werewolf Andrew Cuomo — but also about the upcoming New York City mayoral elections, which will be the large-scale litmus test on the state of the Democratic electorate since the 2020 primaries. New York City has one of the most rabidly progressive voter bases in the country, but the Democratic Primary next Tuesday has for some time now appeared likely to be dominated by moderates like former NYPD officer and Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams. Friend-ish-of-show Andrew Yang, who snubbed a Useful Idiots interview request during this campaign, has fallen off to fourth place in a recent poll, in the most recent demonstration of the ironclad Law of the Useful Idiots Bump. Will he make it back up in time to replace Bill de Blasio? Barkan discusses with us some of the factors that may be influencing the quasi-surprising New York results. Three of the four top candidates — Yang, Adams, and former sanitation chief Kathryn Garcia — seemingly go against national type. “All three of these candidates, Yang, Garcia, Adams, are explicitly against de-funding the police,” he says. “Who’s going to win? I don’t know, but I think Adams has the inside track.” Barkan, who wrote a pleasingly vicious book about Cuomo that depicts him in the garb of Machiavelli on the cover, also explained how the New York governor managed to pull off a surge in popularity last year despite horrific management of the pandemic. “Journalism… too often takes on the tropes of fiction, and seeks narratives, heroes and villains,” Ross said. “Cuomo filled that void,” giving journalists the tough-talking uncle figure to Donald Trump’s crazy-nitwit act. Reporters ran with that simple storyline for months, ignoring things like Cuomo’s craven manipulation of death toll figures for nursing homes. From there we basically just said gratuitous things about Cuomo and his doofus brother, but it’s worth a listen, particularly if you’re high. Also: we plow through the four food groups, stopping to discuss ICE’s sterling wokewash efforts, a dude who maybe got too much credit for being swallowed by a whale, and what “POS” stands for on a U.S. State Department Twitter handle. That and more, on this week’s Useful Idiots.

Click here for the full interview with Dennis https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/subscriber-only-useful-idiots-dennis?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy “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, Kucinich is out with a new book The Division of Light and Power, which shares stories of his early days in politics as a 23-year-old city councilman and later mayor in Cleveland, Ohio (read Matt’s full book review here). What he saw was a corrupt and bent system. So his career became a crusade against it. In his first unsuccessful council run, he realized the incumbent never lost because he took care of people, giving favors to powerful donors and making sure his influential constituents were kept happy. ‘So,’ thought Kucinich, ‘that’s what I’ll do.’ But taking care of people for Dennis meant helping normal Clevelanders who, like his own family, couldn’t pay the rent, couldn’t keep the lights on, couldn’t feed their kids. He helped these people and they noticed. And he won. Whether against cheating vote-counters, corrupt utility companies, war-mongering presidents, or racist legislation, Dennis Kucinich’s political career has been a constant battle against immorality and a fight for the helpless. Kucinich describes how his life is echoed by the sound of coins clinking on a white metal table as his parents counted pennies to pay the rent. By the time he was 17, he lived in 21 different places, including a few cars. All this only built the man he is and “translated into the necessity of standing up for economic justice for people who are struggling.” That, plus music, theatre, and ripping off doors in this Useful Idiots interview. Meanwhile, we accept credit for the Breaking Points’ #usefulidiotsbump, read Hunter Biden’s drug-feuled texts about his tanned penis and love of the N-word, call out Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s attempt to imprison migrant children, and sell an invisible Kurt Loder sculpture for thousands. All this, and more, on this week’sUseful Idiots. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

