Lovett or Leave It - Hotel Recallifornia

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/lovettorleaveit. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, out of the clos today, did the last year change me? Maybe I'm in the streets finally Yeah, I got my vaccine from Tony Fauci How is that dude 80 years old? So if you wanna be dancing out here with somebody Then you gotta go get yourself a Fauci OG Roll em up, come on out Don't be scared of a little pain now

Get in line, you know how. I got shots waiting for you now. Isn't John the guy who tried to put a smile on your face? Even kept us saying through breakthroughs And billionaires in outer space When there's no more Delta, we won't have to shelter Yeah, we'll see you at the live show So if you wanna be laughing out here with your buddies

Then you gotta go get yourself a Fauci-ouchie Roll em up, come on out Don't be scared of M-R-N-A now Get in line. You know how. I got shots waiting for you now. That incredible song, a Dua Lipa parody, was by Maraid. Why is that funny? Oh, you're slacking. You're having another conversation.

Okay, cool. Terrific. Terrific. We record once a week for maybe an hour and a half. Could you focus on this? Take some notes? Think of some new ideas? I don't know.

I'm not sure what you do. If you have an out-of-the-closets, into-the-streets song, you're running out of time. Get those last few out-of-the-closets, into-the-streets songs in because we've got some big news coming. All right. Just be aware. Email the song to leave it at Crooked.com before it stays in the closet forever. California, we are in the final few days before the September 14th recall election when the polls will be closed and we will find out

whether or not we successfully blocked a Republican takeover of California. Please make sure that you vote no on question one. Should Governor Newsom be recalled? If you are a registered voter, you should have received your ballot in the mail. You can mail it back or drop it off at a drop box before 8 p.m. on Election Day, September 14th. Make your plan to do it ASAP. Tell your friends. We could lose California and lose our Senate seat because a bunch of people just forgot to do what they would, of course, want to do, which is get the ballot in and stop us from having a right wing governor. So get yours in. Make sure everybody in your life, anyone you can think of in California, just text them.

Make sure you get your ballot in. Did you get your ballot in? My friend Eric, he saw a couple of days ago that ballot was signed, sealed, and sitting on my counter. And he texted me saying, make sure you mail your ballot today. And I responded to Eric, I do this for a fucking living, my friend. It's in the mail. So don't come at me, Eric, with this shit. You can also vote in person early or on election day and register the same day you want to vote in certain locations. Just visit votesaveamerica.com slash California to learn more.

Fun legal disclosure, what we said was not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate. And to prove that this wasn't authorized by a candidate, I just want to say that Gavin Newsom going to French Laundry was the dumbest fucking shit in human history. God damn it. On this week's show, Julia Kay of the ACLU is here to explain that everything's bigger in Texas except the amount of autonomy individuals have over their bodies. We're in the homestretch to get those ballots in to stop the recall in California. But first, she is a writer on That Damn Michael Che, the host of the Find Your Beach podcast, and she has a new hour stand-up special, Whiskey Fists, which is out now on Comedy Central Digital and their YouTube. Please welcome Rosebud Baker.

Rosebud, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Let's get into it. Okay. What a week. This week, the news went all in on grafting political winners and losers onto the ongoing COVID crisis, or as The Atlantic put it, in their headline, How Delta Beat Biden. Politico also joined in declaring that the Delta variant bottlenecked Biden's presidency.

I really think we should not be talking about public health crises without turning it into a Clint Eastwood movie. You know, like like one ancient man can't save the world. I saw the mule. All right. It doesn't work. There are two threesomes in that movie. All right. Because it's a fantasy. I want you to know something, Rosebud. I haven't seen the mule. Neither have I. I was I was going to go ahead. I was like, do I fake this or do I pretend like I know what's going on? Hallie, who saw the mule? No one. Did you see the mule? We think Wikipedia saw the mule. The point is, everybody, the mule streaming now. The point is, everybody, the mule streaming now.

You can't give this much responsibility, even if you were going to hand this over to the president. Like, he's not God. He's one man. It's also like, oh, Delta's hurting Biden. Like, what about us? Yeah, I haven't been able to do my live shows. That stinks. I know. I feel like if we're trying to get people on board with the vaccination thing, obviously they're not buying the science. So let's just go with the free market. You know, like if we're trying to get Republicans on our side here, let's just let's talk about making money, you know? Yeah. What about making money? And I just want to

remind everybody, you can go to cricket.com slash events to buy tickets for our vaccinated only November 12th show at the Beacon Theater in New York. Got a great show planned. Great. Got a big, big, great show planned for everybody. We hope you check it out. Hope you check it out. Crooked.com slash events. Also in the Atlantic, Celine, our grounder, who is a epidemiologist, she says she was confounded by the Biden administration's offer of booster shots, while on Thursday, the heads of the CDC and the FDA asked the White House to scale back the offer of boosters entirely. I find it very frustrating that there are public health officials being like, why are all these people hungering for boosters? I hope it has nothing to do with the fact that we terrified them about breakthrough infections and

