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

Everything that could go wrong technically did today — but I somehow pushed through anyway. We had no video working, but I got the audio, so regular podcast listeners won't hear anything different in a big way. Thanks for bearing with me. I hope to get everything working by tomorrow, though I can't make any promises! Bruce W. Nelson (Mangy Fetlocks) brings two new songs, on Todd Blanche's AG confirmation and the Katie Miller/Eric Swalwell gossip. Dr. Art Jipson joins for a conversation ranging from a maddening doctor's office no-show policy to Blanche's confirmation and swearing-in, Tillis and Cornyn caving on their votes, Max Miller's strange non-denial of domestic abuse allegations, and Art's new piece at The Conversation on how the Fauci COVID-origins hearing turned conspiracy theories into political weapons. Plus: a flashback comedy bit on Dr. Debbie Birx, and a candid conversation about what AI is actually useful for in content production — and what it gets wrong. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's another Emptywheel Friday and Marcy Wheeler joins Nicole Sandler to recap the week's legal and political wreckage. Topics include the Michigan Senate primary and what it signals for 2028, Todd Blanche's now-assured Attorney General confirmation and the Republicans who voted to enable it, a federal court ruling that Trump's White House renovation is illegal, DOJ's use of customs summonses to spy on journalists, cracks forming in MAGA media over the Iran war, and the collapse of the criminal case against former Olympian Davy Hearn - the good guy in that mess - over the White House reflecting pool. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The One Big Ugly Bill was designed so its cruelest provisions wouldn't hit until after the midterms — but Nebraska didn't get the memo, or rather, Governor Pillen decided not to wait. Spocko brings on Angie Lauritsen of Nebraska for Us to explain what happens when a state jumps the gun on Medicaid work requirements: confused patients, rural hospitals converting to emergency-only care, and a governor who's visited the White House more than any Nebraska governor in memory, up for reelection this year. Before we get to that, August 6 has been a big day in history. In 1945 - 81 years ago, the US dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. It flew from the plane called The Enola Gay. Two years ago, the D'ump regime flagged for deletion documents about The Enola Gay during a DEI scrubbing crusade because it included the word "gay" I wish I were kidding. Today also marks 61 years since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, and some people on Xitter had a lot of fun at the expense of D'ump's ridiculous looking wig. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Last night was a big election night, and I'm still sorting out how I feel about some of it. Michigan, Kansas, and a few other states weighed in yesterday, and my old friend John Fugelsang — now doing his newly-rebranded John Fugelsang Show weekdays at noon Eastern on SiriusXM Progress 127 — joined me to help make sense of it all, because that's what he does best: he finds the laughs in situations that are objectively not funny, and to see things from another perspective. We get into the endless Iran war nobody's talking about enough, the Pentagon somehow needing more money after declaring "mission accomplished," the Michigan Senate primary between Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens, my very personal stake in Arizona's races (Katie Hobbs, Elizabeth Lee, and yes, that the heinous Andy Biggs is now running for governor!), and what John thinks about purity tests. Also: my new phone arrived! So I'll have a phone that works again, once I get it set up. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Allison Gill of Mueller She Wrote joined me today with two huge stories she broke this week — and it's only Tuesday! First, the FOIA request she filed after ICE raided children's dormitories at the Dilley detention facility in Texas, confiscating letters, crayons, and drawings from kids after ProPublica published some of what they'd written. Six months later, DHS finally responded — and only nine of the ninety-one records they found. We went through them together, including a letter from a nine-year-old girl asking a federal judge not to deport her family.(Tissues needed here!) Then Allison walked me through how Donald Trump suing Capital One backfired spectacularly — the bank's court filings revealed money laundering across Trump's steak, wine, water, golf, and payroll businesses, and the same lawyer representing him is the one referred to the bar for the fraudulent IRS settlement. We also touched on Senator Wyden's new report on JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America failing to report Jeffrey Epstein's suspicious transactions for nearly twenty years, and Todd Blanche getting voted out of committee toward a full Senate confirmation vote for Attorney General. After Allison's segment, Spocko called in to talk accountability for Elon Musk and DOGE's damage, and Nebraska's new Medicaid work requirements — plus I take a personal detour into what I was going through ten years ago this week, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer and grateful, every single day, for the insurance I could only get because of the Affordable Care Act. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

If you didn't know that the Trump Crime Organization would pull off this scam too you've had your head in the sand. I'm running late this morning trying to pull all the pieces together as I do it all alone... But we'll go through the bullshit that will become official tomorrow as the Dumpster Fire and his evil spawn will be granted immunity from all of their tax fraud over the past 50 or so years... and yes, he'll wind up getting his slush fund to pay off his army of insurrectionists too -- using our tax dollars to do it. I'd say un-fucking-believable, but it's completely believable. I just sucks. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's Friday, which means it's time to dig deeper with Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net. This week we're covering a lot of ground: Iran outmaneuvering a US military running low on munitions, the stalled confirmation of Todd Blanche for Attorney General, wild new details in Jim Comey's legal filings, domestic violence allegations against Rep. Max Miller and the Republicans defending him, Elon Musk's continuing election crimes, and the slow-motion unraveling of Trump's DOJ. Grab some coffee, or perhaps something a bit stronger (if that's your choice!) it's a full one today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today's news kicked off today's show: Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination gets pulled after he refuses to put in writing that Trump's IRS "slush fund" scheme is dead — and two Republican senators aren't buying it. Then, the never-ending question of whether Mitch McConnell is alive, dead, or somewhere in between, plus Trump's new AI "pre-crime" policing plan straight out of Minority Report, and Kash Patel's defamation lawsuit over being called "googly-eyed" gets thrown out of court. (Well, they ARE googly eyes and creepy too!) In the second half, I talk with Erin Riley about her new book, The Mighty WMMR: An Oral History of Philadelphia's Rock Radio Revolution — stories from the golden age of terrestrial radio, breaking Springsteen and Billy Joel, and life behind the scenes at one of the country's most legendary rock stations. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dr. 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/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy