Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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    • wa_rickf says:

      A lot of people questioned Trump’s win after seeing VP Harris fill campaign venues, and Trump did not. Gut instincts and intuition are not good enough to go on, we need hard data analysis to call shenanigans. If proven, then what?

  4. BRUCE F COLE says:

    Regarding Social Security: I had a conversation at our mailbox yesterday with our friend across the street. She’s a retired nurse and is a bit of an entrepreneur, and we talked about family stuff, a double date we’ve been planning with our S.O.s, and at the end of it she asked me how I was doing generally, and I said, “Pretty good, except for the big picture.” She didn’t look at me quizzically, or ask me what I was talking about even though she’s not a particularly political animal like me; instead she said, “Well at least my Social Security check came on time a couple days ago, so there’s that! I was wondering if it wasn’t going to show up.”

    That little dynamic there, where a relatively apolitical person is tracking whether they’re gonna get their monthly SS payment, is exactly why Trump put the brakes on Musk’s threat to shut down SS following the DOGE injunction. IOW, Marcy’s comment at the end of the show about the need for us to talk about the functionality of SS is critical, but the groundwork seems to have been laid for those conversations by the clusterfuckery of DOGE that has the general SS-recipient class of US citizenry genuinely concerned already.

    And that, consequently, is part of why the PA Lancaster Co special election went they way it did, and why the FL ones are headed in that same direction (especially FL because of the concentration of retirees there).

    So yes, SS is a key pinch point where indies and even GOP leaners can be mobilized against the fascists. It’s personal, as well, not just for boomer retirees, but for their kids who’ve been paying into the system for decades and don’t want to see that promise of old age support evaporate for them as well.

    • coral reef says:

      On Social Security, this Wired article, has me worried. https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/

      Commentators often mention that people on Social Security are worried, but their relatives should be worried too. Because if older parents or grandparents don’t get their checks, or have their Medicare payments messed up (because those are often deducted from their Social Security checks), finances for extended families will also be impacted. This is a monumental catastrophe just lurking in the wings.

      • BRUCE F COLE says:

        Excellent point, thanks for the link.

        These are the types of arguments the DNC needs to be making, somehow making viral of it; such as visions of low to middle-income Gen Xers converting their garages and gamerooms into makeshift bedrooms for one or two sets of Boomer parents. That would scare the parents as much as their kids.

      • Joe Orton says:

        Exactly! This is what I always point out to whoever I’m talking to- that SS check is often the thing that gives the adult children freedom from having their parents living with them and having to take care of them through old age, infirmary and death. If it comes late and rent payment is late or doesn’t come at all and rent is unpaid or a choice has to be made between living expenses and rent means mom and/or dad needs to live with you for the rest of their lives. It’s sadly funny how scared people look when that realization takes shape in their brain.

      • posaune says:

        Yes, this clearly has multi-generational fall-out! As hard as life is for the “sandwich” generation, it’s about to get worse. It’s one thing to have to find medical care, home assistance, coordination of care and ADLs for one’s elderly parent, BUT, to have the financial benefits they have in place disappear is quite another thing altogether. It spells burn-out catastrophically fast. Completely debilitating for families, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren. It will affect everyone.

  5. Savage Librarian says:

    Blame It On…..

    ‘Twas like a Nixon plumber night
    when all the world first knew,
    His heart was chilled, he ducked limelight,
    Forbidding what was true.

    The unfit, tragic guff of Waltz
    we heard not long ago,
    We hear it, but perchance tonight,
    it rings: thereof not so.

    If comrades-in-arms, distressing,
    blame it on the Waltz,
    Don’t wait to hear lips confessing:
    “Blame it on the Waltz.”

    If deceiving eyes should haunt you,
    Through the scheming ruse assaults,
    If forever more they taunt you:
    “Blame it on the Waltz,”

    Perhaps another dumber night,
    maligned, will fall apart,
    But when the goons are not so bright,
    the bold are off the chart.