Click here for the extended interview with Krystal and Saagar https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/extended-interview-krystal-ball-and?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Saagar Enjeti tells a story from his time as the co-host of The Hill’s Rising, in which he described the seniority system for House of Representatives Committee assignments. “I did a segment this is all I said: ‘Maxine Waters will be the chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee till the day she dies,’” he recounts. “So her fucking staff called the boss of The Hill and said I issued a death threat against Maxine Waters! I shit you not. They said I was threatening her life.” He pauses. “They don’t call you. They call your boss’s boss. And here’s the thing, she’s the chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee. And Hill reporters need to be able to talk to her. They know exactly whom to threaten.” This is how legacy media works. People who work in big institutions end up having to stay on a leash, avoiding even accidental offense, lest their co-workers lose access to important people. “My natural inclination is to say, ‘Go fuck yourself,’” Saagar explains. He didn’t that time, but, adding that he’s talking not about Maxine Waters but her “chickenshit chief of staff,” he doesn’t have to hold back anymore, because he’s “not off the record anymore, bitch.” 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 exclusively at one political demographic or another, their Rising program represented literally the only mainstream effort to speak to all of America. Their core concept, which roughly speaking featured a conservative (Enjeti) and a liberal (Ball) discussing politics in a non-combative fashion, was shockingly successful. In addition to putting out a hit book, The Populist's Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising, Krystal and Saagar consistently cranked out huge numbers — in their last month at The Hill, they outpaced CNN programming in terms of viewers. And yet, their insistence on retaining editorial independence resulting in parting on awkward terms with their former employers. We had a great talk with them both, not just about their new show, but about the irrationality of mainstream media business, and the weirdly petty ending with The Hill. Krystal, for instance, described The Hill’s weird fatwa on all collaborators with her own podcast with Kyle Kulinski, Krystal, Kyle & Friends — including Kulinski himself. Kulinski was a consistently strong guest for Rising, and helped the show especially in its early stages. “He always would deliver numbers,” Krystal said. “But once I started doing the podcast with Kyle, he was banned from appearing on Rising.” The Hill even placed a de facto ban on Katie, a regular Rising guest, appearing on Krystal, Kyle & Friends. This is just the beginning of a long and candid discussion of the looniness of the modern media business with two of its more successful innovators. That, plus a colorful talk about Barack Obama’s late-night droning habits, flag-stealing Republicans, and the brilliance of scientists who are able to secure funding to shoot debatably cute micro-animals into piles of sand. All this and more, on this week’s free edition of Useful Idiots.

Extended interview: https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/aaron-mate-on-syria-plus-joe-biden Aaron Maté, calling from Syria, describes his treasonous interview of Konstantin Kilimnik. Plus: M*nge Face, "Mental Retardation Thereafter," and Assad's John Hancock. We had to speak with guest Aaron Maté of The Grayzone via Skype, because other platforms wouldn’t service his location — he was calling in from the capital city of our sanctioned enemy, Syria. What, you might ask, was Aaron Maté doing in Syria? “I thought you guys weren’t supposed to talk about my real mission here,” he said, “which was to negotiate a co-host position for Useful Idiots for Bashar al-Assad.” Put that in your conspiratorial pipe and smoke it, Oz Katerji! Our dream of making dictatorial podcast history lives! The last remaining stumbling block in negotiations — Assad is represented by William Morris, while Katie and I have different representation — is a trifle. This is gonna happen, haters. Followers of Useful Idiots know that one of the original conceits of the show was that Katie and I would provide a forum for people shut out or shut down by the mainstream press. The very title, Useful Idiots, was a reference to the hot establishment insult of the time, deployed against those deemed unwitting “assets” of Vladimir Putin. Our very first guest, then-presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, was perhaps the most prominent American to be denounced as a “Useful Idiot.” Many other friends-of-show, from Glenn Greenwald to Chris Hedges, have worn the designation. Perhaps no other figure in media, however, more perfectly represents the profile of the Useful Idiots guest than Aaron Maté. Known from his on-air work at Democracy Now! and from his writings at places like The Nation, the veteran journalist was one of the first to feel the effects of the point-and-shriek mania directed toward “Russiagate Denialists.” In the past years he’s probably done more than any one reporter to debunk Russiagate myths, and his most potent weapon has been doing the journalistic basics — reading public documents, and calling for comment. In recent weeks, Aaron pulled off one of his biggest coups on that score, interviewing the current lynchpin of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, Konstantin Kilimnik. For those not familiar with the case, Kiliminik is a Russian citizen, living in Moscow, who was the focus of a recent Treasury Department statement accusing him of having “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” while working with the Trump campaign. “Boom!” says Aaron, imitating Russiagaters. “Now we have our smoking gun.” The humorous thing about this story is that, despite the supposed centrality of Kilimnik to the collusion theory, no American official ever interviewed him. Aaron did, and the contents of that interview raise a host of questions about the Trump-Russia collusion case. He describes that explosive interview in this episode. Meanwhile, we go through the Four Food Groups, discuss the Democrats’ immigration policy and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conception of second-class citizenship, and wonder why there was never a rock band called Michelle Bachmann Turner Overdrive. All this, and more, on this week’s Useful Idiots. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

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 prosecutors declined to prosecute him so the judge, who is a member of the Right Wing Federalist Society, appointed a private law firm with ties to Chevron to do it. Donziger talks to us... from his house, obviously, about the “parade of horrors,” what makes the case unprecedented, why he remains hopeful and what people can do https://www.donzigerdefense.com/. Plus Joe Biden jokes about running over reporters, mispronounces a congress woman’s name and Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina candle turns into an inferno. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

