The Nicole Sandler Show

I was out yesterday for a doctor's appointment, but I'm back today.. Sadly, there's no lack of news to discuss and questions to ask. From COVID vaccinations to the enormous, ugly bill, and the demented orange guy occupying the White House, the news is as dismal and offensive as ever.So, today, we'll review some of the more infuriating news of the day!

It was another eventful week in this surreal world. The idiot-in-chief went to the Middle East, SCOTUS held a special hearing yesterday, and what was thought to be a very old copy of the Magna Carta housed at Harvard is discovered to be an authentic 7th original copy dating back to 1300! Marcy Wheeler thinks it's an auspicious sign, especially when the administration is talking about suspending habeas corpus. And, oh yeah, they're likely arresting a sitting member of Congress today. It's Emptywheel Friday, where Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net joins Nicole Sandler to discuss some of what happened this week.

Ethics are important to Republicans ONLY when it's a Democrat engaging in questionable behaviors. That's more evident every day. But it cuts much deeper... they're quick to call out anything a Democrat does, like nodding off in an all-night hearing. But they have no problem with it's a Republican. It seemed like all we heard from them during the Biden administration was "the Biden 'crime family' is capitalizing on the president's office." But they're notoriously silent about the massive grift by Trump and his spawn -- from a luxury flying palace to golf courses and Trump Towers (sic) in middle eastern countries and multi billion dollar investments into companies and schemes to directly enrich the family! But don't you dare to try to legally apply for asylum in the US. They'll have you shipped out to a foreign concentration camp and imprisoned for life! Today I'll recount some of those sickening stories and talk to my favorite legal expert Lisa Graves to ask WTAF? Also, subscribe to Lisa's new Grave Injustice newsletter here, and see her new podcast "The Five 8 1/2" every Wednesday night at 8pm ET and after!

Welcome to Tuesday.I've had more than a few listeners ask me about ActBlue in the wake of D'ump ordering the DoJ to investigate the online fundraising platform used by Democrats and progressive organizations. Today we'll check in with Josh Nelson, CEO of Civic Shout, an advertising platform for progressive causes, who'll set the record straight.Then, a break from news and politics for a musical diversion. I'm joined by Cary Baker, author of "Down on the Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music," an old friendly acquaintence from my days in music radio.  He tells a lot of great stories about street musicians aka buskers that are fascinating and fun to hear. I know it's not news and it's not politics, but that's a good thing because these breaks are a necessary diversion from the real (opposite) world  we're stuck in right now!

A new week begins with news of a "$400 Million flying palace" that allegedly will be gifted by the Qatari Royal Family to Donald F'ing Trump!?! WTF?Oh there's more news too. Like the idea of suspending habeas corpus? Huh?I accidentally stumbled onto Newsmax over the weekend and was hit with El Dumpo on the tube trying to sell me a Trump Watch? Seriously? The President of the United States doing a TV commercial to sell a watch with his name scribbled on it. How is that legal?These stories and more as we cover the fucking news with Jonathan Larsen of thefuckingnews.substack.com.

It's Friday, so we made it to the end of another action-packed week. Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net and I review some of the crap that Dump and his gang flung at us this week and try to make sense of it all.This week we got a new pope - one from the United States for the first time ever- and it seems he's "woke" and MAGAt heads are exploding. The tariff fiasco is ramping up in full swing, as some people are finally beginning to realize what this will mean for our economy, and Dump pretends he signed a great new trade deal with the UK (he didn't). SCOTUS lets Dump and Hegseth remove trans people from the military, but the North Carolina Supreme Court finally has to accept the election results and swear in the democrat who won the election six months ago(!).And the Dumpster fire says he doesn't know if he has to uphold the constitution or if all people deserve due process. Seriously...And finally, the federal judge in Vermont who presided over the bail hearing this morning orders that Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University grad student who was abducted by masked goons in Boston, be released from detention "immediately" and on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. We'll see if they comply...