    We all should fear this scheming Waltz,
    Not him alone, it’s true,
    As wiles can bring bartenders’ thoughts,
    platoons, golf gloves, and GRU.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0y77HswtYY

    “Blame it on the Waltz – Alfred Solman & Gus Kahn 1926 | Player piano”

    https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7054&context=mmb-vp

    • RipNoLonger says:

      You are quite remarkable, Savage Librarian. You must have a huge card catalog tucked in there!

      • Savage Librarian says:

        …and one summer when I was a child, I lived in a mansion that had a player piano.

        Last week I was thinking how I seem to file things in my mind. And when I was at a store recently, as a salesman answered my question, I found myself counting the 3 responses on my fingers with my thumb. Then I noticed he was watching me do it. But I was too embarrassed to tell him that it helped me remember. I just hoped he wouldn’t think it was some kind of white power sign. OMG

        • BRUCE F COLE says:

          My best friend in 8th grade’s family had a player piano. It was a blast but we could only play it when the parents were gone. Cylinder analog system.

          They also had a pool out back with a the hackneyed sign, “We don’t swim in your toilet, please don’t pee in our pool.” I’ve thought about that lately for some reason.

      • Savage Librarian says:

        That was the summer I lived in Lakewood, Ohio, in a historical area called Clifton Park. Eliot Ness lived there for a time, as well (but not when I was there.) Once upon a time, Cleveland was the center of the industrial universe. So, there are parallels to the wealth disparities we see today.

        For the history buffs out there:

        https://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/historical/where-did-eliot-ness-live-in-cleveland/

        “The Cleveland homes of Eliot Ness, Published 03 May 2021”

        https://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2013/01/22/history-channel-series-the-men-who-built-america-has-lakewood

        ‘History Channel Series “The Men Who Built America” Has Lakewood Connections’ – The Lakewood Observer, by Thomas George, 1/22/13

        “Hanna, Winton, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford and others are fading from memory, but as the History Channel series suggests, their footprints mark today’s America. Their contemporaries Winton and Hanna hark back to a time when the Cleveland area was the center of the industrial universe and Lakewood was a familiar path for many of these same industrialists. The namesakes of Rockefeller Center, the Hanna Theater, Ford Motor and other American landmarks, each in varying degrees, passed through Lakewood.”

    • harpie says:

      SL, this one’s for you, and ALL the Librarians [You DO make a difference!]:

      https://bsky.app/profile/katestarbird.bsky.social/post/3llilpvkxck2k
      March 29, 2025 at 1:25 AM

      Perhaps newly relevant today… back in the 1930s, a West Point professor/librarian fought back against efforts to ban books on the New Deal.

      Same prof would later be forced to explain to McCarthy’s staff about why the library there had books on Marxism. [LINK][THREAD]

  6. Matt Foley says:

    To Fox News,
    Here is the quote for Jesse Watters to cherrypick.
    46:00 “Trump may be making it far worse. We have to find ways of making it far worse.”

    I suggest something like:
    “Unhinged America-hating Kamala worshipper with bad TDS admits she wants Trump to fail.”

  7. Matt Foley says:

    I can confirm that Scott Pressler is a MAGAsshole. I watched him disrupt a Bucks County PA Commissioners meeting with his election fraud lies.

  9. Matt Foley says:

    World’s richest person was on Fox nearly in tears about his failing companies.
    I used it as inspiration and came up with:
    DOGE
    Douchebag Oligarch Gets Emotional
    Destroying Once Great Economy

  10. P J Evans says:

    Among those who should not be in congress:

    Similarly, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Republican of Florida, said in an appearance on CNN that this was just an honest mistake made by rookie administration officials who didn’t know any better than to share classified information on a text chat including a reporter.
    “Remember, they’re just starting in the job. This game just started. Let’s see how they do the next two years, and then we can judge them. But not because of one mistake that they put a reporter—maybe they made a mistake and they put that … listen, those that do not have any sins, they can throw the first stone,” she said.

    Also quoted: Tommy T, who shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper.

    And this is WHY you don’t put inexperienced people in charge of stuff.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/30/2312689/-Republicans-can-t-stop-making-pathetic-excuses-for-war-chat-fiasco

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