The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: It's Emptywheel Friday with Marcy Wheeler on the Nicole Sandler Show

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   September 19, 2026·1h 17min
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   Number 2: Emptywheel Fridays with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net on the Nicole Sandler Show

   It's Empty Wheel Friday, and Marcy Wheeler is here to make sense of an absolutely chaotic week. We start with Trump's underwhelming state visit with Xi Jinping — the press bans, the Thucydides trap reference, and the trade detente that buys us two more months before the real reckoning. From there it's straight into the numbers that should terrify Republicans: diesel prices spiking, bond markets flashing warning signs, and a Senate map that now includes Kansas and maybe even Mississippi. Marcy walks through race after race — Roger Marshall's brutal OB-GYN lawsuit story, Susan Collins' bribery scandal, Mary Peltola's iguana, Sherrod Brown and the crypto money that showed up too late to do much damage. Then we go deep on the legal front: a DOJ prosecutor in the Broadview 6 case just resigned and filed a bombshell response that puts the US Attorney at the center of the misconduct he tried to pin on her. And Marcy breaks down what she's calling Judge Aileen Cannon's "two-hat problem" — running a grand jury designed for vengeance while also enforcing her own gag order, in a case built on a legal theory so thin the 11th Circuit already rejected it back in 2022. Forty days to the end of this election. It's going to get crazier before it gets better. Read Marcy's work and support it at emptywheel.net. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   September 25, 2026·1h 31min
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   Number 3: 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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   Number 4: Schmitting the Bed with Driftglass plus Eric Schmitt, the Hawkeyes, and the Dumbest Gotcha Ever Attempted

   It's another Wednesday with Driftglass, and what a Wednesday it was. Mangy Fetlocks kicks things off with a song about Senator Eric Schmitt, who tried to spring a gotcha on Jack Smith over a basketball game and instead sprang one on himself. Before the good stuff, it's the Mal-Lady segment: my latest medical news (carpal tunnel, an ulcer, and thankfully some very welcome benign biopsy results). Driftglass and I break down the whole fiasco: the staffer behind him who clearly saw it coming, the TMZ follow-up, and Amy Klobuchar calmly pointing out that Smith had it right (it was the Iowa Hawkeyes, not the Atlanta Hawks). We also talk about why a blunder like this won't get the coverage it would if it had been a Democrat. From there we roam: gas prices and the war that's making them worse, the new fuel economy standards (34.9 mpg by model year 2031, down from 50.4 under the Biden-era rules), and the midterms. What happens the day after Democrats win? We say we fix what's broken, restore the rule of law, and own the apology to the rest of the world. We also get into Arizona's races (including those fake "Democrats for Biggs" signs and the allegations swirling around Mark Lamb, who's running in the 5th District:), Elizabeth Lee, the Democratic nurse running against Lamb, a Kansas pastor's case against Christian nationalism, how the evangelical movement got to where it is, what billionaires and hedge funds have done to newspapers, and a bit of good news about a local paper that found a way to survive. We close on the difference between breaking news and making sense of it, why our healthcare system doesn't look at the whole patient, and why independent, paywall-free media depends on listeners who can chip in. Find Driftglass at driftglass.blogspot.com and the Professional Left Podcast at ProLeftPod.com. The Nicole Sandler Show is independent and listener-supported, based at nicolesandler.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   October 01, 2026·1h 2min
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   Number 5: Mr. Smith Told Off Washington

   Jack Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the theater was almost as remarkable as the testimony. In his opening statement, Smith said the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump committed serious crimes, and that he'd bring the same case against a president of either party. Then came the questioning. Senator Eric Schmitt accused Smith of attending an Atlanta Hawks game and perjuring himself. Turns out Smith had gone to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play Maryland, and Senator Klobuchar had to point out the mix-up. Ted Cruz delivered a long speech about Javert, John Kennedy did his country-lawyer bit, and at one point Chairman Grassley left without putting anyone in charge. I also share what happened when I went to the Heritage Foundation's website to link its voter fraud research and couldn't find it, why the Brennan Center's analysis of Heritage's own database is worth your time (ten in-person impersonation cases in billions of votes), my test of the new America.gov AI assistant, and a hopeful closing clip from James Talarico. Alex Lawson returns Monday, and Driftglass joins me tomorrow. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

   September 30, 2026·1h
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