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Happy Friday, everyone! I got my YouTube channel back, so we are officially back in business.

Today's Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net is a big one. We're 11 days from Election Day, and Marcy breaks down what DOJ is up to in Alaska and California, a week of indictments and complaints landing right before the vote, and what she's seeing in the races that are moving toward Democrats, from Georgia to Mississippi to Texas.

We also talk about the Ohio ad that even some Republicans are running from, Elon Musk's money, Starlink and Ukraine, and what could happen between Election Day and January.

Before you go: if you haven't voted yet, make a plan. Then go a step further and knock doors, make calls, or give someone a ride to the polls. Marcy and I both said it, and I mean it.

No show next Friday because I'm moving, but we'll be back the Friday after the election. Watch the full conversation on YouTube, or catch it wherever you get the podcast.

And please share this with a friend who needs a reality check and a little hope this week.

Elizabeth Lee, the Democratic nominee in Arizona's 5th Congressional District, is back on the show 12 days before Election Day. A year ago she was an underdog nobody gave a chance in an R+10 district. Today, she says, her opponent has lost 19 points of ground even while outspending her 10 to 1, and the race is a toss-up.

We talk about what she hears when she knocks on doors across all 173 precincts: not scandal, but grocery prices, gas, housing, healthcare, and water. We dig into her opponent Mark Lamb's absence from the district and the debates, the reporting that's followed him, and why she says the "extreme" label he pins on her doesn't fit someone who shows up for everybody.

I vent about renting in a market where rents are up about 50% in a year, and Elizabeth explains how corporate landlords and private equity are turning tenants over for profit. She shares the story of how decades of being dismissed by doctors led her to become a nurse, and why she believes a healthier society starts with paying the people who actually deliver care. She also lays out what she sees as the real cost of the war in Iran, why she thinks every House seat matters, and the simple ask she's making of listeners: find three people who haven't voted yet and talk to them!

Tomorrow, it's another Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler, and we might just be back on YouTube, finally!

Happy Wednesday! Driftglass and I did our weekly hour today, and it's my most enjoyable of the week. We talked about No Kings, the Arizona and Illinois races, and the Republicans who've suddenly decided they were "independent" all along (spoiler: we aren't letting them off the hook). Also, we finally found a house. So, I'll be out next week -- packing, moving, and rebuilding my studio. I promise some good shows to run while I'm out. Charlie has yet to be convinced about the new pool.

The YouTube situation is still a mess, as the damn hackers seem to have gotten back in to my channel again today! So in the meantime, you can catch me on Twitch and LinkedIn for video and at nicolesandler.com for audio. If you haven't voted yet, please do. It's the best feeling to get that "your ballot has been counted" email.

I should be back tomorrow, hopefully with the next Congressional Representative from AZ05, Elizabeth Lee. 💙

It's Monday, October 19th, and I'm still locked out of my YouTube channel, so this week the show lives on Twitch, Vimeo, and the audio stream at NicoleSandler.com and NicoleSandlerStream.com.And, of course, the podcast can always be found here. On today's show, I update you on the hack, the move, and the logistics of doing this with no producer.

Then I'm joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Vincent Greenwood, author of Puppet on a String: Trump Is Ruled by an Ominous Psychological Condition. Dr. Greenwood explains why he says the right term is clinical psychopathy rather than narcissism, walks through the three core trait clusters (impulsivity, remorselessness, and a drive to dominate), and addresses the Goldwater rule and whether anyone can assess a public figure from a distance. We also play Trump's Bullhead City riff about the "five words" test and ask what that cognitive screening exam really is, and what it isn't.Things we already knew but somehow, the self-described "genius" occupying the White House doesn't.

It's Friday, so national security journalist Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net is back to connect the dots on anoother week that felt like a year. We start with the White House's new press secretary and her rocky debut, (the news broke about 30 minutes before air time that she's OUT!) then dig into the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar's home less than 60 days before an election. Marcy explains why the timing, the speech-and-debate issues, and the track record of the agents behind the affidavits all raise serious questions.

We also cover DOJ's escalating fight with California over voter records and ballots, the smear campaign against James Talarico in Texas and why Texas may be the most consequential state of the cycle, and a stunning pile of corruption stories surrounding Trump's circle, from Kimberly Guilfoyle to a cement contract to the White House chief of staff's job security. Then it's Ukraine, Starlink, Putin's diesel claims, and Iran.

I also share a little good news: my ballot was verified and counted, and the Fort Hood execution won't be livestreamed. And we found a house and got the keys yesterday! And we talk about Saturday's No Kings events and why turnout is the whole point.

I apologize for being MIA for the past two days, but I do have a good excuse.. Actually, a few! Hackers took my YouTube channel and my main Google account and my house hunt is down to the wire, but the show must go on, and Driftglass is here to help. Of course, I got the audio stream back up on my website and working again, except it didn't today.

I started the show with the Marsh Family's song about Ukraine, then dig into the reports that Starlink went dark on Ukrainian drones just before Russia hit the power plants in Kyiv (and all indications point to Musk doing it on purpose!). We talk about Trump's self-declared ceasefire, the Russian diesel deal, the war with Iran, and why the 25th Amendment and impeachment are a long shot, which leaves voting as the real lever. Driftglass lays out the four ingredients of the lifeboat Republicans will build once Trump's power fades, and we both push back on the tone police.

I tell the hack story start to finish, we try to get DirecTV's AI agent to hear me (she can't), and we get into the Trump tiger-video posts, the Illinois governor debate, and Trump's rally today in Arizona.

Find Driftglass at driftglass.blogspot.com and the Professional Left Podcast at proleftpod.com.

Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins me after landing back from Vilnius, Lithuania, where she attended the Disinfo conference. She explains how two panels naming the United States, one on U.S. disinformation and one on attacks on researchers, drew the State Department's attention, and why she sees the whole effort as part of a plan to export fascism through big tech.

We also cover four oil-related scandals from the past two days, Hegseth's plan to livestream an execution, the Bronx shooting involving a DHS agent, the Supreme Court's new term, and the latest on the Broadview 6 case and DOJ's look at Cassidy Hutchinson. Plus election resources, a Wisconsin book recommendation, and a reminder that No Kings Day is next Saturday, October 17.

Marcy's work has no paywall, so if you value it, throw her some support at emptywheel.net.

Lisa Graves is back on the show, and so much has happened while she was away. Lisa is my go-to legal expert and the author of Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. In her day job she leads a watchdog group, but on her own time she appears here as a private citizen, speaking for herself.

We start with the Roberts Court and how its immunity ruling and shadow docket decisions have emboldened Trump, then go back to Florida in 2000. Lisa walks through what Bush v. Gore really did, why Clarence Thomas should have recused himself, and how three of today's justices were involved in the recount fight. From there we follow the thread to today: the long-running voter fraud myth, error-prone databases, DHS data-sharing, a postal service under scrutiny, and the U.S. refusing foreign election observers.

We also talk about what to do right now: if you vote by mail, fill out your ballot the day it arrives and get it back as soon as you can. Don't wait.

Plus a new Mangy Fetlocks song, Trump's remarks in Nebraska, and an honest review of my freshly baked avocado bread (spoiler: it's not good). We're also still hunting for a house, so if you know a place in the Phoenix area with a pool, call me.

It's Wednesday and Driftglass is in the house. We start with a satirical "betting app" ad about Ken Paxton that made both of us laugh out loud, then dig into the Texas Senate race and James Talarico's campaign.

Then: the bribes. Trump is promising $5,000 checks if Republicans win, $500 for some ACA exchange enrollees in red states, and $90 for Medicare beneficiaries who meet a long list of conditions. Driftglass explains how he sees the fear-and-greed playbook, and why he thinks fear has stopped working. We also play rally audio of Trump basically suggesting that Iran take out Los Angeles and San Diego, and that it would be "a small price to pay! The Lincoln Project made a great ad out off it

From there, Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe, and a conversation about AI agents acting without permission. On the third anniversary of October 7th, I talk about the attack, my frustration with how some on the left are responding, and the question I still can't answer: what should Israel's response be? Driftglass shares where he lands, and we talk about what ordinary people can actually do in a world like this one.

Plus Illinois politics, my Denny Hastert mix-up (corrected!), Edgar Allan Poe, the Alan Parsons Project, and what it's like to look at rental houses when rents have jumped about $500 a month in a year.

Coming up: Lisa Graves returns tomorrow for the first week of the Supreme Court term, and Marcy Wheeler is here Friday.

Find Driftglass at driftglass.blogspot.com and on The Professional Left Podcast (proleftpod.com).

Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, flew to Dallas to confront a House Budget Committee field hearing, and what he found was something else entirely. The public was kept out (three people got in), seniors and people with disabilities waited in 103-degree heat, and the hearing took place on billionaire Harlan Crow's property, in a replica of the U.S. Capitol. (That's truly frightening!)

Alex breaks down what the proposed commission is, why backers want to vote on it in the lame duck, and why he calls it a commission to cut Social Security. Then he tells us what to do: vote early, show up for No Kings on October 17, and sign the petition at socialsecurityworks.org.

Also in this episode: a new song from the Marsh Family, a look ahead to tomorrow's conversation about AI, the death of the Epstein whistleblower who exposed Howard Lutnick's ties, and TikTok's warning labels on Aaron Parnas.

Emptywheel Friday: Klan Act Lawsuits, Chicago's Reckoning, and Georgia's Ask

It's Emptywheel Friday, and Marcy Wheeler is here to connect the dots on a week that kept piling up. We open with two new lawsuits from Renee Good's family, one a wrongful death claim and one under the 1871 Klan Act that names Jonathan Ross, several Trump administration officials, and a list of alleged co-conspirators. Marcy explains why the Klan Act is such an interesting tool, and how a new suit from the Chicago protesters Benny Johnson called "domestic terrorists" fits the same story.

Then we get into the Broadview case, where Judge April Perry held a hearing that Marcy says may point toward contempt or a special prosecutor, and DOJ's judicial complaint against Judge Patrick Schiltz, which Marcy says presents paraphrases as quotes. We cover Georgia's election board asking DOJ to intervene, the dismissal of Davy Hearn's case, and the Time interview with Trump and the AI summit that followed.

Marcy also walks through polling that suggests many 2024 Trump voters are misremembering their votes, why Texas border districts are moving, and the Jack Smith hearing where Senator Eric Schmitt's gotcha moment went sideways. We close with a speed round and Marcy's ask: help make Trump a loser in the public mind, because it matters for what he can get away with.

Find Marcy at emptywheel.net and go support her work. The Nicole Sandler Show is independently produced and listener-supported: nicolesandler.com.

Heather 'Digby' Parton and I go back more than 20 years, to the early days of the progressive blogosphere, and today she helps me look past the Trump spectacle to what's happening underneath it. She walks through Russ Vought's rescission and impoundment push, a test of whether the executive branch can seize Congress's power of the purse, and why the Supreme Court may get to decide it. We dig into Trump's Time interview, the Iran deal he rejected, Pete Hegseth's latest firings, and the AI (Arrogant Idiots) executives lining up at the White House.

With 33 days until the midterms, we also talk about what Democrats can realistically promise (Digby says lowering prices isn't one of them), why accountability matters, and why every vote counts against what we both see as a rigged field. Along the way: a Randy Rainbow cold open, a House Hunters-style ad that has Ken Paxton looking for a home, the news that the DOJ is reviewing the Watergate special prosecutors, and my questions about Trump's new America.gov chatbot.

Find Digby at digbysblog.net and salon.com. Tomorrow it's Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler.

It's another Wednesday with Driftglass, and what a Wednesday it was.

 Mangy Fetlocks kicks things off with a song about Senator Eric Schmitt, who tried to spring a gotcha on Jack Smith over a basketball game and instead sprang one on himself.

Before the good stuff, it's the Mal-Lady segment: my latest medical news (carpal tunnel, an ulcer, and thankfully some very welcome benign biopsy results).

Driftglass and I break down the whole fiasco: the staffer behind him who clearly saw it coming, the TMZ follow-up, and Amy Klobuchar calmly pointing out that Smith had it right (it was the Iowa Hawkeyes, not the Atlanta Hawks). We also talk about why a blunder like this won't get the coverage it would if it had been a Democrat.

From there we roam: gas prices and the war that's making them worse, the new fuel economy standards (34.9 mpg by model year 2031, down from 50.4 under the Biden-era rules), and the midterms.

What happens the day after Democrats win? We say we fix what's broken, restore the rule of law, and own the apology to the rest of the world.

We also get into Arizona's races (including those fake "Democrats for Biggs" signs and the allegations swirling around Mark Lamb, who's running in the 5th District:), Elizabeth Lee, the Democratic nurse running against Lamb, a Kansas pastor's case against Christian nationalism, how the evangelical movement got to where it is, what billionaires and hedge funds have done to newspapers, and a bit of good news about a local paper that found a way to survive.

We close on the difference between breaking news and making sense of it, why our healthcare system doesn't look at the whole patient, and why independent, paywall-free media depends on listeners who can chip in.

Find Driftglass at driftglass.blogspot.com and the Professional Left Podcast at ProLeftPod.com.

The Nicole Sandler Show is independent and listener-supported, based at nicolesandler.com

Jack Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the theater was almost as remarkable as the testimony. In his opening statement, Smith said the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump committed serious crimes, and that he'd bring the same case against a president of either party. Then came the questioning. Senator Eric Schmitt accused Smith of attending an Atlanta Hawks game and perjuring himself. Turns out Smith had gone to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play Maryland, and Senator Klobuchar had to point out the mix-up. Ted Cruz delivered a long speech about Javert, John Kennedy did his country-lawyer bit, and at one point Chairman Grassley left without putting anyone in charge.

I also share what happened when I went to the Heritage Foundation's website to link its voter fraud research and couldn't find it, why the Brennan Center's analysis of Heritage's own database is worth your time (ten in-person impersonation cases in billions of votes), my test of the new America.gov AI assistant, and a hopeful closing clip from James Talarico. Alex Lawson returns Monday, and Driftglass joins me tomorrow.

Welcome to a new week in opposite world. I opened today's show with a video that put a smile on my face (and apologize for playing something created by AI which I said I wouldn't do). Then I got into Friday's Extreme Court shadow docket rulings: a 6-3 unsigned order letting the administration use the SAVE database to check voter rolls (which, as I explain, is a solution in search of a problem, and one that has already flagged actual citizens as non-citizens) and a third refusal to let Missouri use its redrawn congressional map. I also shared how I'm approaching my ballot, and followed up on last week's interview with Claude with some new frightening AI news out of OpenAI.

Then Dan Froomkin of Press Watch (presswatchers.org) and Heads Up News (headsupnews.org) joins me. His latest column reimagines the media's coverage of Trump's taxpayer-funded ads as if Trump had shot someone on 5th Avenue, and we talk about why the press keeps normalizing the abnormal, what a real follow-up question looks like, and what will need fixing once Trump is gone.

After Dan, it's a news roundup: the FBI's No. 2 resigns, the reaction to that "paid for by the US government" ad, the nor'easter and hurricane season, the Cornell fraternity case, the war with Iran and gas prices, and January 6th defendants suing for damages. Stick around for bonus overtime with Spocko, who calls in from the Northeast.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps.

