What A Day - Heatwave Back At It

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Intense heat waves in the Pacific Northwest are causing heavy power demands and rolling blackouts. Unprecedented rainfall in the Midwest has caused flooding, which politicians have blamed on a lack of spending on proper infrastructure.Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a bill to establish a House committee that will investigate the January 6 Capitol riot. The committee will have 13 members, but it's not known whether Republicans will want to be part of it.Plus Cleo Stiller fills in for Gideon. And in headlines: L.A. County advises masking indoors again, rare black hole and neutron star collisions are spotted, and the House votes to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol.For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday.

It's Wednesday, June 30th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Cleo Stiller in for Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we're announcing that we will not be competing in the Olympic event for news podcasting. Yeah, we're not in this for the glory. And apart from that, we're not even sure that the event is real. Oh, I just checked. It's not. More reason not to compete, though. On today's show, House Democrats begin to form a committee to investigate the January 6th

insurrection at the Capitol, plus some headlines. But first, we have a new guest host with us, Cleo Stiller. She is a Peabody Award and Emmy Award-nominated journalist, author of the book Modern Manhood, Conversations About the Complicated World of Being a Good Man Today, go buy it, and has had her work named in Harvard Journalism Foundation's 2021 Trends to Watch. She's also a friend of mine. Welcome to WOD, Cleo. Oh my God. I love how I sound coming out of your mouth. Thank you. Thank you for having me on my favorite daily news show. Well, thank you for thinking of us that way. I think the WOD squad agrees. We're pretty cool

over here, but let's get into it. First, the latest. Official temperatures are measured in the shade, but here on the street, this is measuring at 157 degrees. It feels like a furnace. Oof. Okay. So that is part of a report from the ABC affiliate in Portland yesterday. It's too hot to have your dogs even touch the blacktop. So just so you know, I just learned that I have a dog. But climate change deniers can keep sweating away the truth because this week, the world is really punishing us with extreme weather. Cleo, start us off with the latest from the Pacific Northwest. So temps reached as high as 116

degrees yesterday, shattering heat records in a region that usually sees temperatures in the 70s and 80s this time of year. Now, for me, anytime I hear about a temperature above 90 degrees, like it could be 100 degrees or it could be 200. To me, it just sounds hot. So to understand the severity of the situation, I'll tell you a couple things that the folks in the region are facing. So in Seattle, they had to shut down portions of their interstate because parts of the highway just buckled. Oh, my God. That's, I don't know how you handle that. What are you supposed to do? It sounds like a Jurassic Park scene to me.

Yeah, totally. Right? And then many there were without power in some instances because the power lines just melted. Not good, right? So as the heat waves move inland yesterday, people in Spokane, Washingtonhington faced rolling blackouts throughout the day due to high demand and listen losing power at any time is an inconvenience but just ask the folks in texas the absolute worst time to not have power be it heat

or air conditioning or fans is during extreme weather like this. It's not just unbearable, it's potentially lethal. Yeah, I have heard some horror stories. I have friends who live in the Pacific Northwest and they're saying they're in the basement, it's 89 degrees sleeping temperature and upstairs it's like over 100. So my thoughts are absolutely with them. And that's not even the most intense heat wave happening right now. So tell us about how Pakistan is baking.

Right. So there's a city in Pakistan called Jacobabad where temperatures can get up to over 125 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a global record. In fact, I think this headline from The Telegraph really says it best. The headline is, hotter than the human body can handle, Pakistan city broils in world's highest temperatures. That is one hell of a mental image, right? Yeah, it is horrifying. And, you know, I watched a little special about it. And yeah, people's bodies can't even cool them off at this point. Like, it's just not tenable to be living in a situation like that. Right. And right. Exactly. So, you know, now it's not just the temperature alone that's concerning. It's because of the heat and the humidity combination. And this area of Pakistan is one of only two places on earth, the other being in the United Arab Emirates, that have passed the threshold

that the human body can safely exist in. Now, it has happened multiple times over the last several years, albeit only for several hours at a time. But this is a milestone that scientists predicted we wouldn't pass for decades. And yet, here we are. Oh, man. Not great. All I can say is still not great. Would love for there to be one good bit of climate news, but it's not coming for the rest of our lives. On the other end of the spectrum, climate change is causing unprecedented rainfall in America's Midwest. I've heard a lot about this as well, and communities are struggling to literally stay above water. Right. Cities like Chicago and Detroit were pummeled by heavy rainstorms in the past few days. So in Chicago, more than six inches drenched the area, leading to flooded streets, partly because the city sewer system wasn't designed to handle the storms. So what will happen is they'll hold the water in the

