The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Emptywheel Friday: No Gremlins, All Chaos: Marcy Wheeler on Trump's Collapsing Empire

   It's Friday, so it's Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net — and for the first Friday in a few weeks, no technical gremlins. We dig into Trump's plan to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," his failing tariff strategy against Canada, Mexico, and Iran, and whether he can even walk down a staircase reliably anymore. Marcy breaks down the strange Ratcliffe trip to Putin, why Russia has good reason to think the U.S. is weak, and the human cost of Pete Hegseth's Pentagon: a 19-year-old sailor punished for jumping ship after 8.5 months at sea without touching land. We also get into the manufactured Hakeem Jeffries/Jared Kushner "controversy," Ashley Moody's corruption problems in Florida, the collapsing Minnesota "Antifa" prosecutions, and our thoughts as we bid farewell to Dolly Parton. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   August 28, 2026·1h 23min
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   Number 2: Another Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler

   Marcy Wheeler joins me for our weekly deep dive, and this Friday's episode is a doozy. We unpack the Natalie Harp saga — how one line from Jon Ossoff exposed just how much unsupervised access this woman has to a president with an increasingly shaky grip on reality, and why that should scare all of us. We also cover the Iran war's mounting toll on our military, a food safety system falling apart in real time, newly revealed DHS spying on churches and activists in Minnesota, the latest in Davy Hearn's reflecting pool case, a shake-up in Arizona's governor's race, a chaotic Florida primary, and the twisted Eric Swalwell story that somehow involves a suspected Chinese spy. We end on a song parody that's funnier — and darker — than it has any right to be. As for the last two weeks, I can see the sunlight ahead.. I don't care what it takes this weekend. I'll have my studio and everything on this end working by Monday. I promise. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   August 22, 2026·1h 20min
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   Number 3: Emptywheel Fridays with Marcy Wheeler!

   Happy Emptywheel Friday! This was the week from hell. Not only in the news, courtesy of the Orange-man regime - which Marcy Wheeler & I discuss on today's show- but in my life and studio. On Monday, the software that I use to stream video lost its robotic mind and went kaput. I spent the rest of the week, after installing a new program, trying to learn it, with a little help from the Google machine's AI. I know, I know. But the AI was truly helpful in this case. However, this software is overly complicated and, although I made good progress, I didn't want today's show to get messed up. Ha! So with what I learned from the new OBS software, I was able to fix the Wirecast enough to get it up & running again... except for the multitude of problems that cropped up as I tried to get on the air today... and throughout the livestream. ARGHH! This podcast is a clean version of today's show so you won't be interrupted by the mic suddenly cutting out or any of what felt like dozens on issues plaguing the show. BTW, when I say clean I don't mean language-wise. Both of our potty-mouths were working quite well, thankyouverymuch. I do apologize for being off for most of this week. I actually did shows, which were mostly comprised of me asking the live show listeners, "can you hear me now?" and equally titillating questions which wouldn't make for good podcasts.I will be working on my studio all weekend with the goal of being up and running as it should by Monday. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   August 14, 2026·1h 28min
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   Number 4: A New Beginning And An Extra Decade For Me - For This?

   I started the show recounting my ongoing beef with T-Mobile - a diversion from what I'm really mad about. Yesterday marked my 10th anniversary of being cancer-free, but I realized that this gift of 10 extra years was made up of a demented madman hell-bent on destroying everything good about this country. That's what this past decade has been, and I'm realized that it's affecting me in pretty awful way, when I should be celebrating. Dr. Art Jipson returns for the back-to-school check-in, bringing surprising optimism from his students, before we dug into military mismanagement, press intimidation, food safety rollbacks, and whether people can actually be pulled back from extremism. Plus, a replay of my Thursday phone call to a random Canadian named Jeffrey Sandler, in the name of international diplomacy. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   September 01, 2026·1h 22min
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   Number 5: BradBlog's Brad Friedman's Vacation Interruptus (er them...)

   I crashed Brad Friedman's vacation. Again. I've done it before, but only because it's difficult to get him on my show when he's knee deep in recording his own show each day. So I take him when I can get him. Brad — from BradBlog and the Bradcast, one of the people I actually call a friend after twenty-plus years in this business — was supposed to be off the grid this week. Instead he's on my show telling me his theory that November is going to be a bigger wave for Democrats than anyone's predicting, and I'm telling him why I don't quite believe him yet. Along the way: the ten-year anniversary of my cancer surgery coming 10 years after the orange mess entered politics (he did not steal credit for saving my life, no matter what Brad heard secondhand), a possible tropical storm bearing down on Los Angeles, a scorpion in my house, the FCC coming for broadcasters who tell the truth, and the actual story of how Brad and I met back when I was hosting mornings in Miami and he was just some guy with a blog who actually knew what he was talking about. We also get into the weird coincidence of Air America radio going dark the exact same day the Supreme Court handed down Citizens United — and why I will personally hunt down the woman who got my old KPFK show canceled. (No, I won't. I can't even remember her name. But karma will get her...) Honest, unscripted, occasionally profane, always independent. That's the show. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   September 01, 2026·1h 17min
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