The Nicole Sandler Show

I'm back! I was on vacation for the past week and did my best to completely tune out from politics, the news and, most importantly, D'ump. Did anything more happen this week other than a continuation of our descent into hell? We'll talk about that and check in with Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny and the Blue America PAC too. Get full access to The Nicole Sandler Show at nicolesandler...

I've been using a new "Opposite World" theme to open the show each day because we living in a time where nothing is as it should be. Dump even said the quiet part out loud, "What you're seeing and what you're reading is NOT what's happening." That might be the only truth he's ever actually spoken! Steve Benen , longtime political writer, now producer for Rachel...

It's my penultimate vacation show. I'll be back live in the studio on Thursday. For this episode, we span the decades! We spend most of the hour with Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works. He joined me on July 9 to help dispel the bullshit put out by the SSA regarding the big ugly bill (now, unfortunately, law). Alex explains the ramifications from this shitty legislatio...

I grew up learning about America as "The Great Melting Pot." It was taught with pride. Today, the governing cabal has nothing but disdain for immigrants, unless they're married to Trump, I guess. Today on the show, we'll hear a conversation with David Dayen of The American Prospect that happened at the height of the government's assault on Los Angeles. And for a different and s...

Since the Jeffrey Epstein ugliness has been front and center recently and the Miami Herald 's Julie K. Brown has been covering it for over a decade, I thought we'd reach back to 2021 for the interview I did with her when her book PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: THE JEFFREY EPSTEIN STORY was released. It's a snapshot in time, and a pretty ugly one at that. That interview happened on August 2, 20...

I didn’t know much about Catherine Coleman Flowers before I was pitched on an interview with her by her publishers about her forthcoming book , Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope. When I did some research on her, I realized that she has been front and center, doing amazing work and getting recognized for it all… We go through some of the accolades in the interview… b...

I thought we’d begin this week of vacation shows with an explanation of how we got here. Investigative reporter, author, filmmaker and more Greg Palast ’s latest film explains how it is possible that the orange dick-tator in the White House could have possibly been elected for a second time. Here’s what I wrote when this interview first aired on February 12 of this year: I frequently exclaim that...

I'm heading out on vacation after today's show, so I couldn't think of a better guest to join me today than our old friend Heather "Digby" Parton . You can always read Digby at digbysblog.net and at Salon.com , but I love chatting with her here on the show. There was plenty to talk about today too, as the shit really has hit the proverbial fan. Thankfully, Digby pulled together...

The worst thing about weekends is that they inevitably end. They're always followed by Mondays. And these days, there's no rest for weary as news keeps being made. We aim to make it a little easier to swallow on Mondays by bringing you up-to-date with the news with some snark and few well-placed fucks with Jonathan Larsen of TheFuckingNews.substack.com . Oh sure, there's plenty of Epst...

We love Fridays of course for the obvious reasons. But here at the Nicole Sandler Show , we get together each Friday with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net to review some of the most important issues, news stories and things affecting our lives that happened during the week. These days, it's overwhelming, which is why I say we'll cover some of it. We record these Friday sessions at noon East...

I don't have any use for organized religion. Although I am Jewish by heritage, I am also an atheist. But I don’t begrudge anyone else their beliefs. I believe, as is enshrined in the constitution, that we all have the right to worship - or not. But I also believe in the other tenets of our democratic society including the separation of church and state. That one is being challenged by the curr...

Is it legal if there's no one willing to enforce the laws that say it isn't? That's just one question I'm grappling with these days as we watch what's left of the Department of Justice and the rule of law crumble in the USA. We are experiencing the complete gaslighting of America. The most confounding part of this opposite world in which we're stuck is why so many people ar...

After a power outage rudely disrupted yesterday's show, I'm back today to seize the power of life. I tried to be clever there... We actually are talking about power today, but the power that most of us could use a bit of help to tap in to. But we begin with some of the day’s news including: * The Supreme Extreme Court’s decision allowing Dump to proceed with plans to carry out mass layoffs...

Like death and taxes, Mondays are inevitable. And despite our most fervent wishes to the contrary, the news doesn't stop. These days, the news is pretty much always bad. If that’s the case, I prefer to take my news with a healthy dose of snark and some well-placed profanity. So we begin the week here on The Nicole Sandler Show with Jonathan Larsen , the man behind thefuckingnews.substack.com ....

I’ll keep the written part short and sweet today, as yesterday’s was long and overloaded with information and links. And today’s show runs a bit longer than usual. Today, really, the only link you need is emptywheel.net . That’s Marcy Wheeler ’s info-packed site where she wrote about pretty much everything we discussed today on the show. Marcy took last week off - as did we. It was the 4th of July...

Today is Thursday. Howie Klein has been doing a weekly segment on this show for probably 15 years. He’s been out a bit lately as he’s been undergoing treatment for cancer. Thankfully, today he has a day off from that, so he'll join us in the second half hour of today's show. Despite his health issues, Howie's been busy writing at DownWithTyranny.com and working to find great progressiv...

The Social Security Administration sent out an unsolicited email a few days ago, making far fetched claims about what ‘benefits’ the just-passed Big Ugly Tax & Kill bill would bring to Social Security beneficiaries. Most notably, the claim that El Dumpo has been crowing about repeatedly -- that it would eliminate taxes on those Social Security benefits. It's a lie. Steve Benen had a great...

We first met Wendell Potter about 15 years ago when he broke ranks as a health insurance PR executive to blow the whistle on the industry he knew was killing people in its quest for higher profits. And the rest, as they say, is history. Wendell still stands virtually alone in telling truth about the industry that's only grown larger and more powerful and still values profits over the lives the...

When Jonathan Larsen first launched his newsletter and called it "The Fucking News," I thought it was quite clever. Now I know it was perfect and prescient. Jonathan joins me on the show each Monday to help us get a handle on what's happening in the news and set the stage for the week. It reminds of of the limbo dance. It's really a game that asks, "How low can you go?" The...

The Nicole Sandler Show is a listener/reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Just when I thought that just maybe three or four Republican House members would find a spine and actually represent their constituents and fulfill the oaths they swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, I realize that I only wind up...

Knowing that I can't possibly cover everything that goes on each day in this hour we have together, today we'll focus on two... CBS paid Trump's extortion demands and a conversation with Gaby Pacheco, a lifelong activist for dreamers, Immigrants and education rights. Both are critical stories as the current administration is methodically taking away our rights on its road to fascism. G...

After more than 24 hours of "debate" (it wasn't a debate) and the so-called vote-a-rama (including bullshit backroom deals, we're looking at you Murkowski), the Opposite World fittingly-named "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (though according to Schumer, he got the name changed to something else) passed the Senate today with the tightest possible margin. It was a 50-50 vote wit...

It's difficult to imagine the news getting any worse than the crap we've been dealing with over the last five months. Just when you think we've hit rock bottom, we live through another week of Dump 2.0 and we realize there is no basement. The senate right now is in the middle of the vote-a-rama on its way to passing the Behemoth Barbaric Bill Act which is worse than anything we could h...

It was a week that, once again, felt like a year... or more! There was a war. More accurately, the moron in the White House inserted us into a war between Israel and Iran. The Supreme/Extreme Court finished it's term by handing down the final opinions in the regular term, though a handful of shadow docket cases will be handed down next week). It was an ugly day for the future of our democracy....

I read a ridiculous amount of news in preparation for this show every day, much of which I never get to during the hour I'm on the air with this show. So today we'll play catch up on a bunch of news that transpired so far this week. The Supreme Court today handed down four of their 10 remaining decisions, and announced they'll finish them off tomorrow! Of course, that doesn't count...