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“The task is not yours to finish,” explains Dr. Gabor Maté in reference to the quote from Rabbi Tarfon, who lived around the time of Jesus. “But you have to take part in it, in this struggle and in this search for truth. Not because one is going to complete the task or even necessarily succeed in one’s lifetime, but because as human beings, what are we to do except to contribute to the cause of justice and truth and freedom as best as we can do it?”

This week, for a special edition of Useful Idiots, we are joined by two people leading the fight to ‘finish the work’: Gabor Maté and UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

Our discussion tackles Israel’s genocide in Gaza, from Francesca’s legal attempts to hold governments accountable and the backlash she’s received, including getting personally sanctioned by the US government for, according to Marco Rubio, engaging in “illegitimate and shameful efforts” to prompt the ICC to investigate, arrest, or prosecute U.S. and Israeli officials and executives, to Gabor’s philosophical battle for the light of humanity.

And he explains why, even though the work is far from done, the light will never go out:

“This great evil has been fighting forever to stamp out the small kernel of human kindness and humanity. But if it hasn’t succeeded until now, it never will. There is this light of human truth and kindness and justice. It’s going to keep burning.”

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Let’s take a look at the midterms: Democrats are looking pretty good in the polls, especially because Trump has betrayed two of his key promises, which was to have No New Wars and to address the cost of living.

In his second term, we’ve seen him do the exact opposite. He started a war on Iran, which has driven up the cost of living, especially energy prices. But are Democrats seizing the rage? Are they taking up the anti-war mantle?

No!

Here’s why: in an effort to escape this predicament of spiking energy prices and win back the polls from Democrats, Trump recently made a gas deal with Vladimir Putin to claim he’s bringing prices down. And rather than simply point out that Trump is only doing this to save face because he’s lost the anti-war lane, Democrats are instead accusing him once again of being a traitor, warmongering for Russia.

That’s right: it’s Russiagate Part (10?)

To discuss the Democrat blunder of missing the easy opportunity to pin Trump for his disastrous war of choice on Iran and potentially blowing their midterm lead, we speak with James Carden, author of the new book, The Great Betrayal: How the Democrats Became the Party of War.

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We also speak with journalist Kylie Cheung, author of the brand new book, Playing the Victim: How the Powerful Deny and Attack Survivors of Violence, From Domestic Abuse to Genocide, which makes the connection between the tactics of domestic abusers and the tactics of imperialism and Zionism.

She explains how the perpetrators of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, from decision makers like Benjamin Netanyahu to his chief propagandists like CNN’s Dana Bash, enact the domestic abuse term known as DARVO: deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.

Kylie shows us clips of Dana Bash and Vice President JD Vance and reveals how they manipulate their audience with each tactic of DARVO.

These interviews are free to all, but to support our work and get the ad-free version of the episode, please consider subscribing to Useful Idiots.

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You’ll also get our Friday Free-for-All: Hillary Clinton unveils a new plan to take down Trump once and for all: The Pee Tape Part 2

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“I believe Abdul El-Sayed is Muslim Brotherhood!” yelled Ted Cruz in an interview this week.

“If he were to win, Chuck Schumer could place him on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He would have access to the very highest level of classified materials! There’s every reason to believe El-Sayed would share that classified information with Muslim Brotherhood terrorists!”

In the final days before the Michigan Senate election, down-in-the-polls Republicans have resorted to their favorite tactic: ridiculous Islamophobic slurs against Abdul El-Sayed.

"He’s part of the brother, mother, mother, moth-- the Muslim Brotherhood!" DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin stuttered out, thinking he was helping the cause.

“When El-Sayed goes to bed at night,” finished NRSC director Jason Theilman with the most incisive and believable blow of all, “it looks like he’s sleeping in Bin Laden’s jersey!”

Did Bin Laden… wear a jersey?

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This week, two special guests return to Useful Idiots.

