The Nicole Sandler Show Nicole Sandler

We've had non-stop guests and lots of news recently, so I thought we'd take the day to catch up and talk. Phone lines are open for you to weigh in on anything we've been talking about... from the Extreme Supreme Court, Trump Trials, College protests, Israel-Hamas, or anything else on your mind.


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If you've listened to my show, you know that I often refer to myself as an "atheist Jew". My Judaism comes by way of heritage, family, generational stories and history. I have real disdain for organized religion of every stripe, and have often commented about how virtually every war ever fought had its basis somewhere in religion.

I've been struggling since the news broke of the Oct 7 attack by Hamas terrorists with the images that play on a loop in my mind. Making it worse is the reception I've gotten from some listeners, former friends and former political allies, and complete strangers who think that, because I believe that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, that I am a "Zionist who loves genocide."

I do my best to explain my feelings, but these people who resort to calling me names and worse don't want to listen, they want to tell me how I feel. They have no clue.

I hope they're listening today.

I happened upon a thread on Threads.net from a man named Mo Husseini that captured my attention through all 55 parts. I immediately identified with him when he described himself:

"I am a proud Palestinian-American. I care deeply about Palestinian rights to freedom, security, and self-determination.

But I am also profoundly aware that true long-term freedom, security, and self-determination for Palestinians cannot exist without creating a reciprocal reality for Israelis.

There is no path to freedom that begins with oppression of the other.

That is not freedom.

That is a Pyrrhic victory that will turn to ashes in your mouth.

We are, both peoples, stuck on the world’s worst fucking amusement park ride, an eternally s****y and utterly predictable carousel of suffering."

It goes on and I hope you'll read the whole thing. It's posted on Medium in article form here:

Mo joins me in conversation on today's show. I hope you'll join us.

***Post show note from Nicole: I truly appreciate Mo joining me today. We didn't agree on everything, but we did find common ground where it was most important. That is the need for both sides to stop the shit and start talking. That's an oversimplification, but so it goes.

In the meantime, there are two films you should watch: Oslo and Screams Before Silence. 






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Ahh we joke, but that's how the news gets digested better. Every Monday, I'm joined by Jonathan Larsen who writes at TheFuckingNews.substack.com. Mondays are difficult enough, so I figure it's best to ease back into the new week with a bit of humor injected into the normal awfulness of it all.
Today we'll have some actual funny observations about the news, something that was mostly missing from Saturday night's Nerd Prom (aka WH Correspondents Dinner).

Then there's the lovely revelations about SD Gov Kristi Noem as a dog murderer, college campuses racked by protests, Bill Barr says the quiet hyprocritical parts out loud (nothing really new there) and not only will he vote for TFG if convicted, he admitted that TFG often spoke of having Americans killed. Nothing much to see here... move right along...




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Each Friday, Marcy Wheeler takes a break from writing at emptywheel.net to join me for a conversation about what happened that week. This week was insane, and ended at the Supreme Extreme Court. That hearing consumed much of today's show, with a few minutes at the end dealing with Trump's current criminal trial, underway in Manhattan.




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It's a Thursday, so we have a date with Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny & the Blue America PAC. It's not like there's a shortage of things to discuss... in fact, too much news for a one-hour show.
There was the SCOTUS hearing this morning on Trump's ridiculous concept of absolute immunity (but there are some ridiculous people sitting on that extreme bench these days), the were 3 members of the AZ Republican House voting with all the Dems to kill the 1864 abortion ban (now goes to the senate and then the governor?). The FCC restored Net Neutrality rules killed by TFG's administration, and the FTC said no more airline junk fees. Of course TFG is still nodding off in a Manhattan courtroom where his first of four criminal cases against him is being heard.

But Howie asked me an important question this week that I never answered, and the "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame" class of 2024 was announced, and I think they need to change its name to the Popular Music Hall of Fame.




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I'm always honored when Lisa Graves joins me to lend her legal expertise to the discussion about the trials and tribulations of TFG and, of course, the machinations of the once Supreme, now Extreme, Court.

Lisa has the bona fides... she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Policy Development/Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorneys General Janet Reno and John Ashcroft, Chief Counsel for Nominations for Senator Patrick Leahy on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Deputy Chief of the Article III Judges Division of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts with oversight of the Financial Disclosure Office and more, and as an adjunct law professor at George Washington University Law School. She also worked as the Senior Legislative Strategist for the ACLU on national security and civil liberties, and held other posts.

Although Lisa generously shares her knowledge with us on this show, she does so in her capacity as a private citizen. These days, her day job is as the founder and Executive Director of True North Research, a national investigative watchdog group that works with journalists and other researchers to shine a bright light on the dark money fueling regressive agendas targeting vital institutions in our republic, such as our courts and public schools.

Graves is one of the nation’s foremost experts in exposing how special interests distort public policy and try to thwart the public’s interest in a thriving and inclusive democracy and to impede measures to protect our environment and mitigate climate change.

I don't run through her CV and experience as often as I should when she's on the show, so I wanted to put it down in writing... Today, Lisa joins me to talk about the beginning of the first-ever criminal trial of a former president, about that former guy's inability to follow the most basic rules of decorum inside a court of law (or anywhere else for that matter), David Pecker's testimony that proves Trump talks about himself when he decries "FAKE NEWS" and more.

On the SCOTUS front, tomorrow - the final day they'll hear arguments this term - they'll hear Trump's farce of a claim that he enjoys "absolute immunity" as a former president... of course today, the antediluvian men on the court showed that they believe they should control every aspect of a woman's life, including her health care.






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