the transmissibility amongst vaccinated populations and the waning effective immunity and the fact that they couldn't get back to their normal lives for months while making it incredibly easy to get booster shots by walking into a Rite Aid and saying, hi, I'd like a booster shot. I have a very bad immune system. Help. Right. Help me. Yeah. I think it's horse shit. That's what I think. Yeah. People want boosters. You made people want boosters. Like what's the worst that could happen you get too much immunity i know and then i read something else today that was like if you've had a breakthrough infection and you had covid you have superhuman immunity which is like a weird way to phrase that because you already caught it after two vaccines so it's i think it seems cool i would say it's barely superhuman but um this reminds me of a completely unrelated

uh very funny thing uh my partner ronan uh once said as a pickup line, which is, I got bitten by a radioactive hot guy. Now I'm horny all the time. Oh, that's poetic. Oh, also on Thursday, Biden announced new rules mandating that federal employees and contractors must be vaccinated. According to the New York Times, employees will have a 75 day ramp up to get vaccinated or undergo a human resources process, which I hope is not like the human resources process I had to go through after I slashed Tommy's tires, because it was terrible. There's a lot of mediation, you know, you have to start by saying, I feel. I feel like Tommy asked for it. I feel like those tires were too inflated for somebody I was furious at.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I didn't slash his tires. It's a good story, though. I wanted to believe it. Biden also called on the Department of Labor to require all companies with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccinations for their workers or institute weekly COVID tests while providing paid time off. I am honestly terrified what the anti-vaxxers are going to eat in response to this. I know. I will say, though, they do have good supplements.

I've taken a lot of supplements based off of what they've hawked. There's a weird crossover between the the Southern California yoga community and the anti-vax, you know, QAnon worlds. They're really co-mingling at this point. It is the horseshoe thing, like the far left hippie dippy. Yep. No vaccines for my kids. Part of the curve meets the pickup truck that's never seen dirt, no vaccines for my family part of it. You know, those be meat. Yeah, it's the circle of life. This is what the Lion King was talking about. This is what I was talking about. This is what I was talking about.

Also announced in Biden's address, the TSA will be doubling fines for passengers who refuse to wear masks in airline terminals. But there's still the loophole of eating and drinking, which is why everybody at the airport or on airplanes is like eating and drinking so slowly. They turn every Caesar wrap into this like tantric sexual food journey where they never want to reach completion. They just eat little tiny bits and take little tiny sips for like hours of a flight. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I couldn't believe how people were making these Cheez-Its last.

It's really shameful because there's something shameful about eating on a plane as it is, just eating on a plane. But to cover your mouth up afterwards like you're vaping in public, it's so embarrassing. Anyway, calls about ivermectin poisoning have gone up 163% since 2020, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. And boy, those people can party. You know, I want to go to that conference. It's pretty great.

If you think ivermectin is popular now, just wait until the fall when they introduce pumpkin spice ivermectin is popular now, just wait until the fall when they introduce Pumpkin Spice Ivermectin. Oh, God. Yuck. Pumpkin Spice Ivermectin. That joke has been poisoned. That joke is poisoned. Dumb Girl Summer.

I don't know what that means. I love it. Is that allowed? I don't think that's means. I love it. Is that allowed? I don't think that's allowed. I loved that. I really love a bad, I love like a, just a bad joke. There's something so good. Well then, I have good news for you.

Because we're only halfway done. Speaking of madness, the QAnon shaman has pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice for his role in the January 6th riot. His lawyers compared Trump to his, quote, jeez. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, man. When Epstein didn't kill himself.

Like a big pizza pie. When Hillary Clinton took adrenochrome from the bodies of children like a big pizza pie. That's Kimore. Doesn't mean it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. I love it. That's great. That actually sounds like the QAnon

Shaman's music. That sounds like his cover. Yeah. He's got an album coming out. It's all part of his promotional tour. Oh, of course. He'll be on Dancing with the Stars. I hope so. It'll happen. In lighter news, First Lady Jill Biden has started this semester teaching a writing course

at Northern Virginia Community College, where she tells the students to call her Dr. B, but I've already embarrassed myself by calling her mom. It already happened. So I'm never going to have friends at school. So lonely. I also just want you to know something, Rosebud, which is that our producer Ari is sitting two feet down and to the right.

They have a mask on, and I can't see what the reaction is to any of this. So it's just a frozen face as I make these horrible jokes. And I guess we'll... Thumbs up. I'm getting a thumbs up. Okay, good, good. You're basically doing a live show right now. Masked audiences are...

That's all you're getting anyway. Fuck. I'm looking forward to my masked live audience. I don't care. As long as they're there, you know? As long as they can do this. Yeah. In real life.

Amazon Prime released the Camila Cabello Cinderella this week. The jukebox musical, which also stars Pierce Brosnan, Billy Porter, Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver, James Corden, portrays Cinderella as an aspiring small business owner uninterested in love or marriage. Say what you will about the premise, Billy Porter is supposed to be great

as the fairy god investor. Wow. I feel like this movie really hit a speed bump when James Corden decided to stop all LA traffic doing a, what's that called? Like a flash mob? Flash mob, Yeah, yeah. I support that. I didn't mean to say

speed bump. I did not mean to do the pun, but I'll keep it. You know, all an accident. Ronan, I watched Cinderella, the story of an aspiring dressmaker who just wants the seed money she needs to get her business

in this town. I cannot believe this movie exists. Is that the real plot? It's hard really to say because it's a jukebox musical. So you have to really decide how much of the lyrics you're applying to the world as it's happening. They do dance to Rhythm Nation at the top for quite some time, which is deeply off-putting. at the top for quite some time, which is deeply off-putting. And a lot of the townsfolk are drawn into song and dance about some very insignificant problems among the richest people in their community.