streets, even though it means flooded streets for a couple hours, because if they flood all the water straight to the sewer systems, it's going to back up into your basement, right? And obviously no one wants that. And your friends in Seattle who need their basement, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, man. So it continues. Let's go to Detroit, where flooding was also widespread. We had Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer toward the area, and she blamed the flooding on both climate change and the lack of spending on proper infrastructure. Now, to offer just a little bit of analysis for everyone, when I was reporting for bloomberg we used to say all the time politicians know this very well but infrastructure is not a sexy item right yeah people don't rush to the polls to vote for infrastructure or if you think

about yourself if you've got construction going on in your area it's loud it holds up traffic politicians get calls to their office with complaints. So no one likes to deal with infrastructure, but it's critically important. And I say this because everything we're talking about in this story is on one hand about climate change, but on the other is about investing in infrastructure. And this is really something that we, the lay people, need to push for and hold our corporations, our municipalities, and our government on all levels accountable for. Washington's Governor Jay Inslee, who's been very outspoken about climate change, I think he really said it best. He told CNN yesterday, this weather is a warning to everyone.

But I think the important lesson for the Pacific Northwest is we're getting ours tonight, but everybody's going to get it. Everybody's going to get it. Everybody's going to get it. Oh man, he's not wrong. Yeah. So it's coming for you. All right. Turning now to some political news. Akilah, the January 6th insurrection attempt is going to be investigated thanks to a new bill in the House of Representatives. Can you tell us what's going on here? Yeah. So on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a bill to establish a House committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection attempt by Trump supporters. And the language in the bill itself isn't mincing words. It refers to the event as a, quote, domestic terror attack and explicitly says

the point was to, quote, interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. So intellectually, we all know this to be true, but it is maybe only the second time it's been named so intentionally at such a high level, the time before being Trump's record second impeachment hearings. And all of this is happening after the Senate Republicans used the filibuster last month to stop a bipartisan independent commission and to stop a discussion about a commission altogether. So good news is we're not just going to act like we didn't all watch on live TV as a bunch of unhinged people broke windows and killed a cop at the Capitol. Right. I don't think I use the term gaslighting so much ever as in this exact incident. Yeah, absolutely. It is endless.

Yes. So today, that bill is headed to the House floor and is expected to pass. But I think probably all of us want to know, what is the makeup of that committee being put together by Pelosi? Yeah, so this is truly perplexing. The committee will be made up of 13 members, eight of whom Pelosi will appoint, and then five of whom will be picked by Republicans. The party that so far has not shown to take that attack on the Capitol seriously. I don't know why they get a say, but all right. In fact, the GOP have floated a million alt endings to the insurrection attempt from their followers back in January. It was Antifa.

No, it was just some peaceful tourist. No, actually, it was the FBI, but not Trump's FBI, some other secret FBI. You know, these morons are throwing an Olive Garden's worth of spaghetti at the wall trying to make their story stick, and now they get to be on the commission to investigate the deadly attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. It is actually nonsense. But there is a tiny bit of silver lining, right? Yeah, there is. All right. So it lies in the fact that no one knows if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will actually exercise that right to name Republicans to the panel. He hasn't expressed support of a commission at all. And the number two House Republican Steve Scalise said in a memo that the panel, quote, is likely to pursue a partisan agenda. If he really wanted

bipartisanship, though, maybe Republicans should have supported that Senate committee instead of killing it. You know, there were options. But fear not. We will likely hear from some Republicans, seeing as the House committee can subpoena documents and witness testimony. The lunatic House member from Georgia, Ms. Marjorie Taylor Greene, should probably prepare for the worst and fly somewhere that they don't extradite. The makeup of the panel is being discussed as we speak, and many people are looking to the Benghazi hearings in which there were seven Republicans to five Democrats as the sort of standard. Of course, the GOP has the ideological consistency of a magic eight ball, so they're already saying it's not fair. We'll let you know just how many of the

Republican chickens come home to roost when the time comes. But that's the latest for now. It's Wednesday WOD Squad, and for today's Tim Check, we are discussing adventures in well-intentioned design. Yesterday, IKEA Canada rolled out a series of pride-themed love seats, which were inspired by the flags of different LGBTQ plus communities, and the results were extremely mixed. The company wanted to highlight the diversity within the LGBTQ plus community, and they definitely did that well. But what they also did was create furniture that looked like it had been dipped in glue and thrown at every shelf in a Michael's. The most notable couch was the couch inspired by the bisexual flag, and it included several creepy hand-shaped pillows,

plus a line scrawled on the seat cushion that read, when you change or to and, nobody believes you. That line is a statement on bisexual erasure, but it seems a little heavy for a couch that you own if you are bi in your house. So Cleo, what was your take on this collection overall? It was wild. Yeah, okay. So first of all, if you're listening to this and you're driving, just flag this for something to do when you get to where you need to be. Because you do want to see this. It's not to be missed. Which is probably a big success for IKEA. But I do feel like I would have asked the team of IKEA, like, did you mean to offend the queer community when you put these out? Because

this does not seem like anyone's identity is flattered or held here. I mean, of all of them, Akilah, would you take any of them home with you? So I've died on the hill of the gender fluid couch being great. Everyone else thinks it looks like they're trying to cover up stains in a dorm room with the design. And I made the joke to Charlotte that that is it's not just it's gender fluid. But in any case, I think that one was pretty solid. But yeah, the hands, the hands are like stuck to the seat. So it's not only are they there and ominous and touching you, but they like they truly are a texture of the couch. I'm also not sold on the font for the painting or a single cushion just saying no one will believe you. To me, that's that's kind of threatening.

I don't want that in a couch. I definitely want to hear from the folks listening to this. Hit us up. We want to know which, if any, is the couch you would take home. Yeah. Like, are you sitting on these couches? Yeah. Are you avoiding sitting down?

You're good. You're going to stand. If anyone else wants to sit, please take the seat. I'm good. I feel that. Well, just like that, we have checked our temps. They are very cool, like a nice pillow that is not made out of a hand. Stay safe.

And we'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. In Los Angeles, health officials strongly recommended on Monday that everyone, regardless of vaccination status, go back to wearing masks indoors amid increased circulation of the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant. This comes almost two weeks after California lifted all coronavirus restrictions, which for folks who listen to the show, Akilah, you obviously felt very strongly about. Yeah, I think that they messed up and I was right. Yes. Public experts are now on your side. So though public experts are in agreement that getting vaccinated is the best protection against COVID and say the Delta variant poses little risk to people who are fully vaccinated.

L.A. officials are proceeding with caution until they have more information. Delta variants are now responsible for about one in every five new infections across the U.S., and that's up from approximately one in every 10 just last week. Now, according to CDC data, 50 percent of L.A. County residents are fully vaccinated, but there are significant concerns that unvaccinated people remain vulnerable. Oh, goodness. They better make some room at the bottom of the ocean, because last night the House voted to remove statues of Confederate officials from the U.S. Capitol. Yay, yay. The House also voted to remove a bust of former Chief Justice and slavery advocate Roger B. Taney, who wrote the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857

that ruled that black people were not entitled to citizenship. Hmm. The passed measure directs the architect of the Capitol, quote, to remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America and to replace the busted bust of Taney with one honoring Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice. Last summer, during nationwide protests spurred by George Floyd's death, the House passed similar legislation, but it didn't advance in the then Republican-controlled Senate. The bill now heads back to the Senate and requires 60 votes to pass because Joe Manchin

doesn't give a fuck abouthmm. Okay. Many steps beyond cottagecore, there is something called Flintstonescore. And a woman in Northern California won the right to keep living in it

this spring. Her name is Florence Fang, and she settled a lawsuit filed by her own town against her $2.8 million

Flintstones house. I'm gonna move it. Now, for... Yeah. Okay. Another treat for those who are listening, but I do recommend that you flag this and pull up the images as soon as you can. Don't worry, though, I will paint the mental image for you. So imagine a purple and orange structure with

round dome tops and a yard really full of sculptures of Fred Flintstone, his family, and various 15-foot-tall dinosaurs. Now, local officials with inner children that died many years ago have been going after Fang since 2019, calling her house, quote, a highly visible eyesore, which is extremely rude to say about your neighbor, and claiming that the statues in the yard violated local building codes. So that suit has been dropped. And additionally, the settlement requires the town to now pay Fang $125,000 to cover legal fees and any hurt feelings. Fang is an 80-year-old retired media magnate who once said in an interview, quote, I see a dinosaur, I buy it.

Which is kind of, right, exactly. I'm like, you know what? My grandmother sounds somewhat similar. So I do feel like that clarity of purpose is something we should all aspire to. And we are legally obligated to take her side. Yeah. I mean, she's right. When you're right, you're right.

Give me some ofk stone any day. Yes. I love it. All right, well, get ready, because I'm about to say a bunch of stuff that I fully understand. For the first time, astrophysicists have detected two collisions between a black hole and a neutron star. Neutron stars are stars 10 to 30 times the size of the sun that died, a.k.a. star skeletons. The black holes did what the physics community describes as a Pac-Man,

eating the neutron stars whole and becoming even bigger black holes and releasing gravitational waves along the way. The mergers were first detected in January of last year, but the newly published gravitational wave findings offer new information about how cosmic collisions affect the expansion and compression of space-time. Exciting. Jeff Bezos, you should probably read up on this before your trip next month, or you risk getting stuck out there forever. See you, Jeff. Yeah, good luck, man. The unions will handle it. Exactly. Hope you have a good union on your spacecraft.

And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, buy a dinosaur, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just ridiculously easy

to understand astrophysics like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Cleo Stiller. And take swim lessons, Confederate statues. Yeah. Figure it out, you know, or don't.

Once again, or don't. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun and Jazzy Marine are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Leo Duran, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.