It's Empty Wheel Friday, and Marcy Wheeler is here to make sense of an absolutely chaotic week.

We start with Trump's underwhelming state visit with Xi Jinping — the press bans, the Thucydides trap reference, and the trade detente that buys us two more months before the real reckoning. From there it's straight into the numbers that should terrify Republicans: diesel prices spiking, bond markets flashing warning signs, and a Senate map that now includes Kansas and maybe even Mississippi. Marcy walks through race after race — Roger Marshall's brutal OB-GYN lawsuit story, Susan Collins' bribery scandal, Mary Peltola's iguana, Sherrod Brown and the crypto money that showed up too late to do much damage.

Then we go deep on the legal front: a DOJ prosecutor in the Broadview 6 case just resigned and filed a bombshell response that puts the US Attorney at the center of the misconduct he tried to pin on her. And Marcy breaks down what she's calling Judge Aileen Cannon's "two-hat problem" — running a grand jury designed for vengeance while also enforcing her own gag order, in a case built on a legal theory so thin the 11th Circuit already rejected it back in 2022.

Forty days to the end of this election. It's going to get crazier before it gets better.

Read Marcy's work and support it at emptywheel.net.

Today I did something I've never done before — I interviewed Claude AI, live, about all the unsettling stuff happening with AI right now (blackmail tests, hacking incidents, hallucinations nearly causing an international incident). Mixed feelings, honest conversation. Also: Trump's UN speech was something else. Tomorrow, in honor of Bruce Springsteen's 76th birthday, you'll hear my interview with Warren Zanes about the Nebraska album and movie.

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It's Constitution Day, and we're 46 days from the end of voting in the midterms. I open with YouTube's attempt to demonetize and block a Hamilton-cast get-out-the-vote video — over parody music, of all things — so I play it anyway, because getting people to check their voter registration matters more than YouTube's copyright bots. Then I dig into the "Democrats for Biggs" sign campaign spreading across Arizona: an AI-generated, deepfake disinformation operation from Turning Point USA meant to trick voters into thinking Democrats are backing Andy Biggs for governor. It's fake, their signs are everywhere in my neighborhood and I want to know if I can legally do something about it (a caller sets me straight).

Then Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Kaufman — director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University — joins me to talk about his new book, When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, The Country --and Led Us To Today. We trace how Reagan-era decisions on media deregulation, the Fairness Doctrine, and free-market ideology built the "invisible architecture" we're all still living in — from Fox News to Trump's own media instincts. It's a fascinating, sometimes uncomfortable look at how the 80s built today.

Today has been one of those days when everything that could go wrong did. I'm finally posting this at 7pm because I had to fix the audio which was fubar on today's show. It seems the gremlins that I banished have come back. So I fixed today's show as much as I could, but I still must fix my studio so we'll have a show tomorrow. But do have a listen as Driftglass was excellent as usual. And of course, there was that Kash Patel bestiality discussion near the end. No, I'm not kidding. It's even in the Congressional Record. This regime is so classy... or not!

Today's the day David Corn's new book, How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America, hits stores — and he joins me to make the case that this isn't the "Russia hoax," it's the Russia hoax hoax. We trace ten years of Russian interference in our elections that never actually stopped, the bipartisan Senate report (signed by Marco Rubio!) that already proved it, and the Trump Jr. wedding bankrolled by a Russian oligarch just weeks before Russia started meddling in the midterms again. Also on today's show: my ongoing health mess, the Anthropic researcher who quit over AI safety fears, and sound from today's Kash Patel Senate hearing.

I'm back from vacation and diving straight into the deep end. Fifty days until Election Day — vote early, vote smart, and don't trust the mail with your ballot if you can hand-deliver it instead. I cover Trump's unhinged Labor Day meltdown, the $40 trillion debt milestone, No Kings rallies coming back on October 17th, and the ongoing Jimmy Kimmel/FCC saga. Then I do something I never thought I'd do again: play a Bill Maher clip I agree with, on a topic I know will make some of you furious with me. Fair warning, and please actually listen before you yell.

Dr. Art Jipson (University of Dayton) joins for a wide-ranging conversation about the national nightmare we're living through — rising antisemitism, the difference between explaining extremism and excusing it, and why treating people we disagree with as enemies is corroding our politics. We close things out talking music: the Alan Parsons Project's stunning 50th anniversary tour and an underrated songwriter named Chris Isaak and the god Todd Rundgren.

This week on the show: David Corn (Mother Jones, "How Russia Won") tomorrow, Jonathan Kaufman ("When America Roared") Thursday, and a special recorded conversation with musician and author Warren Zanes airing next Wednesday — Bruce Springsteen's 76th birthday.

I'm on vacation this week, but dropping in a special show to commemorate 9-11, twenty-five years later with some personal remembrances, along with a song and a book! The book by Jim DeFede, "The Day the World Came to Towwn," is available at https://bookshop.org/a/1630/978006300.... I think you'll recognize the song by Five for Fighting, "Superman (It's Not Easy)". I'll be back Monday with all new shows...

I apologize for the late arrival of this podcast, but my right hand is in severe pain which makes it very difficult to type. So, here it is. but this week the show will have to speak for itself!