It's deeply upsetting. The other thing I would say, and again, there's plenty of other complaints on the internet. You can read them for yourself. One thing that I don't think has been touched on enough is the mice that become people, one of whom is, as you mentioned, James Corden, they really like being people. They enjoyed it a great deal,

the freedom and the opportunities that being human provided them ever so briefly. And they don't address the fact that they are then once again mice. The problem being they are mice that are just as smart and capable as people. They have human minds in their mice bodies that are now once again relegated to a box in a basement. They've recently had actual jobs, enjoyed being in the free world, living their lives. And they just they take what cards they're dealt with. No problem. They just say, I'm just going to live in this mouse body.

Yeah, they're cool with the mouse body. Yeah, they're cool with it. They do scream when they become mice again, though. I will say that they scream. They're cool with it. They do scream when they become mice again, though. I will say that. They scream.

They scream in terror when they become mice again. And I'll be thinking about that for a while. Also, briefly, James Corden only half converts back to a mouse. And so you have that image. What does he have, like a human head? You bet. No. Human head, mouse body.

No. It's great. It's actually a good part of the movie. Wow. It's pretty funny. Anyway, the point is, Love It or Leave It is brought to you by Amazon Prime Cinderella. Some of your favorite stars get together and make a musical about how the most important thing a rich kid can do is have no responsibilities. That's really the goal for him as the prince.

And if you're in a broken, fucked up society in which women aren't allowed to do anything they want, your personal aspiration to be the one in a millionth who actually achieves great things, that is more important than stopping the structural and systemic issues plaguing your world. You need to get your business. It is good to be special enough to overcome vast inequality. It is not necessary to create systems in which people don't need to be incredible, special, unique,

and the two most beautiful human beings in literally the planet of this universe to achieve great things that, that actually good things are only for the precious few. Yeah. And I think that's like a really important message. I agree. That comes from this jukebox musical. Yeah.

And Dina Manziel is a national treasure. Billy Porter is a national treasure. We should probably move on, I think. We should probably just keep rolling. It's a cursed text, this film. I can't wait to see it. I mean, I'm like, I was thinking, do I really want to go there?

And I did choose the 9-11 documentary over that. But it seems they're equally horrific. Only one was caused by George W. Bush. Right. That doesn't mean, I'm sorry. I'm trying to riff on 9-11 and Cinderella. There's not a lot of places you can go. Oh, one other thing.

The lip syncs are bad. If you were to compare it to Cats, which I think James Corden was also in. Yes. Right? Yes. He's the monkey's paw. You know, he is the thing that ties these things together.

Yeah. I actually haven't seen Cats all the way through, nor have I seen Cinderella all the way through. We had to start fast forwarding because it was the only way to get through it. And I had to get to Billy Porter because he is wonderful and he's great in it. But I think they're probably very similar experiences, though. At least Katz knows that what they've made. I mean, Katz exists to be a coke addled fucking 1970s Andrew Lloyd Webber poem, storyless monstrosity. Like, that's the goal.

Yeah, that's the goal. That's crazy that they were able to take Cinderella and turn it into. I mean, it is sort of a fever dream on its own, but to turn it into a story about getting your business off the ground is really psychotic. Here's the other thing. Whenever they do these adaptations, they always have Cinderella and the prince meet before the ball. I think for good reasons, instinctively, because then it's about their chemistry. They have a rapport. You. You have to understand, this prince has never met a woman he found entertaining.

Zero. He's 0 for 10. And she makes a joke, and he did hear it. And once he's seen a woman make a joke, that's it. She's the only woman he's ever seen make a joke

in the kingdom, so he's hooked. Uh-huh. Which is, we all know, unrealistic, because men hate funny women. But go ahead. Very good point.

Very good point. What's always so funny now is once the prince meets Cinderella before the ball, then when she's at the ball in her pretty dress, what's going to happen when the clock strikes midnight? She's still going to be as pretty as Camila Cabello, but just in a slightly more plain dress. Right. The mice are outside they'll be fine yeah the horse will turn into a pumpkin again just stay at the ball in your uglier dress why are we running out of this thing do you think that the prince gives a fuck about the dress have you met a man yeah she's very pretty he'll be fine i'm wondering if maybe there's they should have brought in like a smell element to it you know where it's like you find out that not only does her dress change,

which who cares about that, but she does start to smell like, like human shit, naked and afraid. You know what I mean? At the stroke of midnight, Billy Porter says, not only will you lose this dress made of flowers from the wall,

uh, you'll smell like human fucking shit. Yeah. And that's it for you. Yeah. So you got to get out. Yeah. At that point,

we don't be like, yeah, get out of there. Beat it. At that point, we don't be like, yeah, get out of there. Beat it. According to Deadline, Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Sorry, I forgot that she took the name. And Julianne Hough will co-host CBS's New Reality. Priyanka Chopra Jonas is a traditionalist.

When it comes. Still people out there taking the name. still people out there taking the name Azure Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Julianne Hough will co-host CBS new reality competition series The Activist in which activists will go head to head in challenges to promote their cause which will be judged based on online

engagement, social metrics, and the host input I have a quote, a sneak preview of a very special moment in the series. Greta Thunberg, shantay you stay. I'm sorry, Malala. You inspired us with your fashion-forward climate change shoe line. But I'm sorry, my dear.

You did not earn enough likes with your TikTok dance about Zika. Now, sashay away. I can't believe this. We are recording this Thursday night. I will be very surprised to find out this show exists come Saturday morning when this show is released. I do not understand who got together and

thought that we should do this fucking black mirror dystopian post-capitalist nightmare fucking TV show where desperate people trying to save lives dance for celebrities and musicians to save their people. Yeah, I'm sorry to say this,

but I really think that TV executives are all suffering from traumatic brain injuries. I don't know what is going on, but... Too many Zoom pitches. It broke their brains. That is a nightmare of a show. I love it. I hope it happens. I hope it doesn't get canceled. I want this thing to exist in the world. Right. Oh, my God. I mean, it might as well. You know what I mean? We've got five,

10 years max left. Sure. Yeah. So why not? I mean mean let's just really lean into our worst impulses let's just go with it did no one know an activist that they could run this by like did nobody call anybody here's the thing i bet you there's activists that are like yeah you know because they're trying to get their cause off the ground yeah and so when you say something to them like, hey, we're going to make a show, they don't know how horrible it is. Maybe it's a good idea. Maybe I like it. Maybe I think everybody's wrong. Maybe I want to see the activist.

Maybe I want to see people trying to stop climate change doing a play in 12 hours for a group of school kids. And then the school kids will vote who gets to be eliminated. I think that's good. Yeah. I think it's going to make us better. That's the other thing about Cinderella, which is the song Million to One is fundamentally about becoming a celebrity. If you are singing a song about wanting to be one in a million,

you are saying, I don't care about what happens to a million people so that I get what I want. I would like a fairy tale where she sings, if it's a million to one, I'm going to kill the king, the prince, and any royalist left in this godforsaken country, establish a democracy, and do truth and reconciliation about the crimes that have against women that have taken place in this godforsaken village. I'm getting, by the way, by the way, I just want you to know something. Getting thumbs up snaps from Ari in the front row. So I'm getting the youth.

Can I just say, none of that rhymes. You're right. As a song, lyrically, it's all over the place can i tell you something this is a fundamental problem of drama which is this a lot of times the most dramatically satisfying stories are ethically questionable for example i do not think james cameron was wrong to have rose throw the diamond in the water at the end of Titanic, but she should have kept it, auctioned it, and used the money to help people. I'm not saying that the McAllister family

returning to their son having defended the home and Home Alone wasn't the best dramatic ending, but in the reality, that is a movie about a boy preventing his family from having to pay the state farm deductible for some flood damage and a few items being stolen yeah you know yeah and that's a terrible movie to your point to your point that is a terrible movie home alone he leaves the house the bandits leave and then he just

takes an inventory of what's missing to submit a claim. Yeah, it's just an infomercial. The trial Elizabeth Holmes, disgraced co-founder of Theranos finally began on Wednesday. Holmes has apparently pleaded not guilty. I feel so hypocritical laughing at this with my voice. I just want to go on record. No.

She's just doing a voice. People are like, is she on the show right now? I met her once. She was really persuasive. I thought she was being railroaded. Oh, Hallie doesn't know that, that I met Elizabeth Holmes at the party. And I asked her, because I shouldn't be allowed at real places. I was like, oh, my God, that Wall Street Journal story made it sound like your company is like really fucked.

And she goes, it's all going to work out. It's bullshit. I have taken a lot of heat, but you'll see Theranos is a great company doing great things. She was so persuasive. I was like, I told Ronan after I was like, either she's a sociopath or she really is getting the shaft. And it turns out. Yeah. Sociopath.

Yeah. So watch out. They're out there. That's the thing about sociopaths. They are charming. Charming. They'll get ya. You meet one and they look in your eyes and you're like, not guilty. You know what I mean?

Sure. 100%. It's crazy. Japan's Osaka University has successfully 3D printed the first lab-grown replica of the country's Wagyu steak, complete with marbled fat. But you know, the fat cartridge is gonna run out before the beef cartridge. And then you're at Staples at 4 in the morning because you're getting

no fat in the printout of the meat. And you need the fat. That stinks. I also hope they do 4D printed meat yet. This way, it's there for you when you're hungry yesterday. For no one. That's 4D.

You see? Oh, no. In Ohio, a man has been charged after claiming his dog shot itself in the face. Still not convinced there was foul play. Get this. The dog had dirt on Hillary Clinton. And finally, rapper Lil Uzi says fans ripped the $24 million pink diamond piercing out of his forehead during his concert at Rolling Loud. Don't worry. The rapper is fine.

But his forehead, Lil Uzi. Oh, my God. Oh. Oh, no. I love it. Rosebud Baker. Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you. When we come back, we play a game about the California recall. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. She is the staff attorney with the Reproductive Freedom Project and the lead litigator for the ACLU on the Texas SBA case. Please welcome Julia Kay. Julia, thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me, John. So I want to start today. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice would be suing Texas over this restrictive law. Can you talk a little bit about your reaction to this announcement and what else you'd like to see the administration do? Yeah, the Department of Justice is doing exactly the right thing here. They are coming in with bold action to try to quickly right this

injustice for Texans and undo the devastation and chaos we're seeing on the ground and prevent this catastrophe from playing out in any other states that have already started to promise to follow Texas's lead. So we are really pleased about the Department of Justice's filing and looking forward to seeing how it moves forward. So let's talk about the law and how it's written. It is strange, this way of deputizing citizens to take action in matters that has nothing to do with them in order to interfere with the reproductive freedom of people in Texas. Why did they draft it this way? And are there any other laws like this that they were drawing inspiration from?

