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.

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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!

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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. 💙

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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