I awoke this morning after very little sleep due to extreme pain in my right hand thinking I'd take the day off when I learned that Gloria Steinem had died. So much for the idea of resting my ailing hand todaaay!

I called Amy Simon — Playwright & actress, cultural HERstorian, and author of the upcoming book"American Agitators: Five Centuries of Unstoppable Women Who Fought for Social and Political Justice" — because if anyone was going to help me do Gloria justice, it was her. Amy's been fortunate enough to have met her and even performed for her, and wrote about her for the book, No wonder she's able to go deep, talking about the Playboy Bunny exposé that launched her career, the founding of Ms. Magazine, her friendships with Dolores Huerta and Wilma Mankiller, what she gave up and endured to say what she said, and why a whole generation of young women today doesn't know her name — and needs to.

We end the episode with Gloria's own voice: her full speech from the 2017 Women's March on Washington.

Tomorrow, Marcy Wheeler joins me to wrap the week. Monday is Labor Day, and I might actually take some time off after that — we'll see what my hand says.

Driftglass returns for our weekly check-in, and things go sideways fast — straight into the Supreme Court's bunker-ballroom ruling, the "court packing" talking point, and why Trump's first-ever mid-cycle party convention in Dallas has vulnerable Republicans bolting for the exits ahead of the midterms. We also dig into Texas closing more than 100 polling places in a county that's trending blue, and reports of a Postal Service whistleblower on mail ballots.

Then Jason Leopold — the FOIA King himself — joins to walk through his year-long fight to get answers on why Ghislaine Maxwell was quietly moved to a lower-security prison after her interview with Todd Blanche. What he got back after suing the government: one page, almost entirely redacted in white space. We also cover Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's floor remarks on the suppressed FBI 302s naming Trump, and Rep. Thomas Massie reading 14 names connected to the Epstein network into the Congressional Record.

And yes, there is a comedy bit about "Mustang Meat" that I want to be very clear I do not endorse. But I'll admit that I did laugh.

I crashed Brad Friedman's vacation. Again. I've done it before, but only because it's difficult to get him on my show when he's knee deep in recording his own show each day. So I take him when I can get him.

Brad — from BradBlog and the Bradcast, one of the people I actually call a friend after twenty-plus years in this business — was supposed to be off the grid this week. Instead he's on my show telling me his theory that November is going to be a bigger wave for Democrats than anyone's predicting, and I'm telling him why I don't quite believe him yet.

Along the way: the ten-year anniversary of my cancer surgery coming 10 years after the orange mess entered politics (he did not steal credit for saving my life, no matter what Brad heard secondhand), a possible tropical storm bearing down on Los Angeles, a scorpion in my house, the FCC coming for broadcasters who tell the truth, and the actual story of how Brad and I met back when I was hosting mornings in Miami and he was just some guy with a blog who actually knew what he was talking about.

We also get into the weird coincidence of Air America radio going dark the exact same day the Supreme Court handed down Citizens United — and why I will personally hunt down the woman who got my old KPFK show canceled. (No, I won't. I can't even remember her name. But karma will get her...)

Honest, unscripted, occasionally profane, always independent. That's the show.

I started the show recounting my ongoing beef with T-Mobile - a diversion from what I'm really mad about. Yesterday marked my 10th anniversary of being cancer-free, but I realized that this gift of 10 extra years was made up of a demented madman hell-bent on destroying everything good about this country. That's what this past decade has been, and I'm realized that it's affecting me in pretty awful way, when I should be celebrating.

Dr. Art Jipson returns for the back-to-school check-in, bringing surprising optimism from his students, before we dug into military mismanagement, press intimidation, food safety rollbacks, and whether people can actually be pulled back from extremism. Plus, a replay of my Thursday phone call to a random Canadian named Jeffrey Sandler, in the name of international diplomacy.

It's Friday, so it's Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net — and for the first Friday in a few weeks, no technical gremlins. We dig into Trump's plan to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," his failing tariff strategy against Canada, Mexico, and Iran, and whether he can even walk down a staircase reliably anymore. Marcy breaks down the strange Ratcliffe trip to Putin, why Russia has good reason to think the U.S. is weak, and the human cost of Pete Hegseth's Pentagon: a 19-year-old sailor punished for jumping ship after 8.5 months at sea without touching land. We also get into the manufactured Hakeem Jeffries/Jared Kushner "controversy," Ashley Moody's corruption problems in Florida, the collapsing Minnesota "Antifa" prosecutions, and our thoughts as we bid farewell to Dolly Parton.

Today I decided to run my own one-woman focus group. Not with liberals — with Republicans. Because nobody who actually voted for this guy calls into my show, so I figured I'd go find them myself: phone lines open, an actual White Pages search underway live on air, all in pursuit of the question Driftglass gave me yesterday — show me on the doll where the liberal hurt you. Spoiler: landlines are basically extinct and my "focus group" mostly consisted of one very charming stranger in Ontario, Canada, who wanted nothing to do with Donald Trump either. Also in this episode: Trump tries to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" (he cannot just do that), a quick history lesson on why this country isn't actually called "America," and a Department of Education social media post that may have compared our president to Hitler — accidentally or not, you decide. Plus a caller from the Bay Area running her own Trump-voter poll on her friends and family, and my ongoing feud with T-Mobile.

