The Nicole Sandler Show

Today, we reach back into the thick of the early days of the pandemic… March 11, 2020. Not only was it covid time, it was the pinnacle of the 2020 presidential primaries…. In fact, this show was the day after the so-called mini-Tuesday after which Joe Biden appeared to have clinched the nomination to knock Bernie Sanders out of the race. Needless to say, not a happy day for me… But we got past that news in time for Lawrence O'Donnell to call in to the show after he and I had a little Twitter tiff….

Today, we go back to April 17, 2020. We were in the thick of the pandemic and most of the country was under lockdown.  A glance into what's news from that day gave me this dire report: "The number of reported deaths in the U.S. from covid19  spiked to nearly double the prior record Thursday, as governors extended their lockdown orders, and the Trump administration released new federal guidelines to reopen the economy. "In the 24 hours ending at 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, 4,591 people were reported to have died from Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. The prior record was 2,569 on Wednesday. The number of new reported U.S. cases, meanwhile, was roughly equal with that on Wednesday at 31,451." WSJ [http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=b09bdb2dee4c4d0cd1052bbd6bf66d88b011d99dd7cf5a22f268c0481db70f09de0537ce2a8af8cffa37a3e483a56f56] That day on the show I had two guests… Ali Velshi of MSNBC was up first. Then I called on my old friend Kelly Carlin, yes - George's daughter - to help us cope with Covid, isolation and the challenges we're facing today.

This past year we saw Fox NOT News hit with $787 Million in damages after losing a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox admitted they lied and had to pay the largest fine ever levied on a media entity in history, yet their behavior hasn't changed, and its dangerous. Jen Senko is author of the book, The Brainwashing of My Dad.

So I've assembled some shows that really are best ofs to run until I can get my studio set up in a new home… It's the end of September, so pretty soon we'll all be inundated with ads for Medicare Advantage, as Medicare open enrollment begins on Oct 15, thru Dec 7…. Then open enrollment for the ACA begins on Nov 1… To make sure you're informed about what's available and to tell you the truth about so-called Medicare Advantage (neither Medicare nor an advantage), we'll go back to Oct 15 of 2021 and an information packed conversation with health insurance industry whistleblower Wendell Potter….

Today's show draws from two decades, neither of them the one we're in. At this time in 1995, an artist named Alanis Morissette was climbing the charts. Her album Jagged Little Pill would hit #1 just a couple of weeks later. I was an early cheerleader for the album and because of that, as her mega star was rising quickly, she came into the radio station I was working at at the time for an interview with me. That was 28 years ago! My how time flies… But we'll begin today with an interview from 2010 about psychedelics to treat mental health issues. You know I recently underwent a series of Ketamine Therapy treatments for depression. It might seem like I was jumping on the new trend bandwagon, but this exciting breakthrough in treating mental health with psychedelics is an idea I've been following since first reading about the work being done treating returning veterans suffering from PTSD… 13 years ago!

Today we just go back to March of this year…. As you may have heard me mention, I'm moving out of Florida- in large part to the fascist ways of the governor and his authoritarian rule over the state. One of his most heinous actions is his treatment of and lack of regard for the LGBTQ community. His vendetta against drag shows would be really funny if it weren't so mean, discriminatory and harmful to people just trying to live their own lives…. So today, we'll enjoy the awesomeness of The Kinsey Six, an acapella drag group who'll show why desantis and his ilk are so scared of them… But on this day, March `13 of this year, 2023, we once again watched the government bail out billionaires (while us poor schmucks wallow in poverty…) as banks in Silicon Valley started failing… Mu old friend Dave Johnson lived there at the time and joined me at the top of the show to attempt to explain what's happening there…

Today we go back to October of 2014 for a conversation with famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and his followers for the Tate/LaBianca Helter Skelter murders. But Bugliosi wrote quite a few books, mostly dealing with famous homicide cases including the manson family murders, Kennedy assassination and even OJ Simpson. On this occasion, we were discussing his book, "The Prosecution of GWBush for Murder" and the documentary that came out of it, the Prosecution of an American President…

Today during our moving madness, we share some slices of history. The first time I called a global hotspot hotel to talk to a regular person was Feb 2, 2011, as protests engulfed Cairo's Tahrir Square at the start of the Arab Spring.  One of the benefits of having been doing this show for so many years is the historical record left behind. Today we experience  history unfolding… Remember the Arab Spring? We had such hope that Democracy would finally sweep through the middle east.  It began with a singular act of defiance! On Dec 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian street vendor who had his produce confiscated by police, set himself on fire to protest against police harassment and the authorities' lack of concern, His actions triggered nationwide protests and calls for an end of the authoritarian rule of Pres Zine El Abidine Ben Ali… And then all hell broke loose… protests continued in Tunisia… the president fled to Saudi Arabia…. But the flame had been lit and the fire was spreading throughout the middle east, many converging on Egypt Egyptian activists called for a mass rally in a "Day of Anger" on Jan 25, 2011, set to coincide with the annual celebration of the Egyptian police, and the people took to the streets for unprecedented protests in Cairo as the city came to standstill…. Violent clashes between anti Mubarak protesters and police took over On Jan 28, Egyptian president Hasni Mubarek announces "I have ordered the government to step down and I will name a new government tomorrow"…. On Feb 2, protesters declared Feb 4 the "Friday of Departure" for Mubarak, as the clashes between pro Mubarak and anti government began in Tahrir Square…. That day, I decided to call hotels around Tahrir Square to get a first hand account of what was happening there from just an average working Egyptian…. You just have to get through to the correct person… Sadly, the Arab Spring fizzled and democracy didn't come to the Middle East where things are just as bad as they were before that brave and fed up Tunisian man set himself on fire…. For our next segment, we jump ahead about a decade, to Jan 3, 2020.  Unbelievably, Donald Trump was now in the WH and many of us worried about the reality that a mad man had the authority to push a button and launch another World War….terrifying! The US and Iran have had a fraught relationship for decades now with a very tenuous co-existence in place when Trump bragged about the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, He was the head of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and the architect of its military and political power.…. A US air raid at Baghdad int'l airport hit during the early morning hours killing Soleimani and others with him.  Many worried that this would escalate the already high tensions between our nations, so I thought it might be a good time to pick up the phone again, this time to speak with an Iranian citizen human to human…. It was Jan 3, 2020

I'm moving! So today begins a series of Best Of interviews from throughout the years. Some special shows are coming up over the next few weeks. We kick things off with a brand new interview, never before aired, with HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, historian and author of the new book DEMOCRACY AWAKENING: NOTES ON THE STATE OF AMERICA. In the time left, we go back to 2014 for my sit-down interview with the Rev Dr William Barber, recorded at Netroots Nation in Detroit.

After today, this studio is done! I'll be tearing it down, packing it up  and getting us the hell out of Florida. Let's put some collective  energy into making sure the gremlins stay here and don't follow us to  Arizona.  For my last live show out of here, we'll visit with David Jolliffe, my  old friend who's on the SAG-AFTRA executive committee who'll give us a  strike update, and I'll share some final thoughts on moving out of the  state that DeSantis DeStroyed...