Their goal here was twofold. By deputizing people's neighbors and strangers to bring them into court through this bounty hunter enforcement scheme, one of the goals was to isolate abortion patients and abortion providers, but the even more devious goal here was to try to evade judicial review. So to give a little bit of context here, Texas is not the first state in recent years to try to ban abortion from the earliest stages of pregnancy, but all of those other bans were very quickly blocked in court before the laws ever took effect. And that's because, in part, they were enforced by the traditional state officials who enforce these kinds of restrictions, state health departments, prosecutors. So the courts in those cases blocked the relevant state officials from taking any enforcement

action. And that was the end of the story. blocked the relevant state officials from taking any enforcement action, and that was the end of the story. To try to avoid the same fate, Texas instead stripped state officials of enforcement authority and instead put it into the hands of these vigilante private individuals. And unfortunately, what we saw last week was the Supreme Court let them get away with this scheme and let the law take effect because of the nature of the enforcement structure. So I was sort of baffled by this as a non-lawyer because my sort of layman's understanding, layperson's understanding, it's 2021, laypeople can be women,

is that the reason that the state action was prohibited was not because of a specific issue related to state action. It was about protecting the fundamental rights of human beings and that what matters is what impinges on the rights of the people, not who is doing the invasion of those rights. And yet it seems as though the Supreme Court, and you can tell me if you view it as purely cynical or cynical plus ideological, decided to take this as a real and serious issue worthy of their consideration. Is that right? The Supreme Court gave very little explanation for its decision to let this six week abortion ban take effect. effect. And the very short paragraph that it wrote really hid behind the technicalities of the law and said virtually nothing about the fact that this abortion ban is plainly unconstitutional

under 50 years of precedent. So we will see what the Supreme Court does when the new case filed by the Department of Justice goes back before the court, which I expect will happen within just a couple of weeks, it will be a little harder then for the court to try to hide behind technicalities. And they will have to squarely confront whether they are going to turn their back on 50 years of precedent saying that states cannot ban abortion, and whether they're going to give a green light to states doing an end run around the Constitution through this bounty hunter enforcement scheme, basically deputizing private individuals to do indirectly what the state cannot do directly. What I found sort of confusing is

they are hiding behind this idea that there's novel questions and novel issues being raised. But traditionally, isn't that exactly when the Supreme Court says, don't allow this law to go into effect while we consider it? Isn't that how it normally goes? Yes, absolutely. If there is a novel question presented here and you're faced with a law that is going to upend a constitutional right, cause all sorts of chaos and harm on the ground, what the right thing for the court to do would be to protect the status quo while it considers any sort of novel constitutional questions. But that is not what five justices on the Supreme Court did last week. They shrugged

their shoulders and let Texas do something that no state has been able to do since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. What happens next? We have this Texas law. We have other restrictive laws, like the one that was passed in Mississippi that I believe was a 15-week ban. What is the status of those cases? And when does the Supreme Court begin to focus on those in earnest? Well, probably the next thing that's going to happen is that the new lawsuit, United States v. Texas, will be back before the Supreme Court. The reason I predict that that will happen quickly is because the Department of Justice is seeking a preliminary injunction. So in other words, they're seeking to immediately block any enforcement of the six-week ban, including by these vigilante private individuals. So my best guess is that they

will get that preliminary injunction because a six-week abortion ban is so clearly unconstitutional. And then the state of Texas will likely go up to the Supreme Court within the next few weeks to ask the Supreme Court to block that preliminary injunction and allow the Texas abortion ban to take effect again. So I think we will soon see the Supreme Court again faced with the Texas case. Beyond that, there are two other abortion cases that the Supreme Court's going to be considering this term. The first one that I think folks don't know as much about is a case that's going to be argued in October by the ACLU that comes out of Kentucky. It's called Cameron v. EMW. And the underlying law in that case banned the most common and safest method of second

trimester abortion care. We won in the courts below, and that abortion ban in Kentucky is currently blocked. But the question that the Supreme Court will be considering is whether the very anti-abortion Attorney General should have been allowed to intervene in that case at the 11th hour. So if we win on that technical question, then this Kentucky abortion ban remains blocked. But if we lose and the Attorney General is allowed to try to overturn the victory below, we may soon see an extremely harmful ban enacted in Kentucky with devastating consequences both for people in Kentucky and for neighboring states. Additionally, the Supreme Court will soon hear argument in Jackson Women's Health v. Dobbs, which is a case

brought by our colleagues at the Center for Reflective Rights on behalf of the only abortion clinic left in Mississippi. And that presents squarely the question of whether the Supreme Court should uphold or overrule Roe v. Wade. There is no way for the Supreme Court to allow Mississippi to ban abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy without overruling the central holding of Roe v. Wade and opening the door for states to ban abortion at earlier and earlier stages. The fact that these five conservative justices decided to let this chaotic bounty system take effect in Texas while hiding behind a very short

