Podcast
The Nicole Sandler Show
Hosted by Nicole Sandler · EN
Speaking Truth to Power from a progressive point of view with the irreverence it demands
105episodes
Episodes
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I'm Back to Praise Dr. Fauci & Driftglass Helps While the GOP Exposes Themsevles as the Morons They Are
1w ago01:08:41Tap to summarizeDr. Anthony Fauci took the Fifth Amendment today rather than let Senators Rand Paul ,Josh Hawley & others on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committees bait him into a "gotcha" moment during a hearing designed from the start to manufacture a scandal. Driftglass joins me to talk about why — tracing Fauci's decades of public service back to the earliest, most frightening days of the AIDS epidemic, and explaining how the modern right's scapegoating of him follows the exact same playbook used against Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton before her.Before we get into it, I catch you up on my long weekend in Tucson and Bisbee with my daughter — Mt. Lemmon views, a copper mine tour, and a serious temptation to just keep driving south into Mexico. Then it's on to the DNC's stunning debt under chair Ken Martin, a disastrous White House Correspondents' Dinner, and the deepening rift between the Democratic Party and Jewish voters. Plus a preview of tomorrow's guest, Erin Riley, on her new book about the history of legendary Philadelphia rock radio station WMMR.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Emptywheel Friday-- Marcy Wheeler is Back!
2w ago01:27:55Tap to summarizeMarcy's back! After a two-week break -missing one Emptywheel Friday - Marcy Wheeler and I dig into everything that happened while she was gone — and it's a lot. We spend most of this episode on press freedom, because two major stories are unfolding right now and only one of them is getting coverage: the New York Times subpoena mess tied to the "flying bribery palace" leak, and the far less-covered case of Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort, where the evidence suggests DOJ fabricated new claims against her after failing to get an arrest warrant the first time. And of course, a lot more including the ongoing Epstein fallout, Trump's Saudi Arabia nuclear deal chaos, the resumed war with Iran, Pete Hegseth's rough hearing, and Arizona primary results. Plus: sheep, apparently there are too many of them in Ireland.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Nona Lee Broke Every Barrier in Sports Law — Now She's Fighting for Truth & DEI
2w ago01:04:14Tap to summarizeNo news, no parody today — just a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time. Nona Lee spent over two decades as a trailblazer in professional sports law, becoming the first woman, first woman of color, and first openly gay woman to hold a string of executive positions with the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and Arizona Diamondbacks. She built the Diamondbacks' legal department from the ground up and was part of the first all-woman team to win an MLB salary arbitration hearing.Then, in the middle of all that success, she walked away to found what's now called Truth is. Consulting. DEI work that, in this administration, has become something people are almost afraid to admit they need. We talk about her book, "The Truth About Us," the difference between the truth we show the world and the truth we carry inside, and why she believes we can feel helpless without ever letting ourselves become hopeless.Find Nona's work at truthisconsulting.com and her book, "The Truth About Us: A Call to Confront Bias, Embrace Empathy, and Build a More Inclusive World," wherever books are sold.As always — this show is 100% listener-supported. No paywall ever. If you can, please consider supporting the work at nicolesandler.com/donate-2Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Surviving Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Earthquakes and Podcasting with Driftglass
2w ago01:08:06Tap to summarizeOne of the progressive blogosphere's originals, Driftglass always has terrific wisdom to share, whether on a Wednesday or not. Today, we dug into Arizona's primary results — my district's new Republican nominee Mark Lamb is a "God, guns, and getting some" (as best I could recall) former sheriff with a few swinger, sexting and plain old sex scandals ongoing, who appears to live on his Tennessee ranch, which does not seem to be in Arizona. Meanwhile, while my pick, Nurse Elizabeth Lee, won with 65% of the Democratic vote yet got zero mention on the tiny bit of local news I happened to see last night. Driftglass and I also talked a bit about Illinois politics, and I finally told my true-life hurricane and earthquake survival stories. Plus a preview of tomorrow's guest, Nona Lee, author of "The Truth About Us."Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Primary Day in Arizona and a Look Backward and Ahead in Michigan Too
2w ago01:22:08Tap to summarizeIt's primary day in Arizona, and the characters -er- candidates on the ballot could fill a Carl Hiaasen novel. I dig into the AZ-04 primary between Rep. Greg Stanton and progressive challenger Kai Newkirk, why the local DSA guide warned about risking a "fascist ghoul" taking the seat, and why I've been urging a vote for Stanton despite my meh opinions about him. Then there's Mark Lamb, the AZ-05 Republican frontrunner facing a serious sex scandal & more that Turning Point USA allies tried to silence at a recent district meeting. There's the Biggs vs. Schweikert race to challenge Gov. Hobbs. A quick item about missing Howie Klein right now and his upcoming memoir, and a mini review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. To wrap the show, I pull from the archive: my full 2019 conversation with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, now running in the Democratic primary for Michigan's open Senate seat, on Medicare for All, the Mueller report, and running for office as a proud Muslim candidate.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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A Show That Was Planned as One Thing but Turned Out to Be Something Else Entirely
