The Nicole Sandler Show

My friend Lisa Graves served in the Justice Dept under Attorneys General Janet Reno and John Ashcroft in both the Clinton and GWBush administrations. She's been chief counsel for nominations under then Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy, and her CV has many more examples of her legal bona fides. These days, Lisa is Executive Director of the watchdog group True North Research, but she appears regularly on this show in her personal capacity as a citizen, not representing any organization.With all of the actions taken by this new horrific administration over the last 25 days, what I understand is that the vast majority of them are not only illegal but unconstitutional. Today, Lisa Graves returns to the show to try to help me make some sense out of what's going on.

I frequently exclaim that we're living in 'Opposite World'. It's a place filled with gaslighting where things are pretty much the exact opposite of what we're being told. D'ump and his cult followers, while screaming that WE were stealing the election are actually the ones who've been stealing OUR votes. Remember the newish warning: Every accusation is a confession.In his new film, VIGILANTES, INC: AMERICA'S NEW VOTE SUPPRESSION HITMEN, Greg explains how they've been doing this and why Donald Trump is sitting in the Oval Office again. You can see it for free right now at gregpalast.com, on YouTube and Amazon Prime.I hope you'll watch both the film and my interview with Greg Palast, share them widely, and work to insure this never happens again.

It's been a long time since my 8th grade civics class. I did learn a lot from Mr. Patton back then, but I haven't brushed up on much of what I learned then since. But we're being told a lot of stuff about our government, and the newly empowered administration is doing a lot of things that appear to be not only counter to what I learned, but also unconstitutional. Speaking of the constitution, we hear we're either approaching a constitutional crisis or we're smack dab in the middle of one. But do we really know what a constitutional crisis is. And how do we deal with one when it happens?Tom Schalleris a political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I first met & interviewed him years ago when he was a political columnist for the Baltimore Sun. We also spoke about some of his books including his latest,WHITE RURAL RAGE: THE THREAT TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.I couldn't think of a better guest to invite on to help us get back to basics so we can understand what's happening in and to our country today as we attempt to make sense of the nonsensical.We'll start with some of the latest news, then get some important knowledge from Dr. Schaller.

Our list of things inevitable is growing. It's no longer just death and taxes. To that we know that Monday will always arrive and with it more fucking news. So we get it out of the way... Each Monday I'm joined by Jonathan Larsen who actually compiles the news every fucking day at thefuckingnews.substack.com - and then does more original reporting at jonathanlarsen.substack.com too. And he hangs out with us on Mondays to talk about as much of it as we can.Today, some good news is tempered by a depressing thought. It's the new existential question of our surreal life... who can enforce the laws in a system of checks and balances when the "executive" won't recognize the other two branches authority and power?

Although it feels like a decade, we've reached the end of the third workweek of the D'ump 2.0 administration and it is the shit show we anticipated. But the Democrats in the House and Senate finally seem to get getting the hang of fighting back and protecting our democracy.Each Friday, I'm joined by one of the best independent journalists working to keep us informed, Marcy Wheeler. Emptywheel.net is her home base, and it should be on your daily reading list. As this week comes to an end, there's a lot to digest. Digestion is difficult when your stomach is in knots, but hopefully we can help get you through the nausea and into a more productive space. The alternative is unacceptable.

Well, now the senate Democrats are getting the hang of it. Instead of just granting unanimous consent to end debate, allowing the Republicans to to ram through D'ump's horrendous cabinet nominees, it seems that they're finally getting in the fight. The debate began yesterday morning at 10:30am ET. They went all night long and are still going strong. The rules allow up to 30 hours of debate, so the Dems are apparently going to use every one of those hours to slow down the process. The judiciary branch - you know, one of the three CO-EQUAL branches of government has also begun stepping up to stop the convicted felon in the White House from gutting the 14th amendment, blocked Trump's co-president Leon from further accessing government databases, pushing tonight's ridiculous buyout offer for federal employees to resign, setting a new hearing for Monday. And the filibuster is delaying the vote on Project 2025 architect Russell Vought's nomination to be the new Budget Director. And there's more... It's Thursday, so Howie Klein joins us from DownWithTyranny.com and the Blue America PAC to weigh in on what he's writing about at DWT too.

There's a lot going on today. We do have a guest in the second half hour of the show. Catherine Coleman Flowers is one of the leading environmental activists of our time. Her new book, HOLY GROUND: ON ACTIVISM, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, AND FINDING HOPE, is just released. And the timing couldn't be better because we can certainly use some hope right about now. I almost canceled today's show as I debated going to the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix to participate in today's 50501 "Build the Resistance" protests. I'll explain on the show why I opted not to go today.. But the more research I've done into it, the more grassroots it appears to be, and I'm so happy about that. We got calls from Joe who went to the CA state capitol in Sacramento, and Rebecca who went in Idaho, and both reported really great experiences. So I'm thrilled that I found a website that's now serving as a central hub for a very grassroots movement. It's at BuildTheResistance.org. With the horrific pronouncements and plans coming from the mouth of our would-be dictator, more than ever, despair is not an option. That's one of my constant mantras these days as I walk the tightrope between anxiety, depression and the future.

Well, technically, she's there, in Canada, and back on the show for today. GottaLaff (known to many as Laffy) is an old friend who used to do a weekly segment with me on this show for many years. She began working to move from Southern California to Canada when the orange menace was in office the first time, a process that took until this past year when she & Mr. Laffy were able to get residency and officially move. Between the move and the stress of doing this work, appearing weekly with me got to be too much for her, so she took a break from our regular get-togethers. But she's back today. You can still follow Laffy at GottaLaff.bsky.social and @GottalLaff@mstdn.social. And I'm nicolesandler.bsky.social and nicolesandler.substack.com.

The coup is in full swing and we're not going to take it. I just had to say that right off the bat. D'ump went golfing this weekend, but on days 12 & 13 of this unconstitutional regime, his minions were hard at work... especially Elon Musk, WHO NOBODY CAST A SINGLE VOTE FOR. He has seized parts of the US Treasury that pays our bills and installed some kids barely out of high school who have access to all Americans' most sensitive data. They told us what they were going to do in Project 2024, that the Convicted Felon insisted he knew nothing about, yet most of the 300 ridiculous Executive Orders he's already signed are directly lifted from that manifesto. And enough Americans fell for it or just stayed home on election day to give him the go-ahead to complete the coup he started during the first time they put him in power. Today is Monday, so I'll be joined by Jonathan Larsen of thefuckingnews.substack.com who's doing a great job covering Trump's ongoing attempt to destroy the United States of America and our constitution. It's all hands on deck time. Let's do something about it.

Every Friday, we check in with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net - one of the best journalists out there - to discuss what happened during the week. Given that this week we saw the senate confirmation hearings for the worst of D'ump's cabinet picks, it's no wonder that the shit show keeps getting even shittier. Not only did we have to hear from RFK Jr., Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, but this week brought another flurry of unconstitutional executive orders and pronouncements, firings of non-partisan career professionals, and an unprecedented mid-air collision between a Blackhawk Army helicopter and a passenger plane over Washington DC and an administration blaming it on DEI. I couldn't make this crap up if I tried. This administration doesn't even have to try. They just do it. And will keep doing it until we stop them.