kind of waving of the hands around it's complicated. What surprised me about that is, you know, we are you are fighting this multi-decade effort to restrict Roe, if not overturn Roe. We seem to be heading towards some kind of reckoning, a culmination of that fight at the Supreme Court, whether it's preserving Roe, overturning Roe, vastly restricting Roe. It's hard to understand when they have all this power why they would choose this place to allow this test law, this ban, this overturning of Roe to stand. Given the power they hold, given their ability to determine in the next few months what parts of these basic fundamental rights will be permissible in this country anymore, that this is where they chose to allow the really the in practice, the overturning of Roe to take place. What was your reaction to it

in the context of this larger fight? What does it say to you about what is about to happen at the Supreme Court? You know, I wouldn't do this job if I weren't an idealist. And so I will be honest that I was shocked and grieving when the Supreme Court let this six-week abortion ban take effect. I think in my heart of hearts, even though we knew that there have been changes on the court, I believed that the Supreme Court would not turn its back so unceremoniously on a half century of precedent and cause this havoc and suffering in Texas. So it was really discouraging. But as you know, the Supreme Court did not go all the way. They did not actually take this opportunity to overrule

Roe v. Wade. They just ignored it. They shrugged their shoulders and said, we're not going to opine at this point on the constitutionality of the six-week ban, but we're going to let it take effect. So I think it is a bad sign, but I don't think we really know what the court is going to do in the Mississippi case when we see that decision next June. My hope is that the tremendous public outrage that the Texas abortion ban has sparked will prompt at least one of those five justices to reconsider and really think about the harm not only to people who need abortion care, but also the harm to the rule of law and to the integrity of the court, and that ultimately there will not be five votes on the court to overrule these decades of precedent. What can people listening do to engage and help with the fight in Texas, both legally and also just practically?

There is a huge amount of pain on the ground right now in Texas. The average Texan at this moment today has to travel 250 miles out of state in order to try to access this time-sensitive medical care, which means paying for transportation and hotels and child care and losing wages in many cases for time off work. These barriers are going to be insurmountable for many patients. And these people will ultimately be forced to take on the serious pains and medical risks of pregnancy against their will. And we know that these harms are being felt most acutely by communities of color who, because of centuries of structural racism, are less likely to have the means to

travel out of state. We know that because of the lack of an adequate social safety network, people with low incomes are unlikely to have money socked away for emergency cross-state travel. And we know that for young people whose parents are not supportive of their abortion decision, getting out of state is exceedingly difficult. So I urge listeners to try to mitigate some of this harm by donating to abortion funds and practical support networks and folks on the ground in Texas who have been doing this work for years to try to help people overcome barriers in order to access abortion care. Right now, that largely means helping people get out of state for care, and there is an urgent need for donations to support that effort. So you can go to the website needabortion.org to see a list of abortion funds in the state and you can make donations there. And I think at this moment in time, that is the most urgent thing you can do for people in Texas. It is discouraging, specifically seeing that John Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts,

who joined with the three remaining liberals on the court to say, this is clearly the wrong thing, we are doing the wrong thing, was unable to bring one of his conservative colleagues along. In a broader sense, I do think people feel a little bit powerless about how to figure out how to help at the national level when they did everything they could to elect Democrats in Congress. They did everything they could to elect Joe Biden. And yet we face this court that exists because of a conservative minority that was able to appoint it often without with electoral votes and not popular votes. What kind of pressure would you like to see people bringing to bear on their elected representatives in Congress,

on the Biden administration? And what would you like to see Congress do right now to kind of represent that American majority that supports the bodily autonomy of human beings in our society, unimpeded by a conservative minority imposing their views on the country. So the good news is that there is federal legislation currently pending in Congress called the Women's Health Protection Act, or WIPA, which would create a statutory right to provide and obtain abortion care. And it would go a very long way towards preventing these kinds of egregious abortion bans, but

also the junk science restrictions on abortion that we have seen in the past that can have an equally devastating effect in terms of shutting down clinics for absolutely no medical reason. So the House will soon be voting on WIPA. I would urge listeners to join the fight in support of WIPA by going to aclu.org slash whpa. And through that website, you can contact your elected officials and tell them there is an urgent need for this legislation to be passed so that we are not only relying on the constitutional right to abortion, but so that there are these statutory protections as well. And then one other thing I would add here is I think many of us are sometimes myopically focused on what's happening at the national level. We're out there canvassing and phone banking when

it comes to presidential elections and Senate races and so on. But these kinds of restrictions on abortion, they're being passed at the state level. These are your local state legislators. And those are the elections that it is in some ways even more important that people not sit out, that people are educating themselves about the candidates and educating their neighbors and friends, because we know that turnout is much lower in local elections. We just is people don't pay as much attention. But if we are going to stop these kinds of horrific restrictions being enacted, it really starts by voting in local elections. Last question is just something that frustrated me terribly today, which is on the day that you have Attorney General, not Justice Merrick Garland, announcing a lawsuit by the United States

against Texas to protect fundamental human rights, the bodily autonomy of Americans. Because of a Supreme Court ruling, 5-4, that would have gone the other way had Ruth Bader Ginsburg retired a few years earlier or died a few months later, not to put too fine a point on it. On that day, today, you have Justice Stephen Breyer giving yet another interview where he says his decision about retirement is very, very complicated. Do you think it's complicated? I think I'm not going to touch that one. I'll leave it to you to give your perspective on that issue.

