What A Day - Yes We Kansas

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Abortion access in Kansas will be preserved because yesterday the state overwhelmingly voted against a referendum designed to open the door to abortion bans. Meanwhile, the Justice Department sued Idaho on Tuesday over that state’s abortion law — the first lawsuit filed against a state’s anti-abortion law by the Biden administration since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.California declared a state of emergency on Monday to combat the outbreak of monkeypox. New York and Illinois have done the same, along with the cities of New York and San Francisco.And in headlines: the Senate passed the PACT Act, the defamation trial against InfoWars host Alex Jones continues, and the U.S. imposed more sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.Show Notes:Vote Save America: Fuck Bans Action Plan – https://votesaveamerica.com/roe/Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Wednesday, August 3rd. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And I'm Josie Duffy Rice. And this is What A Day, where we hope one day that our travel plans will be tracked as closely as Nancy Pelosi's. Yeah, if things go my way, the world will be waiting with bated breath to see if I take Delta Airlines to visit my family in Chicago. That's right.

And if you do, there will be some kind of military response. I hope not. On today's show, California, Illinois, and New York all announced states of emergency because of monkeypox. Plus, Trump's default mode is chaos agent. And he stuck to it recently by endorsing just Eric in a race with three erics that's the funniest thing that anybody could ever do and i just want wild is give a high five if they're gonna be three

erics in a race this is what they deserve that's the move you gotta do he's a terrible human being he's proved that time and time again but this is hilarious and you gotta give him that it's really funny but first some updates on the fight for abortion rights across the country. Now, Priyanka, let me start by saying that, as usual, the current state of the right to abortion is a mess. Total fucking mess. And in many places, it's not even clear what's illegal and what isn't. The law is always shifting. And even when it isn't shifting, it's imprecise in this way that makes doctors have to choose between saving someone's life or losing their license. Not a choice I think they were signing up to make when they thought they were, you know, going to help people. Yeah. It's not pro-life. I'll tell you that. Certainly not. And the dark irony of this, of course, is that anti-abortion advocates have long claimed that

the standard Roe established was too imprecise and that by outlawing abortion, they were going to make it simple for everyone. Yeah, just the absolute opposite happening here. Right, exactly. And I say that as a preface here to point out that abortion rights advocates were right all along when they said, look, there will be death, there will be harm, there will be serious physical consequences to pregnant people facing complications. They were told that they were fear mongering and they were not. And we see that already. They were completely right. That is absolutely what is happening. Yep.

So on that note, there are some abortion rights updates to tell you about, Priyanka. Okay, so first, what is happening in Kansas? So there is good news. Kansans voted overwhelmingly to preserve abortion access. As reported yesterday, the people there voted on whether to keep the state's constitution as is, which guarantees the right to abortion access. As reported yesterday, the people there voted on whether to keep the state's constitution as is, which guarantees the right to abortion access. And they did by a huge margin, which is a huge victory for activists and a huge loss for state Republicans who spent three years trying to get this question on the ballot. This is so exciting. Congratulations to everyone in Kansas, everyone who's rooting for this. Ashley All, who was on this show telling us all about all the work that they have done

talking to, you know, Democrats, unregistered people, even moderate Republicans trying to get this done. This is so exciting. Truly. It really is. And it proves what we already know, which is that people overwhelmingly support access to abortion rights. Definitely.

Okay. So what other abortion news is there to share? So first, the Department of Justice sued Idaho yesterday over the state's abortion law. According to the New York Times, this law would prevent ER doctors from, quote, performing abortions even when they're necessary to stabilize the health of women facing medical emergencies. This is the first lawsuit filed against any state's anti-abortion law by the Biden administration since the Supreme Court ruling

overturning Roe in late June. This is like just an absolutely vindictive, cruel law. I mean, there's nothing wrong with if you are a person who is pregnant, you want an abortion, you get one. That's totally allowed. But this is also- Next level.

This is for people facing medical emergencies like in the ER. This is for no other purpose than to inflict harm. But is this just limited to ER doctors or other medical professionals included in this or just them? This is directed at emergency room doctors specifically. It's a pretty narrow slice of like who we could be talking about generally. Narrow, but like incredibly cruel. Probably the cruelest perspective you could have taken on that. But what is the argument here? There's an existing federal law. It's called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

And the DOJ says that this prevents states from restricting emergency room doctors from treating pregnant people in these situations. That sounds right to me, given the name of the law. They're a person with an emergency and that is the emergency room doctor's job. So very straightforward, sure. But I guess we'll see what a court says about that. Yeah, no, I don't think we've heard any good court news in quite a long time.