Tim Curry died. He was 80- making it the second death of the wrong 80-year old so far this week, and there was only one way to open the show. Driftglass joined me for this Wednesday venting session: the Republicans who are suddenly "shocked, shocked I tell you" that the party they built for 40 years turned into this; Trump as a made-up TV character who was never actually good at anything; a Navy ship losing a Pearl Harbor hero's name so it can be renamed after Trump instead; steam catapults on aircraft carriers because someone whispered "steam was better" in his ear; and Kushner reportedly having a sit-down with Hakeem Jeffries that nobody can explain. Also — it's been 10 years since I had my left lung removed for cancer. Ten years cancer-free bought me ten years of Trump. I'm workshopping the cost-benefit analysis. No paywalls, no ads, just the truth as I see it. If you can support the show, I'd appreciate it. If you can't, share it with someone who can.

Dolly Parton has died, and before anything else today, I had to sit with that — a woman who somehow made everybody love her, right and left, gay and straight, country fans and people who'd never touch country music. Digby (Heather Digby Parton) joins me to talk about what made Dolly so singular, then we dig into the genuinely strange moment we're in: the Natalie Harp bubble around Trump, the Wall Street Journal's reporting on how the Iran war really unfolded, the blowup with Canada over trade, and whether pundits declaring "the resistance is dead" have any idea what they're talking about. I also mark ten years since my lung cancer surgery — a milestone that's got me thinking hard about what the last decade actually cost us. It's been a day.

Marcy Wheeler joins me for our weekly deep dive, and this Friday's episode is a doozy. We unpack the Natalie Harp saga — how one line from Jon Ossoff exposed just how much unsupervised access this woman has to a president with an increasingly shaky grip on reality, and why that should scare all of us. We also cover the Iran war's mounting toll on our military, a food safety system falling apart in real time, newly revealed DHS spying on churches and activists in Minnesota, the latest in Davy Hearn's reflecting pool case, a shake-up in Arizona's governor's race, a chaotic Florida primary, and the twisted Eric Swalwell story that somehow involves a suspected Chinese spy. We end on a song parody that's funnier — and darker — than it has any right to be.

As for the last two weeks, I can see the sunlight ahead.. I don't care what it takes this weekend. I'll have my studio and everything on this end working by Monday. I promise.

I apologize for being away for the past week or so, but I've been in studio/YouTube hell. I'll explain on another day... But given the huge win in Florida's Primary on Tuesday by Democrat Angie Nixon, blowing out Alex Vindman to take the nomination for Senator, I couldn't help but remember the first time I met her. It was July 9, 2020. A Thursday. The late, great Howie Klein did my show every Thursday, and around election time, he'd bring on some of the candidates his Blue America PAC had endorsed.

Angie Nixon had just declared her run for the Florida state legislature, and Howie brought her on the show that day. She was spectacular. So, today, I played back that show.

We lost Howie Klein on Christmas Eve last year. It was so wonderful to hear his voice again too.

Well, the speech was last night, but wow, it was really good. I do think he could someday be president. He should be. Anyway, I'm still having studio troubles and still not feeling well, so we talked about all kinds of things, mostly in the news. And at the end, I played Jon Ossoff's speech last night from Atlanta. And yes, it was excellent!

Happy Emptywheel Friday! This was the week from hell. Not only in the news, courtesy of the Orange-man regime - which Marcy Wheeler & I discuss on today's show- but in my life and studio. On Monday, the software that I use to stream video lost its robotic mind and went kaput. I spent the rest of the week, after installing a new program, trying to learn it, with a little help from the Google machine's AI. I know, I know. But the AI was truly helpful in this case. However, this software is overly complicated and, although I made good progress, I didn't want today's show to get messed up. Ha!

So with what I learned from the new OBS software, I was able to fix the Wirecast enough to get it up & running again... except for the multitude of problems that cropped up as I tried to get on the air today... and throughout the livestream. ARGHH!

This podcast is a clean version of today's show so you won't be interrupted by the mic suddenly cutting out or any of what felt like dozens on issues plaguing the show. BTW, when I say clean I don't mean language-wise. Both of our potty-mouths were working quite well, thankyouverymuch.

I do apologize for being off for most of this week. I actually did shows, which were mostly comprised of me asking the live show listeners, "can you hear me now?" and equally titillating questions which wouldn't make for good podcasts.I will be working on my studio all weekend with the goal of being up and running as it should by Monday.

Everything that could go wrong technically did today — but I somehow pushed through anyway. We had no video working, but I got the audio, so regular podcast listeners won't hear anything different in a big way. Thanks for bearing with me. I hope to get everything working by tomorrow, though I can't make any promises!

Bruce W. Nelson (Mangy Fetlocks) brings two new songs, on Todd Blanche's AG confirmation and the Katie Miller/Eric Swalwell gossip. Dr. Art Jipson joins for a conversation ranging from a maddening doctor's office no-show policy to Blanche's confirmation and swearing-in, Tillis and Cornyn caving on their votes, Max Miller's strange non-denial of domestic abuse allegations, and Art's new piece at The Conversation on how the Fauci COVID-origins hearing turned conspiracy theories into political weapons. Plus: a flashback comedy bit on Dr. Debbie Birx, and a candid conversation about what AI is actually useful for in content production — and what it gets wrong.