I accidentally loaded the wrong show... this is the correct one. Sorry for the inconvenience!--------------------------------------------------------------Today we get back to the news, issues and concerns about life in our messed-up world. I’m looking forward to talking with Antonia Juhasz again. She’s an investigative journalist who covers energy and environmental justice will join us to explain what the “deal” is with Ukraine over their rare earth minerals. We certainly can’t forget the oval office ambush of Ukrainian President Zelinsky. Her latest piece on this “deal” for Rolling Stone magazine is “Is Trump’s ‘Minerals Deal’ a Fossil Fuel Shakedown?”This morning though, justice was again denied in America. A Memphis jury acquitted three former police officers on state charges including second-degree murder in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023. It’s just too infuriating.

It's Thursday, so we'll talk politics with Howie Klein of DownWithTyranny.com and the Blue America Pac today... Lots of action, perhaps, in Congress where we can't help but hope the Republican caucus starts coming apart to derail some of this insanity that the orange one is unleashing on the world.Dump did announce a trade deal this morning with the UK. But is it a deal if it's not a deal? Only Congress can authorize a trade deal. But then again, only Congress can authorize tariffs. Who's going to tell him?And there's a new pope and, for the first time in history, it's an American. The man formerly known at Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, appears to be one of the good guys. He's even criticized JD Vance on Xitter!

Today we get back to the news, issues and concerns about life in our messed-up world. I'm looking forward to talking with Antonia Juhasz again. She's an investigative journalist who covers energy and environmental justice will join us to explain what the "deal" is with Ukraine over their rare earth minerals. We certainly can't forget the oval office ambush of Ukrainian President Zelinsky. Her latest piece on this "deal" for Rolling Stone magazine is "Is Trump’s ‘Minerals Deal’ a Fossil Fuel Shakedown?"This morning though, justice was again denied in America. A Memphis jury acquitted three former police officers on state charges including second-degree murder in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023. It's just too infuriating.

 The world lost one of its better inhabitants this week. On May 1, 2025, Jill Sobule was killed in a tragic house fire. Words can't express our loss. Jill was truly a remarkable human being. I'm heartened by the continuing show of love and support I'm seeing all over social media for the last few days from her friends and fans alike...I was lucky enough to be working at a radio station who played Jill's first hit single, "I Kissed a Girl," when it was released on her debut self-titled album in 1995. Over the next few years, she visited radio stations I worked at to perform live and sit for interviews, and she attended a number of industry conferences where we got to hang out and become friends.Jill's many interests included news and politics. After I segued from my career in music radio to progressive talk, Jill remained a fairly frequent guest. She was always informed about what was going on. Jill was an outspoken activist in both her actions and songs. In 2011, she appeared at Netroots Nation in Minneapolis to perform an original song she wrote for the occasion honoring immigrants and groups who help them, "America Back." (You can find the recording of that song from that event here on YouTube.)I was going to put together a show to honor Jill with clips of her various appearances on my show over the years. While searching through my archives, I found this recording from September 1, 2009. At the time, I was hosting a show weeknights on Air America Radio, usually from my home studio in South Florida. That week, I was visiting Los Angeles, broadcasting live from studios there.Jill Sobule had just released her first crowd-funded album on her own new label, Pinko Records. It was produced by Don Was and titled "California Years." Jill and Don joined me in the studio one evening. With the commercials, news and other non-related content edited out it runs just over an hour. Sadly the recording stopped while we were wrapping up, with Jill in mid-sentence singing a "happy song" about a dream in which she was fighting Nazis.I hadn't realized I had that recording until I came across it this weekend. After listening to it I realized that I should just share this entire broadcast. We spent the time talking about so many different things, and she and Don performed a few songs. In that setting, you get to hear Jill just being Jill. Sweet, funny, immensely talented and quite humble.I'll soon put together a post with a bunch of the interviews we'd done together over the years. But for today, we'll hang with Jill Sobule for a while and remember how lucky we were to have her while we did. She did, indeed, live a good life.