You're right. You're right about that. In other news regarding federal attempts to protect the right to abortion, on Monday, a quote-unquote bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would codify abortion rights on the federal level. OK, so you just said quote unquote bipartisan because while the bill itself is technically bipartisan, it's misleading to imply that there is a ton of bipartisan support around this bill. OK, so tell us a little more what's going on here. The bill was introduced by Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, Arizona Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Alaskan Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, who you may remember, was very, very sure that Roe was settled law. So it is bipartisan in that two Republicans are sponsoring this legislation, but they are also the only two Republicans who are

even remotely going to support it. Right. So it does feel like a little misleading to imply that this is like a bipartisan bill, you know? Yeah, definitely. So according to The Hill, quote, the bill aims to prevent states from enacting laws that impose an undue burden on access to pre-viability abortions, while also allowing some reasonable limits on post-viability abortions, so long as they don't impact the life and health of the mother. But the bill does not present a clear definition on viability, nor what is a real danger to the, quote, life and health of a mother. As you know, a bill introduced by Democrats,

the Women's Health Protection Act, was in front of the Senate twice this year and failed both times. So this is like the bipartisan effort to do something similar, slightly more conservative, but it will also most likely fail. Cool. Good times. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Love to hear it. Is anything else happening on this front? I'm a little terrified to ask, like, could it be good news? I don't know. But like, what's happening here? It couldn't be good news. But congrats on knowing it couldn't be good news. That's the good news. You are able to predict how bad things are gonna be. So there is one last thing, which is that in my state, Georgia, an often lovely and wonderful place that can also be a nightmare for anything remotely related to progressive values, you can now claim your fetus on your taxes. The Georgia Department of Revenue announced that they will, quote, recognize any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat as eligible for the Georgia individual income tax dependent exemption.

That's a $3,000 exemption. Wild, wild, wild, wild. Don't like the sounds of this. And as Stacey Abrams campaign manager tweeted, quote, So what happens when you claim your fetus as a dependent and then miscarry later in the pregnancy? You get investigated both for tax fraud and an illegal abortion. Like that's my question. Everyone's question.

Exactly. Again, it's just conservative state officials playing politics without thinking it through. Yeah. And like kind of offering a bribe for like this information that they'll then turn around and use against you the minute that, you know,

something goes wrong in your pregnancy. Do not go telling state officials. Absolutely. Don't go giving that information to anybody. Yeah, exactly. So that is the latest on abortion rights news for today, Priyanka. All right. So we have some other public health news. California declared a state of emergency on Monday to combat the outbreak of monkeypox. It becomes the third state in four days to take the step and declare an emergency. New York and Illinois have done the same, along with the cities of New York and San Francisco. Okay, so what does declaring a state of emergency actually mean in this sort of situation? So it's not just public recognition.

Declaring a state of emergency actually helps expand resources like vaccine distribution, which has been an issue so far, and it helps streamline the response across different levels of government. In California, this declaration means that emergency medical services workers can administer monkeypox vaccines that are federally approved. That vastly increases the number of people who can do that. But on the national level, federal health officials haven't declared this a health emergency at this point, in part because monkeypox is a disease that's already known. There are tests, vaccines, and treatments for it.

But President Biden's health secretary, Javier Becerra, did urge states and municipalities to take a more active role in fighting monkeypox because they really have a lot of power when it comes to public health. Totally. Even though we know at this point people are more skeptical of the idea of public health as it relates to government. Totally. This all is coming during an uptick in monkeypox cases.

I feel like for so long, I was like, there aren't that many cases. And now there are a lot. So where are the numbers now? Since May, over 5,800 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the US. This is almost certainly an undercount. There are more out there. And nearly half of them have been reported in New York, California, and Illinois. So three States that have declared emergencies so far, there haven't been any fatalities from monkeypox in the U S the disease is rarely fatal, but the rash that it

causes can be extremely painful and it usually causes flu like symptoms. So far men who have sex with other men, that is the official term that public health officials use, have had 99% of the confirmed cases. But those same officials emphasize that the virus can spread to anybody who has prolonged skin-to-skin contact with someone who has the rash. So it's not like COVID that you can get from being in a shared space with someone who has it. But it's also been reported that it can be transmitted via shared linens or clothing like bedsheets, things like that. So let's talk about the vaccines because I know there have been issues with people being unable to get them recently. What's happening there? Yeah, access has been limited, which is definitely a problem as cases in the U.S. double every week or so. And these states governors have mentioned in their emergency

declarations that they hope that doing so, declaring that emergency, helps them get the vaccines that they need. As of last week, the Department of Health and Human Services had delivered over 336,000 doses of Jynneos, an FDA-approved vaccine for smallpox and monkeypox, and more will be coming. Federal officials have ordered nearly 7 million doses, which should arrive in batches over the next few months. But there are an estimated 1.6 million gay and bisexual men who health officials say are at the

highest risk for this, but we certainly don't have the supply as of now to vaccinate all of them. Jynneos is supposed to be administered in two doses, 28 days apart, but some states have been holding back on that second dose until more vaccines become available. We'll keep you updated as we continue to learn more, but that is the latest for now. Let's get to some headlines. The Senate passed the PACT Act yesterday, a measure that would expand health care coverage for veterans who are exposed to burn pits and other lethal toxins while abroad. Republicans blocked swift passage of the act last week, citing a, quote, budget gimmick. But they switched course and the legislation is expected to benefit over three and a half million veterans who are at higher risk for respiratory issues and cancer because of these exposures.