First up is Trita Parsi, the geopolitical analyst who has kept us updated with on-the-ground information on Trump’s war on Iran that breaks through the walls of corporate propaganda.

We asked Trita what are the most important stories coming out of the Middle East that corporate media is hiding.

Trita Parsi: Look, this could change in three days because things are changing so fast. But right now, I would point to two things, one that the media is not necessarily ignoring, but the other one they’re largely hiding.

The open one is the fact that we are now seeing increasing movement towards what I think can end up becoming uncontrollable escalation. As bad as the war has been so far, it’s been calibrated escalations by both sides.

What is happening now between the Houthis and the Saudis risks transforming into something much bigger, and the calibration can be lost, control can be lost, and that would be very dangerous for everyone.

The second thing is the manner in which the Israelis are openly discussing how their security doctrine has changed and turned into something that you certainly wouldn’t associate with what claims to be a democratic country.

What I’m referring to is the article by the head of the INSS, the big Israeli think tank, in which he described several points of the new doctrine that should really give you chills.

There’s some stuff in it that from an American perspective, I’m sure many people in Washington would not like to hear, such as treating the United States as a declining power, believing that the US is going to abandon Israel anyway, and as a result Israel itself should sever ties with the US.

But the other parts of what they’re saying as principles of this new doctrine should really make decision makers and others in America think twice about what does it mean to be a strategic ally of a country that pursues this doctrine…

Watch the episode for Trita’s full take.

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Second, we speak with Israeli peace activist and founder of Palestine House of Freedom Miko Peled about the upcoming Israeli elections. Will the elections, which have the potential to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, lead to any major shift in Israel?

Spoiler alert: No.

Useful Idiots: A lot of people present Netanyahu as the unique cause of the genocide. Once they get rid of Netanyahu, it’ll be OK. What are your thoughts on that claim?

Miko Peled: It’s the most unfounded claim anybody can make. I have no idea why anybody would say something so ridiculous.

Everyone in the Knesset agrees with the genocide. Everyone rejects the idea of Palestinian self-determination. Everyone supports the nation-state law. Everyone supports settling all over Palestine. Everyone supports Israel as an apartheid state.

There’s a video where they questioned the heads of every single political party about the Palestinian state. And the worst thing a candidate can say about their opponent is that they support a Palestinian state. And that the other side is a lefty. I mean, they’re calling Netanyahu a lefty! It’s ridiculous.

So why is there any expectation that somebody else sitting in Netanyahu’s chair may do anything different? Where do they come up with this nonsense? How much more clearly do Israeli politicians and Israeli society need to be for people to believe that Netanyahu is not the issue?

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You’ll also get our Friday Free-for-All: Kamala and Pete Are Trapped in a Cult

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“God did the State of Israel a favor,” announced Israeli Ambassador Michael Herzog in April 2025, “that Biden was the president during this period [2023 and 2024]. We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did.”

The Biden Administration was there to help kick off Israel’s genocide in Gaza, supply them with endless weapons, silence protesters, and prevent international bodies like the UN and the ICC from holding the Israelis accountable.

And yet for some reason, members of the Biden Administration are continuously given second, third, and fourth chances to reverse their position, condemn Israel, and ditch Biden’s policy, which has been as disastrous politically as it has morally.

And for an even stranger reason, none of them will do it. Not even to win the White House. That’s how strong Israel’s cult holds onto them.

This week, after Michigan Senate Candidate Abdul El Sayed (who is now leading in the polls) refused to bow to pressure and say that Iran poses more of a threat to the United States than Israel does, Pete Buttigieg (who is not leading in any polls) could barely wait for the question to finish before he bowed and said:

"Iran is our enemy. Israel is not — they're an ally."

Kamala Harris was only slightly less weak than Pete. “We should,” she announced, bravely, boldly, powerfully, “have acted sooner, and more forcefully." This is the same candidate who, when asked if Israel’s bombing of a refugee camp in Gaza counted as a “legitimate military target,” responded: “We are not telling Israel how it should conduct this war, and so I’m not going to speak to that.”