3w ago01:34:13Tap to summarizeToday was Day Two of the Senate confirmation hearings for Todd Blanche in his quest to be our next Attorney General. I could have told you it wasn't going to go well, and probably did. But once again, I'm truly sleep deprived and that set the tone for the day today, which began by watching the early morning hearings --but then I had to leave to get an ultrasound. And, of course, Medicare and the imaging center set the tone for the rest of the day, in a not-good-way.I finally got home and started the show, which quickly veered off to a topic very different from the hearing... We talked about the Massie amendment to the NDAA that the House was voting on yesterday, when half of the Dems found their spines, something they should've done a decade or two ago.I did take some great listener/viewer phone calls and, by the end of the show, decided to make it long weekend. Marcy Wheeler is out tomorrow, and now so am I,I hope you'll come back Monday by which time I plan to have recharged myself and forge ahead into the awful unknown.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Nicole Sandler Watched the Senate Confirmation Hearings So You Didn't Have To
3w ago01:15:43Tap to summarizeToday was a Senate confirmation hearing double-header — Todd Blanche in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee for his Attorney General confirmation, and Jay Clayton in front of Senate Intelligence for Director of National Intelligence. I had five monitors going and I still barely kept up. Blanche early on said the quiet part out loud by literally calling himself Trump's lawyer, got lost in a circle of double negatives while talk about the Epstein survivors (and insisted on calling them victims), and got pressed hard on a $50,000 payment to Tom Homan nobody will explain. Clayton, meanwhile, spent his hearing refusing — repeatedly — to answer who won the 2020 election, while Senator Ossoff, skillfully and patiently. would not let it go. And I invoked my old friend Howie Klein, who fought valiantly on this show for more progressives in Congress - a stance I was right there with him for, as I hoped he'd understand my stance in being opposed to Kai Newkirk challenging Greg Stanton's safe Blue seat in the district next door to mine. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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FOIA 'TERRORIST' TURNS MOVIE PRODUCER- JASON LEOPOLD GUESTS
3w ago01:15:07Tap to summarizeJason Leopold — executive producer of the new Paramount+ docuseries "The Real Wolf of Wall Street," premiering today — joins me to talk about the FOIA documents he spent over a decade sitting on before they became the backbone of this project. We get into what the Scorsese film got right, what it dramatized, and what really happened, including Jordan Belfort's activity at a Trump casino while out on bail.After Jason moved on to other interviews, I cover Trump's reaction to Lindsey Graham's death, the ongoing fight over election administration in Maricopa County, the truth about who actually damaged the National Mall's reflecting pool, and what to expect from Trump's planned Thursday address on the 2020 election.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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AZ Voting Woes & TV Watching Blues Too - 7-13-26
4w ago01:13:48Tap to summarizeToday I'm digging into a story that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: the ugly power struggle inside Maricopa County's elections office, where an election-denying recorder is trying to seize control from the Board of Supervisors — with Stephen Miller's law firm involved and a ballot scanner mysteriously "borrowed" in a pickup truck. Then my old friend Sue Wilson from the Media Action Center joins me to talk about the Trump FCC's assault on ABC's broadcast licenses and why our public airwaves are worth fighting for. Plus, my honest take on why this is not the moment to primary safe Democratic incumbents.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Wrapping Up the Week with Marcy Wheeler on Emptywheel Fridays
4w ago01:04:43Tap to summarizeMarcy Wheeler joins me for Emptywheel Friday from an undisclosed location in Ireland and, as usual, we cover a lot of ground: ICE killings in Houston, the collapsed Iran ceasefire and Trump's humiliating plane-swap on the way to NATO, the reflecting pool/canoeist indictment, Musk's antitrust settlement, the Graham Platner fallout and what it says (and doesn't say) about the GOP's rapists, the Maine and Michigan Senate races, my own frustration with the AZ-4 primary challenge to Greg Stanton, Mitch McConnell's mysterious absence, Trump's rollout of new ways to cheat elections, and Marcy's ongoing obsession: Harmeet Dhillon's apparent frame job of journalist Georgia Fort and Don Lemon. We have more on the Epstein files, Todd Blanche's confirmation fight, Pete Hegseth's failures at DOD, and the NATO summit where Trump tried (and failed) to look like he wasn't a laughingstock. I think that's enough for one day... week... decade!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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