The Nicole Sandler Show

So many developments over the weekend, much of it seems to be in the quest of a VP nod by TFG. Ron DeSantis 'suspended' his presidential campaign and quickly kissed the ring. Nikki Haley keeps doubling down on her racism comments. And Tim Scott proposed to his female girlfriend. Hmmm. I think it's all related. We'll talk about it in the first half-hour of the show.  In the second half-hour I welcome today's guest, Keith Boykin. He's  a TV and film producer, former CNN political commentator and a NY Times-bestselling author whose brand new one, WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT RACE?: 25 Arguments that Won't Go Away, is officially released tomorrow.

It's Friday, so our weekly deluge of information from Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net. So much to discuss in our hour together today including the E Jean Carroll second defamation trial against the former guy and how the corporate media is doing Trump's bidding by covering his sideshow courtroom tantrums, the new allegations (and investigation and hearing scheduled in February) concerning Fulton County DA Fani Willis and her lead prosecutor's personal relationship, and of course the latest in the GOP targeted harassment and prosecution of Hunter Biden, among other things. I apologize that there's no video of today's get-together. I recorded it as usual. (We tape Friday mornings AZ time/afternoon Ireland time.) But mea culpa. When I stopped the video recording, I apparently inadvertently restarted the recording when I ended it, effectively recording over the file that was the recording of the interview. Thank goodness I have the audio backup. So, listen today. Turn on the closed captions if you want to see the text of our discussion.  I sincerely apologize. I'll do better next week.

There's so much news dominated by the tragedy that is Donald J Trump. Just a glance at the headlines shows the news media can't quit him. They report on every cringy thing he says and does, somehow normalizing his anything-but-normal behavior.  At least he skipped today's third day of the second E Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit against the former guy after being smacked down by the judge yesterday, so we're spared his antics there. But I'm sure we'll see more nonsensical clips from his rambling campaign speeches because, well, as I said before, they can't quit him.

Remember the old Memorex ads? Is it live or is it Memorex? It might have been hard to tell the difference (or not), but in the case of AI it's quite clear. There is no comparison. That didn't stop a so-called comedy team from taking volumes of George Carlin's genius work, feeding it into an artificial intelligence program with the goal of it writing a new comedy routine in his voice using events that happened since his death. Long story short: it failed. Brutally [https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d94xx/the-george-carlin-ai-standup-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine]. But the question arises where an artist like Carlin's rights end. His daughter Kelly Carlin is fighting back, and she'll join us for the second half of the show today to talk about this inanimate can of worms.  Find Kelly on Xitter [http://twitter.com/kelly_carlin] and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kellycarlinishere/]. Or go to her outdated website at kellycarlin.com [http://kellycarlin.com/] and sign up for her emails. You'll get all the info you need! We'll begin the show today with GottaLaff (@GottaLaff@Mastodon.social). No, she's not here, but she's tooting up a storm today. (That's what you do on Mastodon -- toot, as opposed to on Xitter where Laffy no longer Xits for obvious reasons named Elon Musk.) She's live-tooting the EJ Carroll defamation trial in NYC today, where el Trumpo is sitting in the courtroom making noises, pissing off the judge along with his so-called attorneys.

The Trump slide into fascism has brought with it some dangerous new trends like the banning of books, whitewashing history and a massive backsliding of personal rights like abortion and bodily autonomy. One of the most heinous attacks has been on the rights of people to live their own authentic lives. I've been hyper-focused on what's going on in Florida as I lived there for much of my life. The current governor is the worst in the country when it comes to pushing his own perverted sense of morals on the rest of the nation from his sickening directives like the "Don't Say Gay" bill, prohibitions on African American studies AP high school courses and 6-week abortion ban for a start. Now, as the legislative session began this week, we learn of new legislation that would outlaw transgender adults. Really. I'm not overstating that. I learned of this latest outrage last week though an article at Alternet written by one of today's guests. Erin Reed [http://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn], aka Erin in the Morning [http://www.erininthemorning.com/], whose substack of the same name reports on trans and queer news and legislation so that we're all aware of what is going on. Erin and I will be joined by our old friend 'Boca' Britany Somers, host of The Brit Somers Show [http://britsomers.substack.com/], a trans woman trying to live her life in Floriduh.

We love Fridays around here for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is we get to review the week in Trump trials and tribulations with Marcy 'Emptywheel' Wheeler, the proprietor and independent journalist who shares her work with us at emptywheel.net. This was a ridiculously busy week with hearings and trials and more hearings Oh My. Because there was so much going on, we have a jam-packed hour filled with information and analysis from Marcy and we get to marvel at how much information she has and is able to reveal off the top of her mind. And since it's now the weekend, you have a few days to absorb it all before we hit the ground running again.

We were looking forward to Howie Klein's return to the show today after the holidays, but it won't happen today. He's back from a trip to India, but a bit jetlagged and under the weather, so he'll return next week. So today, it's almost anything goes. I have lots of audio and video to share from this week's various shit shows, and the phone lines are wide open.

Not only are Magats and Republicans hypocrites, they've actually killed irony. This is been a week filled with unbelievable court proceedings and congressional hearings. During each one, at least one Republican shill or representative has made complete fools of themselves. Today in a House Oversight hearing on contempt charges for Hunter Biden for not complying with a Congressional subpoena (after they changed the rules mid-stream), one of them spoke directly to the president's son and said "You have no balls." But of course we know he does because another of their members, Marjorie Q Green showed his "dick pics" during an earlier hearing in that very room, as a couple of the Democrats on the committee reminded us this morning. Yikes! So much to talk about, so many clips to share. Thank goodness Lisa Graves [https://truenorthresearch.org/lisa-graves/] is joining us today to share her own legal perspective on the right's attack on the rule of law in this country.

We can't officially kick off a new year without a state of the insanity conversation with OG blogger, Salon columnist and the proprietor of Digby's blog (at digbysblog.net)

I couldn't think of a better term to describe the very strange circumstances in which we're living as the year 2024 gets off to a strange and frightening start. We have no guest today, just lots of news and clips to support my conjecture, and an open phone line at 954-889-6410 should you care to join in.