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And that’s not all we cover in this week’s Friday Free-for-All: Ukrainian President Zelensky tells Piers Morgan a military secret in front of millions of viewers, a Republican Congressman melts down after his constituents laugh at him when he tries to blame rising gas prices on the Democrats, and Russiagate is back! Aaron has a field day dunking on an MSNow stenographer.

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This week, we’re joined by Useful Idiots fan-favorite Muhammad Shehada, the political analyst and writer from Gaza who has guided us through the mirk of corporate media propaganda since the first week of Israel’s genocide three years ago.

On the week of the third anniversary of October 7, and as Gazans prepare for their fourth winter in these unimaginable conditions, Muhammad shares what he’s heard about the conditions on the ground from his friends and family, many of whom have been killed by the Israeli military.

My late friend, Ali, my closest friend, was in a refugee camp in the center of Gaza. I asked him how it was going. And he said, ‘Well, you know what? If there’s a God, if there is a judgment day, I would ask him for one thing, one thing only.

‘I would ask him to force those Israeli soldiers to go on the same adventure that I have to take every single day to find water and food. Nothing more. That is enough punishment for them. The idea of going every day, out in the open under airstrikes, under constant gunfire, and walking around desperately from one place to another, ten hours just to find water, that is enough punishment.

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Recently, Israeli filmmakers premiered a new film called Naza in which they interview Israeli soldiers confessing to war crimes. The Israeli government has threatened the filmmakers and there have been protests at the homes of one of the filmmakers’ parents. We asked Muhammad about the film and what he makes of the backlash.

The most striking thing in that movie was how casually soldiers describe the atrocities they unleashed in Gaza, as matter-of-fact with zero remorse or contortion, nothing.

And the thing that strikes you the most is that those soldiers were not providing these confessions out of guilt or shame. They were providing it out of excitement. They were very eager to brag about the formidable force that was at their disposal.

I’ll give you an example. I read an article in an Israeli newspaper describing soldiers who were coming back from Gaza and falling into severe depression. They interviewed a psychiatrist in that article to provide analysis about why soldiers feel depressed when they come back.

The psychiatrist didn’t say it’s because the soldiers feel guilt or shame. He said it’s because the soldiers in Gaza felt like gods. They were superhumans. They decided who lives and who dies, like they are in charge of life and death of two million people.

And then that psychiatrist says that when those soldiers come back home, they feel like nothing. Nobody knows them. Nobody recognizes them. Nobody opens the door for them. There’s no prestige. And that’s what tears them down the most.

That’s why a lot of people go back to serve in Gaza, because of the adrenaline, because of the excitement, because of the euphoria of feeling like a god, feeling like a superhuman. And it seems to me that those soldiers in Naza were basically craving that sensation again. They were bragging.

Watch our full, extended interview with Muhammad, and please share this episode. Corporate media has ignored Gaza for most of the genocide, so we rely on voices like Muhammad’s to break the information siege.

You can support our work by subscribing to us here on Substack. You’ll also get our weekly recap of the craziest moments in corporate media, the Friday Free-for-All: It Doesn’t Go Well When JD Vance Tries to Define Socialism

How do you define socialism personally?

A reporter asked this seemingly simple question to JD Vance, who has been busy racing around the country in a 32-day campaign blitz in an attempt to turn the Republicans’ failing poll numbers around. With prices rising, housing becoming unaffordable, and an oil shortage stemming from the administration’s disastrous war on Iran, Vance had an important choice to make:

Do I say what socialism actually is, with the risk that its principles of helping workers afford basic goods may sound enticing to voters? Or do I hit ‘em with an epic culture-war slam that has nothing to do with the question?

You can now guess which one he picked:

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“I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls’ sports!”