It's another Emptywheel Friday as Marcy Wheeler takes a break from emptywheel.net to join Nicole Sandler to recap the week's legal and political wreckage. Topics include the Michigan Senate primary and what it signals for 2028, Todd Blanche's now-assured Attorney General confirmation and the Republicans who voted to enable it, a federal court ruling that Trump's White House renovation is illegal, DOJ's use of customs summonses to spy on journalists, cracks forming in MAGA media over the Iran war, and the collapse of the criminal case against former Olympian Davy Hearn - the good guy in that mess - over the White House reflecting pool.

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The One Big Ugly Bill was designed so its cruelest provisions wouldn't hit until after the midterms — but Nebraska didn't get the memo, or rather, Governor Pillen decided not to wait. Spocko brings on Angie Lauritsen of Nebraska for Us to explain what happens when a state jumps the gun on Medicaid work requirements: confused patients, rural hospitals converting to emergency-only care, and a governor who's visited the White House more than any Nebraska governor in memory, up for reelection this year.

Before we get to that, August 6 has been a big day in history. In 1945 - 81 years ago, the US dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. It flew from the plane called The Enola Gay. Two years ago, the D'ump regime flagged for deletion documents about The Enola Gay during a DEI scrubbing crusade because it included the word "gay" I wish I were kidding. Today also marks 61 years since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, and some people on Xitter had a lot of fun at the expense of D'ump's ridiculous looking wig.

Last night was a big election night, and I'm still sorting out how I feel about some of it. Michigan, Kansas, and a few other states weighed in yesterday, and my old friend John Fugelsang — now doing his newly-rebranded John Fugelsang Show weekdays at noon Eastern on SiriusXM Progress 127 — joined me to help make sense of it all, because that's what he does best: he finds the laughs in situations that are objectively not funny, and to see things from another perspective.

We get into the endless Iran war nobody's talking about enough, the Pentagon somehow needing more money after declaring "mission accomplished," the Michigan Senate primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens, my very personal stake in Arizona's races (Katie Hobbs, Elizabeth Lee, and yes, that the heinous Andy Biggs is now running for governor!), and what John thinks about purity tests.

Also: my new phone arrived! So I'll have a phone that works again, once I get it set up.

Allison Gill of Mueller She Wrote joined me today with two huge stories she broke this week — and it's only Tuesday! First, the FOIA request she filed after ICE raided children's dormitories at the Dilley detention facility in Texas, confiscating letters, crayons, and drawings from kids after ProPublica published some of what they'd written. Six months later, DHS finally responded — and only nine of the ninety-one records they found. We went through them together, including a letter from a nine-year-old girl asking a federal judge not to deport her family.(Tissues needed here!)

Then Allison walked me through how Donald Trump suing Capital One backfired spectacularly — the bank's court filings revealed money laundering across Trump's steak, wine, water, golf, and payroll businesses, and the same lawyer representing him is the one referred to the bar for the fraudulent IRS settlement. We also touched on Senator Wyden's new report on JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America failing to report Jeffrey Epstein's suspicious transactions for nearly twenty years, and Todd Blanche getting voted out of committee toward a full Senate confirmation vote for Attorney General.

After Allison's segment, Spocko called in to talk accountability for Elon Musk and DOGE's damage, and Nebraska's new Medicaid work requirements — plus I take a personal detour into what I was going through ten years ago this week, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer and grateful, every single day, for the insurance I could only get because of the Affordable Care Act.

If you didn't know that the Trump Crime Organization would pull off this scam too you've had your head in the sand. I'm running late this morning trying to pull all the pieces together as I do it all alone... But we'll go through the bullshit that will become official tomorrow as the Dumpster Fire and his evil spawn will be granted immunity from all of their tax fraud over the past 50 or so years... and yes, he'll wind up getting his slush fund to pay off his army of insurrectionists too -- using our tax dollars to do it. I'd say un-fucking-believable, but it's completely believable. I just sucks.

It's Friday, which means it's time to dig deeper with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net. This week we're covering a lot of ground: Iran outmaneuvering a US military running low on munitions, the stalled confirmation of Todd Blanche for Attorney General, wild new details in Jim Comey's legal filings, domestic violence allegations against Rep. Max Miller and the Republicans defending him, Elon Musk's continuing election crimes, and the slow-motion unraveling of Trump's DOJ. Grab some coffee, or perhaps something a bit stronger (if that's your choice!) it's a full one today.

Today's news kicked off today's show: Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination gets pulled after he refuses to put in writing that Trump's IRS "slush fund" scheme is dead — and two Republican senators aren't buying it. Then, the never-ending question of whether Mitch McConnell is alive, dead, or somewhere in between, plus Trump's new AI "pre-crime" policing plan straight out of Minority Report, and Kash Patel's defamation lawsuit over being called "googly-eyed" gets thrown out of court. (Well, they ARE googly eyes and creepy too!)

