It's the day after Labor Day. Fall has unofficially begun. However, Autumn doesn't officially begin for another 20 days. And unfortunately, this is only 2025. At least if it was Sept. 2, 2026, we'd be gearing up for the midterms. But now is all-hands-on-deck time and we cannot wait to gear up for anything. We must anticipate everything that's coming at us and get prepared now.

To that end, over the weekend a campaign announcement caught my eye because someone jumped in to the congressional race for my district (AZ5) for the seat now held by the atrocious Andy Biggs!

So to help Elizabeth Lee - and all of us - jumpstart the 2026 midterm campaign, Nurse (Elizabeth) Lee will join us for a few minutes. Maybe she'll motivate you to run?

Peace out...

Happy Labor Day!

On holidays, I prefer to let the music do the talking. And today’s show celebrates Labor Day.

Sadly. organized labor has taken the slings and arrows from the right for gar too long. But it is through the efforts of unions that we have what few workers’ rights we still enjoy.

Today, I support unions through song… Enjoy!

No video today as YouTube copyright violates me any and every time I play a song. So I’ll see you tomorrow.

It's another Emptywheel Friday when Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel.net and I get together to bring you up to speed on a lot of the important news that we need to know from this week. As usual, there's more than we could fit into an hour (and then some!).

It's been a while since I've spoken with Timothy Karr, Senior Director of Strategy & Communications at FreePress.net. We've spoken many times going back at least a decade about the challenges we've faced regarding the media, from broadcast to the internet. Looking back, they were all important issues, but I think they pale in comparison to the terror that the D'ump regime is wreaking on our media - from fake news (that emanates FROM HIM and his acolytes) to gutting all aspects of the formerly public airwaves.

Tim has authored a new report called "A More Perfect Media: Saving America's Fourth Estate from Billionaires, Broligarchy and Trump". That report accompanies Free Press' online Media Capitulation Index, a performance rating of the nation's 35 largest media conglomerates.

I often rail against the evils of Dump, the MAGAts and Republican politics in general on this show. And I also criticize Democratic strategies, policies and actions or inactions as I feel necessary. Today is necessarily one of those days.

It's regarding the constant barrage of fundraising emails and texts and the fact that, in many cases, they’re scammy spam. Sadly, I'm not hearing much about some information that's recently come to light. We'll try to shine a brighter light on that on today's show with writer/organizer Micah Sifry, writer and organizer of TheConnector.substack.com. He's been writing about Mothership Strategies and their aligned PACs who are doing us wrong.

When Digby first began blogging in 2002, the very early days of the blogosphere, most readers had no idea she was a woman! When she went public a few years later after being presented with the Paul Wellstone Award, (according to a 2008 LA Times article), many were shocked. They shouldn't have been. I say that as a woman who knows, to quote Harry Belafonte (who I know didn’t write it), ‘Man Smart, Woman Smarter"‘!

We now know her as much as Heather Parton as we do as Digby. Heather is still writing at her Hullabaloo blog and also writes a regular column for Salon.com. Both are on my must-read list.

The days when Heather joins me on the air are some of my favorites. So I'm looking forward to today. As difficult as it is to talk about the absurdity and horror that is the current administration, it's great to be able to discuss anything that's going on with a friend who's as knowledgeable, smart, incredulous, and pissed off as we are.

It's another Monday, so on today's show, Jonathan Larsen brings us the latest of The Fucking News, which he diligently writes just about every day at TheFuckingNews.substack.com and discusses here on my show.

What a day this has already been, and I'm not even talking about the news! I'll explain, but the short version is I got sick today. But I soldiered through and was able to talk with the one and only Driftglass today about all the shit we're going through.

While we, mere mortals, try to discern fact from fiction when trying to get a handle on what is truly happening in the world, investigative reporter Jason Leopold has mastered the ins and outs of the of the few tools available to US citizens to dig through the drek to get at the truth. FOIA Man, as I call him, returns to the show today. Then I checked in with a town in Arkansas that's in the news today for a disturbing reason...

It's my never-ending question during the Dump Days of America... Delulu Don keeps signing Executive Orders that are expressly unconstitutional, but he doesn't care. In many cases he's breaking the law, but is he if there's no one to enforce the laws he's breaking?

Chris also just returned from a vacation. He was in the UK and wrote about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and seeing Rosie O'Donnell perform there. I have so many questions for him about Europeans' thoughts about the US in the Dump era and how it feels to unplug from this shit for two weeks!