The Nicole Sandler Show

It's a Friday and boy, do we need a weekend. Today, we'll deal with a couple of the big issues facing our world. We'll start with the end of our occupation of Afghanistan after 20 years. The mainstream corporate media coverage has been a lot of finger pointing and blaming the current administration, while inviting the people who got us into this mess in the first place are being interviewed as if their views mattered! We've also learned that anti-war organizations have been excluded from all coverage. We'll remedy that with a visit from Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War. Then, we'll segue to one of the other major crises of our time -- the ongoing Republican effort to curtail your right to vote. I'll speak with Lala Wu, co-founder and executive director of the Sister District Project, who are focused right now on passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and winning and safeguarding fair and free elections.

A bit of what's news, for now

Yes, I have some good news to open the show with today. In fact, the news is so good that it'll be difficult to put me in a bad mood today. But a crazy Trumper threatening to blow up the Capitol live on Facebook from his truck on the Hill made a valiant effort. Thankfully, he just turned himself in without incident. He probably had no explosives either, but I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. I had an encounter with the word "moderate" today. I may have to talk to Howie Klein about the use of that word where it's not warranted. Like with so-called Democrat Josh Gottheimer of NJ. He appears to be the ringleader of a small circle of 9 conservadems who appear determined to derail the possibility of passing the two infrastructure bills that would set this country on a decent course for a change.

A bit of what's news for now

One constant in this world is change. Today we'll talk about some of the change we're experiencing now. After 20-year occupation, the US is removing all remaining troops from Afghanistan. The exit was ugly, but they have been, throughout history. We'll start with what's happening now in Afghanistan. While many veterans, politicians and media figures are pointing a finger at Joe Biden, Lucas Kunce isn't. The Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who's running for Senate from MO returns to the show today after pushing back at some of the loudest voices blaming the president and the American people. Then we'll get some historical perspective from David Potter, author of the new book "Disruption: Why Things Change" which looks at what precipitated radical change throughout history.

A bit of what's news, for now

On this day in 1969, Woodstock was in its final day of Peace and Music. Melanie Safka performed on the first day. This week, she re-created her Woodstock set and shared it online. Today, I figured we could use an injection of peace and the energy of Woodstock, so Melanie will join us for the second half of the show. But we'll begin with the response to the US pullout of troops from Afghanistan. President Biden is taking loads of criticism, most of it seemingly from the media.

A bit of what's news for now

Sometimes my timing is spot on, as is the case today. Spencer Ackerman's new book, "Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump" was released Tuesday; Afghanistan fell yesterday after the US pulled out. And, lucky for us, he's my guest today on the show! He'll join in at the :30 minute mark at the bottom of the hour. I'll do my best to explain what happened over the weekend at the top of the show...

A bit of what's news for now