Click here for the full interview with Abby Martin https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/extended-interview-abby-martin-on?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy New Useful Idiots: Abby Martin, the maker of "Gaza Fights for Freedom" talks war between Israel and Palestine, a Liz Cheney Surprise, the Grammar of Stabbing, and More Feces Fries Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

Click here for the full interview with Thomas Frank https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/thomas-frank-joshua-shenk-and-a-sht?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy 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 sensation of the week, the so-called “Woke CIA ad,” which featured a 36-year-old self-described “cisgender millennial who has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder” who is “intersectional” and wants you to join the drone-and-snoop crew at Langley. The CIA’s new mascot even worse a t-shirt with a raised fist, echoing Bob Beamon at the 1968 Olympics — joining the secret services is now an act of countercultural defiance. Tom sees in it a repeat of corporate America’s re-framing of the image of capitalism in the eighties and nineties. By marketing consumerism as a defiant, anti-conformist mode of personal expression, capitalist America surfed on the insouciance and cool of sixties liberation movements rather than being made the victim of them. The “woke” CIA seems absurd on its face, but it’s the same kind of rebrand, with the agency responsible for droning, torture, and mass surveillance rebooting as an employer willing to speak the “Language of Liberation.” Moreover, it’s one more step in the overhaul of the meaning of “liberalism” that seems destined, as Tom says, to leave even him without a party, sooner or later. Tom also talks about appearing on Bill Maher, but he barely remembers it. Plus, as Katie predicted, Useful Idiots was able to convince Biden to take a step in the right direction by granting *a* waiver but not *the* waiver. Stand by for our extended conversation with Thomas, which includes a COVID-19 retrospective.Also, we semi mis-predict a patent waiver outcome, discuss a sex work ruling, and relive a beaver attack Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

Click here for the full interview with Dr. West https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/a-different-kind-of-jazz-man-dr-cornel?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy [Watch our bonus discussion with Dr. West in defense of Classics departments here: https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/a-different-kind-of-jazz-man-dr-cornel] 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 considered for tenure, apparently for political reasons. On Useful Idiots, West talked about the likely reasons behind Harvard’s decision (outspokenness on Palestine?), Joe Biden’s first 100 days, and the influence of his late mother Irene B. West. Also: Matt and Katie debate how many Secret Service agents it takes to get Mike Pence up a ski hill, we denounce the deeply unfunny campaign against the #YangGang, and we give detailed reviews of all of the movies nominated for Best Picture from this year’s Academy Awards ceremony (without seeing them of course). Is Nomadland a space adventure? Is Mank a misspelled fur-bearing animal? What’s the over/under on debilitating-disease themes for next year’s Oscars? We explore all these important questions, and more, on this week’s Useful Idiots. Stand by for our Substack-only chat with Cornel West about Howard University's decision to dissolve its Classics Department.

David Sirota of The Daily Poster weighs in on SALT deductions, Biden's presidency, and the future of journalism. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for the full interview

A nation is gripped by a police-abuse trial, and Republicans and Democrats both find a way to suck about it. 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 creatures have inspired a whole literature of anus headlines. “Animal with an anus that comes and goes could reveal how ours evolved,” wrote New Scientist a few years back. “An animal has been discovered with a 'transient anus' that only appears when it is needed,” was the take from Insider. “Meet the sea creature with an anus that disappears when not in use,” added the CBC. In this episode, Katie and I review the comb jelly coverage, while also debating our favorite songs by the great eighties pop band, Simple Anus. Also, Katie explains the history of a “sponge the size of a minivan” found north of the Hawaiian Islands, we very briefly discuss a country that apparently disappeared after a volcano “unleashed ash” (say that five times fast) on it, and we continue pushing our self-referential joke involving the Vanguard podcast well past the point of being funny. All that, plus news, commentary, awkward silences and more, on this week’s Useful Idiots. Check in to this space for additional content, including interviews with two guests, in the upcoming days. Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com

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 Williamson

Click here for the full interview with Professor Chomsky https://usefulidiots.substack.com/p/full-chomsky-interview-bidens-stoned?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy Join https://usefulidiots.substack.com/ for extended interview, bonus content & 4 Basic Food Groups! 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 celebrities combined look like one PBS interviewer Martin Smith, and why do I keep thinking Smith is British?

join https://usefulidiots.substack.com/ for extended interview + bonus content! 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 being considered at the state level. To find out what’s actually in these bills, we spoke with Dr. Erica Anderson, a trans clinician and psychology professor from the University of California, San Francisco.