Retire Stephen Breyer. Don't worry. No one from the ACLU said that. I said it. Watch the news, man. I'm sick of this shit. Oh, it's so complicated. It's Hamlet routine. He's got to go. Dianne Feinstein is 88 years old. She may be replaced by Stephen Miller if Larry Elders wins. We got to get Stephen Breyer off the fucking bench.

That's just for me. You're not even part of this anymore. I'm so sorry you were here for this. What I will say is that although watching Attorney General Garland's press conference today was incredibly gratifying and just made me feel hope for the first time in a few days, it is really an outrage that he was prevented from getting his day in Congress and having that nomination considered. And it is truly an injustice that we are at this point, but here we are. Julia Kay, thank you so much.

Everybody can go to aclu.com slash WHPA to support their work at the national level. You can go to, what was the website at the local level? aclu.org slash WHPA and then needabortion.org. Thank you so much, Julia Kay, for joining us. Thanks so much, Sean. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It.

And there's more on the way. And we're back. The California recall election is upon us and things are looking. It doesn't matter how they look. All right. It doesn't matter. The polls. You can't trust the polls.

Not in this economy. What that means. The curtain has been lifted. The polls? You can't trust the polls. Not in this economy. What that means. The curtain has been lifted. The emperor has no clothes. It's all uncertainty and anxiety from here on out. No Nates can save us. So we here at Love It or Leave It want to help if for some godforsaken reason, you or someone you know and love still hasn't gotten motivated enough to get their dang ballot

into the dang dropbox to make sure this dang state doesn't become any more dang ungovernable because of some dang direct democracy rules from 100 dang years ago that has saddled us with this unworkable dang tax code and no dang high speed rail. We need to make sure everybody gets their ballots in, okay? Because if Larry Elder becomes the governor of this state, it will not only mean that Dianne Feinstein will have to figure out a way to live for several more years, which is maybe scientifically impossible, but also we will have a nationwide freak out about the end of the Democratic Party that will put us in a terrible position going into 2022. So in a lot of ways, you know, a lot at stake. The point is we have Michael here. Hi, Michael.

Hi there. Where are you from? I'm from Los Angeles. Oh, you're from Los Angeles. You're from Los Angeles. Have you voted in the recall yet? I have voted. I turned in my mail-in ballot a week or two ago. And have you contacted people in your life to make sure they're doing the same? I have. I've texted my friends. I'm posting on social media, whatever that does. It does something. It's not nothing. Yeah. It's slightly more than nothing. Talking to co-workers. Talking to co-workers. So Michael, for the people

out there that maybe haven't yet gotten motivated just to get that ballot in, or maybe they forgot, or maybe they haven't texted their friends in California, we want to show you just how high the stakes are in this election. So, Michael, are you ready to choose your fighter? I'm ready. All right, here we go. Choose your fighter. Do you want, A, a governor who violated state law to let same-sex couples get married in 2004, or B, a governor who has publicly called for the abolition of Medicaid? I'm going to go with A. Yeah, that's Newsome. Do you want A, a governor who went to an insanely opulent dinner at the French Laundry at the height of the pandemic, or B, a governor who argued just this summer that slave owners are actually the ones who deserve reparations. I'm going to go with French laundry. Yeah, it's tough, but we have no choice.

Do you want, A, a governor who has said that he hopes to live long enough to see Stephen Miller become president of the United States, or B, a governor who said he would nominate a black woman to the Senate if Dianne Feinstein resigns or dies, but he didn't say that part. Let's go with B. Yeah. You know what's funny, Michael? What? You're allowed to say we need to make sure there's a Democratic governor in case Dianne Feinstein steps down.

But you're really not supposed to say we need a Democratic governor because she's 88 and could die at any second. You know, why is it that you're not supposed to say that part? What do you think? I think that she doesn't know if she's even showing up to work. Do you want a governor with a seemingly pathological weakness for Patagonia fleece vests or be a governor who vows to roll back any existing mask and vaccine mandates? I'd rather go with the vest and a mask. So that's Danimask. Sure. Why not? Two great things that go great together. Michael, I think to answer your question, I think the reason you're not supposed to say it is fundamentally as a culture, we're deeply uncomfortable with the fact

that we live in physical bodies made of water, bone, and meat. And that reality, like the fact that nature actually ultimately determines so much of what happens in our logical, enlightened society makes us deeply, deeply uncomfortable. And people are afraid of death to confront it openly and what it means not just for the people in power, but even in their own experience. You know? Absolutely. That's what I think it is. Yeah.

Do you want A, a governor who said that like Donald Trump, he doesn't believe in climate change alarmism, claiming you can't do anything about the weather, or B, a governor who once declared Erika Jayne to be his favorite real housewife because her husband dominated to him? alarmism, claiming you can't do anything about the weather, or B, a governor who once declared Erika Jayne to be his favorite real housewife because her husband donated to him? Wow. I'm going to go with B. Yeah, you're right. That's Newsom.

