The Nicole Sandler Show

A bit of what's news for now

President Biden is still suffering from falling approval ratings. The surprising thing it that his numbers are low on the economy too. Record GDP growth, record low unemployment and a still raging stock market, but plummeting ratings? I wonder what that's about (not really, I know exactly what -- or who-- is responsible. And today, Biden introduced his budget. Now the president's budget never goes anywhere and usually doesn't even merit much press coverage, but the media is all over Biden whenever an opportunity is presented. So today is a perfect day to talk with Harvey J. Kaye about a proposed Bill of Rights for the 21st Century. Yes, Bernie Sanders has been calling for such a thing. Harvey and Alan Minsky wrote up the idea... Harvey joins in at the bottom of the hour. But first, the slap and the gaffe heard around the world....

Thank goodness that's over. I'm talking about the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. It was, to use an ugly but fitting term, a modern day lynching. The Republicans on the committee went for blood. They mercilessly attacked the most qualified candidate for the court that's been nominated in decades. Today, I'll try to present some of the high and low points of the last four days. I'll be joined by my favorite legal expert. Lisa Graves' day job is executive director and Editor in Chief of True North Research. She spent years as an attorney at various levels throughout the government, including a stint as Chief Counsel for Nominations for Senator Patrick Leahy on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, making her a perfect authority to comment on the circus surrounding this week's hearings.

A bit of what's news for now

It's Thursday. Russia's war on Ukraine is entering its second month. The Supreme Court Senate confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson concludes today after Republicans on the committee abused the nominee who will likely be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Today, Howie introduces us to another Congressional candidate endorsed by Blue America: Matt West. He's running in the brand new 6th district of Oregon and is a real progressive, evidenced by his Blue America endorsement. But there's another interesting element. As Matt told Howie, "I'm also a blockchain/web3/cryptocurrency developer working to change the internet." So, I think we'll get a quick lesson in that part of tech I know virtually nothing about!

A bit of what's news for now

She's back! Well, she never went away. She's just been raising her daughter. Larisa Alexandrovna is one of the OG bloggers... She wrote at her own At-Largely blog, as well as Huffington Post and even served as managing editor of Raw Story back in the early 2000s. Ten years ago, she got married and moved to Austin TX. Well, she's writing again. Well, on her Facebook and Instagram pages. And she's not writing news about foreign affairs and national security, but she is writing about what's happening now in Ukraine. I invited Larisa on the show today because she was born in Ukraine -- Odessa, to be precise. Her family escaped from what was still part of the Soviet Union when she was 8 years old. She still has friends and family in both Ukraine and Russia, and she has a unique perspective on that part of the world and this war. So, Larisa joins me for the whole hour today. Listen, learn, feel something...

A bit of what's news for now

GottaLaff joins me every other Tuesday to talk about what's happening in our world, much of the news culled from Laffy's Twitter feed. Today however, is Day 2 in the Supreme Court Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. And yes, the Republicans on the committee have all made spectacles of themselves, despite the declarations yesterday that these hearings would NOT be a circus. I guess Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn and the rest of the party of insurrectionists just can't help themselves. Thankfully, Ketanji Brown Jackson is as brilliant and even-keeled as she is. And Putin's war against Ukraine continues raging, now in its fourth week. The madness must stop. So we've got lots to talk about today!

A bit of what's news for now