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A New York prosecutor has reopened a sexual assault investigation at Cornell University after a woman alleged she’d been drugged, assaulted and gang raped by seven former and current members of the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024. The allegations came in a lawsuit filed this month by a woman identified only as “Jane Doe,” who says campus officials and law enforcement failed to take her accusations seriously.

None of the alleged attackers have been arrested.

To discuss this case, we’re speaking with someone whose case Cornell DID take seriously:

Momodou Taal is a Ph.D. student at Cornell University who was suspended twice for joining a demonstration calling on Cornell to divest from Israel and faced deportation from the US. As a result, he left the US but was arrested and detained by the UK government under a law that allows police to question anyone they suspect to be involved in “current, emerging and future terrorist activity.”

We speak with Momodou and his lawyer, Chris Godshall, about why Cornell prosecuted the crime of peaceful protest against Israel with such intensity while covering for the seven students accused of rape.

Subscribe to watch the extended interview with Momodou and Chris where we discuss Israel’s power over Cornell, the weaponization of antisemitism, and the current state of conversation between Zionist and anti-Zionist students on campus.

You’ll also get our Friday Free-for-All: MAGA Congressman Warns that Belligerent, Religious Army is Planning to Destroy the Middle East

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And check out Ground News, an awesome tool we found that helps us sift through the news and compare headlines to expose media bias. For an example, watch our comparison of two headlines covering Israeli strikes on civilians in Lebanon in today’s episode. Go to https://groundnews.com/useful to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on the stories shaping our world.

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There’s a belligerent, religious-fanatic army run by a madman that’s planning to destroy the Middle East!

This warning comes from the very serious Congressman from Georgia, Rich McCormick, who, after blaming high gas prices on Obama, ripped into the religious army spreading across the Middle East.

In other, unrelated news, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the unveiling of a new military sect: the Office of Religious Affairs. The chaplains at ORA will reportedly have a line directly to the secretary himself, who in turn has a direct line to God, making it one of the most powerful offices in the land.

After all, Hegseth says in his speech, “as Psalm 33:12 extolls us, blessed is the nation in which God is the Lord."

Watch out for the religious army in Iran though…

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It’s all this, and more insanity, on this week’s Friday Free-for-All. Thanks for supporting our work, catch the full episode here:

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An important update on the Ukraine Proxy War came this week with the Russian parliamentary elections.

Contrary to widespread predictions that Vladimir Putin’s days are numbered as a result of prolonged war, his party, United Russia, once again won a supermajority. It’s unclear how much rigging occurred to alter the vote, along with banning of opposition parties, but a sizable turnout gave Putin and the war an endorsement for now, much to the disappointment of neocons globally.

To discuss these pivotal elections, we spoke with veteran Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin. Ragozin is very critical of Putin and the Russian government, but also critical of all the western chauvinism directed toward his country and opposes NATO and the US’s murderous proxy war and sanctions on Russia.

And he explains that the real country in trouble is Ukraine:

Subscribe to keep reading and get the full, hour-long interview with Leonid Ragozin.

And check out Ground News, an awesome tool we found that helps us sift through the news and compare headlines to expose media bias. For an example, watch our comparison of two stories about the media’s coverage of Israeli military bulldozers ripping up olive trees in the West Bank in today’s episode. Go to https://groundnews.com/useful to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on the stories shaping our world.

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We’ve got an extended Friday Free-for-All this week, jam-packed with ignorant Zionist professors, racist senators tripping over mixed metaphors, Hollywood agents unraveling over Macklemore, psychopath economists drooling over “choking” Iranian civilians, and even the Hasan Piker craze reaching all the way up to Netanyahu himself.

And Katie and Aaron don’t pull punches.

Just look at NYU Professor Scott Galloway, also known as the “Pervy Prof.” While interviewing Abdul El-Sayed (a chat that was really more of a monologue by the Pervy Prof), Galloway unleashed a lecturing tirade over why his religion gives him special power to judge whether Israel is committing genocide or not. The problem is, he admits he doesn’t actually know the definition of genocide.

But it gets worse:

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