That's good. That's who you want. Do you want a governor whose campaign confused his base by telling people not to write in a secondary candidate, despite that being in the state's best interest, or B, a governor who once said women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events? I am going to go with A, Newsom. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Do you want a governor who defended himself from sexual harassment accusations by suggesting his accuser was too ugly to be harassed? Or B, a governor who used to be married to Don Jr.'s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle?

Oh, God. I'd rather forget about that one, but I'll go with B, Kimberly Guilfoyle's ex. We want Kim's ex. That's what we're looking for here. Exactly. I don't make the rules. That's the fighter we need and we're choosing. Do you want a governor who once paid $500 to his city's Republican committee so they would endorse him on a mailer? Or B, a governor whose former fiance said he demanded she have his name tattooed on her to prove her devotion to him? demanded she have his name tattooed on her to prove her devotion to him. What? It's just A. It's Newsom. It's fine.

Everybody gets it. Do you want a governor who was the first California governor to apologize for the genocide of Native Americans or be a governor who once said the correct minimum wage is zero dollars? A. Apologies. Yes. So, Michael, you've chosen Gavin Newsom in all cases to be your fighter. And I think that that was the right decision. Everybody, look, we joke around here. But Michael's done a great job trying to get people to get their balance in.

He texted people. He talked to his co-workers. What kind of work do you do? I develop supportive housing. So apartments with services for people that are transitioning out of homelessness. So he's just like a great fucking guy doing good, good work out there, getting people to vote. What did you do today to help people? Not nearly as much as Michael did. So text your friends. All right. Get everybody to get the ballots in. Because if we lose the state of California

because a bunch of people forgot to mail something, that's just too much to bear. I can't deal with that. Get people to go to votesaveamerica.com slash California to get all the information they need to make sure they get those ballots in and get their friends to get their ballots in. That's all there is to it. Michael, you've won the game. I forgot to say that. Was it a game you could win? Yeah, it sort of was. You win. All right. Fantastic. Yeah. Do you want to plug the group that you work on? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I work for PATH. It stands for People Assisting the Homeless. It's one of the largest social service agencies serving homeless folks in the state of California. Go to our website.

You know, we take donations, all the help we can get. It's a huge problem. And we're working toward the end of homelessness. And I just think that probably, you know, it would not be great for Michael's organization if we had a far right fucking monster in the governor's mansion. I think that probably would be really bad. Absolutely. Governor Newsom, he dedicated millions and millions of dollars from the Recovery Act toward housing homeless folks very quickly in hotels. And that was purely the governor's discretion. And all of that could be stripped away. That funding could end if we had a Republican in the governor's office. So this is so important. So important. Get your ballots in.

Everybody out there listening. Most of you, you're garbage compared to Michael. The work that you do is so much less significant. You're helping so many fewer people. And he's out there doing it. All right. So just make sure people get the ballots in. VoteSafeAmerica.com slash California. That's it. That's the segment. When we come back, we'll end on a high note. And we're back because we all need it this week.

Here it is, the high note. Hi, I love it. This is Max from Atlanta. My high note for the week is actually from two weeks ago when after months and months of planning and re-planning, we were able to safely celebrate my daughter's bat mitzvah. We had a small Saturday service that was broadcast over Zoom, and my daughter did great. Then we had a Sunday evening outdoor, highly vaccinated party where we even did the whole right of cohorts. My incredible wife brought it all together, and it was just wonderful to celebrate

with family and friends despite everything else that's going on in the world. Thanks to you and everyone at Crooked Media for all you do. Take care. Bye. Hi, this is Whitney calling from eastern Idaho. I'm celebrating because my friend and I were approved for a business loan, and so our dream of opening a new independent bookstore in our town has become a reality. We just signed a lease on a little building downtown and started renovations on the space. It's all going so fast, and it's sometimes stressful, but we are just so excited.

As former teachers, we love connecting people to books, and we can't wait to open our little magical Lensicle store to the community later this year. Thanks. Have a good week. Bye. Hey, Lovett. This is Nikki from Detroit, Michigan, soon to be resident of San Francisco, California. And my high note this week is that I am one and a half years cancer-free after going through chemo during COVID. And I also got a new job. So I'm moving out to San Francisco and reinventing myself a little bit. Excited to see you out in California.

And thanks for all that you do. Hi, John. My name is Alexa. I'm calling from Connecticut. I'm calling to share my high note. I know. Last year, I made a pledge that I would stay sober and not drink for the last 100 days of the election. And today is my one year anniversary of that decision. I didn't lose any weight, so I'm not a monster.

But not drinking has really made my stressful life easier to manage. And I'm really thankful for that. I really love you guys. I listen to all the pods. And I have a bumper sticker on my car. You guys have really helped me stay informed. And I really just can't thank you guys enough. That's my high note.

Thanks so much. Thank you so much to everybody who submitted the high notes this week. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 213-262-4427. Thank you to Rosebud Baker, Julia Kay, and everybody who called in. There are 422 days until the 2022 midterm elections. Have a great weekend. until the 2022 midterm elections. Have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me,

John Lovett and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our senior producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Jocelyn Kaufman, Paula V. Gunalan, and Peter Miller are the writers. Our associate producer is Brian Semel. Bill Lance is our editor. And Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McClain and Marissa Meyer for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.

And to our digital producers, Nar Melkonian and Milo Kim, Mia Kelman and Matt DeGroot for filming and editing video each week so you can.