In the second half, I talk with Erin Riley about her new book, The Mighty WMMR: An Oral History of Philadelphia's Rock Radio Revolution — stories from the golden age of terrestrial radio, breaking Springsteen and Billy Joel, and life behind the scenes at one of the country's most legendary rock stations.

Dr. Anthony Fauci took the Fifth Amendment today rather than let Senators Rand Paul ,Josh Hawley & others on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committees bait him into a "gotcha" moment during a hearing designed from the start to manufacture a scandal. Driftglass joins me to talk about why — tracing Fauci's decades of public service back to the earliest, most frightening days of the AIDS epidemic, and explaining how the modern right's scapegoating of him follows the exact same playbook used against Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton before her.

Before we get into it, I catch you up on my long weekend in Tucson and Bisbee with my daughter — Mt. Lemmon views, a copper mine tour, and a serious temptation to just keep driving south into Mexico. Then it's on to the DNC's stunning debt under chair Ken Martin, a disastrous White House Correspondents' Dinner, and the deepening rift between the Democratic Party and Jewish voters. Plus a preview of tomorrow's guest, Erin Riley, on her new book about the history of legendary Philadelphia rock radio station WMMR.

Marcy's back! After a two-week break -missing one Emptywheel Friday - Marcy Wheeler and I dig into everything that happened while she was gone — and it's a lot. We spend most of this episode on press freedom, because two major stories are unfolding right now and only one of them is getting coverage: the New York Times subpoena mess tied to the "flying bribery palace" leak, and the far less-covered case of Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort, where the evidence suggests DOJ fabricated new claims against her after failing to get an arrest warrant the first time. And of course, a lot more including the ongoing Epstein fallout, Trump's Saudi Arabia nuclear deal chaos, the resumed war with Iran, Pete Hegseth's rough hearing, and Arizona primary results. Plus: sheep, apparently there are too many of them in Ireland.

No news, no parody today — just a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. Nona Lee spent over two decades as a trailblazer in professional sports law, becoming the first woman, first woman of color, and first openly gay woman to hold a string of executive positions with the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and Arizona Diamondbacks. She built the Diamondbacks' legal department from the ground up and was part of the first all-woman team to win an MLB salary arbitration hearing.

Then, in the middle of all that success, she walked away to found what's now called Truth is. Consulting. DEI work that, in this administration, has become something people are almost afraid to admit they need. We talk about her book, "The Truth About Us," the difference between the truth we show the world and the truth we carry inside, and why she believes we can feel helpless without ever letting ourselves become hopeless.

Find Nona's work at truthisconsulting.com and her book, "The Truth About Us: A Call to Confront Bias, Embrace Empathy, and Build a More Inclusive World," wherever books are sold.

As always — this show is 100% listener-supported. No paywall ever. If you can, please consider supporting the work at nicolesandler.com/donate-2

One of the progressive blogosphere's originals, Driftglass always has terrific wisdom to share, whether on a Wednesday or not. Today, we dug into Arizona's primary results — my district's new Republican nominee Mark Lamb is a "God, guns, and getting some" (as best I could recall) former sheriff with a few swinger, sexting and plain old sex scandals ongoing, who appears to live on his Tennessee ranch, which does not seem to be in Arizona. Meanwhile, while my pick, Nurse Elizabeth Lee, won with 65% of the Democratic vote yet got zero mention on the tiny bit of local news I happened to see last night. Driftglass and I also talked a bit about Illinois politics, and I finally told my true-life hurricane and earthquake survival stories. Plus a preview of tomorrow's guest, Nona Lee, author of "The Truth About Us."

It's primary day in Arizona, and the characters -er- candidates on the ballot could fill a Carl Hiaasen novel. I dig into the AZ-04 primary between Rep. Greg Stanton and progressive challenger Kai Newkirk, why the local DSA guide warned about risking a "fascist ghoul" taking the seat, and why I've been urging a vote for Stanton despite my meh opinions about him. Then there's Mark Lamb, the AZ-05 Republican frontrunner facing a serious sex scandal & more that Turning Point USA allies tried to silence at a recent district meeting. There's the Biggs vs. Schweikert race to challenge Gov. Hobbs. A quick item about missing Howie Klein right now and his upcoming memoir, and a mini review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. To wrap the show, I pull from the archive: my full 2019 conversation with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, now running in the Democratic primary for Michigan's open Senate seat, on Medicare for All, the Mueller report, and running for office as a proud Muslim candidate.

Today was Day Two of the Senate confirmation hearings for Todd Blanche in his quest to be our next Attorney General. I could have told you it wasn't going to go well, and probably did. But once again, I'm truly sleep deprived and that set the tone for the day today, which began by watching the early morning hearings --but then I had to leave to get an ultrasound. And, of course, Medicare and the imaging center set the tone for the rest of the day, in a not-good-way.

I finally got home and started the show, which quickly veered off to a topic very different from the hearing... We talked about the Massie amendment to the NDAA that the House was voting on yesterday, when half of the Dems found their spines, something they should've done a decade or two ago.

I did take some great listener/viewer phone calls and, by the end of the show, decided to make it long weekend. Marcy Wheeler is out tomorrow, and now so am I,

I hope you'll come back Monday by which time I plan to have recharged myself and forge ahead into the awful unknown.