President Biden is expected to sign it into law. The defamation trial against InfoWars host Alex Jones continued yesterday. He is being sued for pushing the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a hoax. Neil Heslin, the father of a six year old boy who was killed in the attack, took the stand and he told jurors about how fans of Jones harassed him as a result of these claims. Heslin also shared how hurt he was by Jones's assertion that his son wasn't real and said, he lived.

I was blessed with six and a half years. I cherish those days. Just heartbreaking. Honestly, so devastating. Another mass shooting trial that's underway is the one against the Parkland School shooter. Jurors in that case will determine whether the gunman receives a life sentence or the death penalty. And yesterday, parents of the victims shared their stories of grief and loss with the

jury. Here's Ilhan Al-Hadef, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed in the shooting. She was supposed to get married, and I was going to have my father do the dance. She would have had a beautiful family. All those plans came to an end with Alyssa's murder. Both of those trials will continue this week. Four people were found dead earlier this week in areas damaged by the McKinney Fire in Northern California. According to state officials, the fire has now burned through 55,000 acres of land since it erupted last Friday. And the blaze has destroyed over 100 homes and other buildings. Authorities say that the fire is still far from contained.

The U.S. imposed more sanctions on a number of Russian individuals and companies yesterday in an effort to further punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Among the people hit with sanctions is Alina Kabayeva, the former Olympic gymnast who's long rumored to be Russian President Vladimir Putin's romantic partner. Ooh la la. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, that doesn't sound romantic. He sounds like a terrible partner and human.

Not the boyfriend I would want. Certainly no. Kabayeva and a number of Russian oligarchs linked to Putin are now barred from entering the U.S., conducting transactions with Americans, and accessing any assets they may have in the U.S. 24 Russian companies dedicated to bolstering Russia's military defense were also sanctioned on Tuesday. Yesterday was primary day in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri,

Washington state, and the state with the most lizards per capita, Arizona. Results will keep trickling in over the next couple of days, but things got exciting Monday night when Trump went Riddler mode with his endorsement of a candidate in Missouri's Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Forced to choose between the far-right Republican Eric Greitens and his establishment but still far-right counterpart Eric Schmidt, Trump chose option C and endorsed just Eric in all caps with no last name in an email to supporters. This allowed both Erics to flaunt Trump's quote-unquote endorsement. A third lesser-known Eric, Eric McElroy, was also in the race, which only added to the confusion. But in the end, the winning Eric was Eric Schmidt. This is like a hilarious. You got it. Like three Erics in a race is wild in the first place. This is a hilarious thing to do. Love it. Send everything swirling

into chaos. Yeah. But also like what a way to be like, you know, either way, I'm right. Like it's fine. Like whoever wins,, like, I endorse the right guy. Totally. It wasn't a mistake. He had the chance to clarify which Eric he wanted, and he never did. No, and he was like, you saw the statement. Yeah. I said what I said.

I do love the idea of throwing more chaos into any Republican race at any given point. So, like. Love it. Do your thing, babe. Do your thing. But also, don't ever do your thing. But like this one time it was funny. That thing allowed.

Anything else? Just a no. The Trump urge to restore iPhones to factory settings has struck again. A lawsuit filed by the independent watchdog group American Oversight has revealed that the Department of Defense wiped the phones of several prominent

Pentagon officials under Trump at the end of his tenure. Had the text been preserved, they could have provided insight into the military's delayed response to January 6th. Importantly, the DOD wiped the phones after American Oversight filed FOIA requests to retrieve their contents in early January of last year, which, to use a cybersecurity term, is sus as hell. This update comes days after reports surfaced that January 6th texts from two key Trump homeland security officials, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, are also missing. As Marie Kondo once said, don't hold onto records that could further implicate your

boss in a coup attempt unless they spark joy. The records that would implicate them the most always go missing. It's so weird how that happens. Do they think like no one would find out about this? Like if you wipe a phone that like, oh, looks like there was nothing on it. You know, but they thought they'd probably just get away with it and they might. So Mother Nature is now using the literary device called irony to tell us how mad at us she is. Production of the TV show Snowpiercer, which is set in a world that was frozen over after a failed attempt to stop global warming, was briefly halted due to, yes, global warming.

The show is shot in British Columbia, where temperatures hit the mid 90s last week, which I don't know much about British Columbia, but that doesn't sound like how it's supposed to be there. Nope, definitely not. That turned the jackets that cast members must wear to simulate a post-apocalyptic ice age into goose down death traps. So if you needed one more reason to take climate change seriously, it's so we can have uninterrupted production of the TNT series, Snowpiercer. Now, Priyanka, you and I have the same movie tastes. Yeah, maybe not Snowpiercer. It's usually not Snowpiercer. However, I have seen the movie Snowpiercer, and it's legit good. Although it is more stressful than you and I like our movies.

We don't want to stress. The only stress I want are, like, are Annie and Halle's parents getting back together? Right. And the answer is yes. Thank God. Because they are the only people on Earth who think you can just separate twins and that's cool because they look alike. Bizarre plot of a film. I am wondering, like, why are they shooting this? Like, presumably it's like cold if they're shooting something that you need to be wearing like a down jacket for. Why are you doing this in August? There are other

months, like maybe September, October, November, even like November. I don't understand. Something's not adding up. But anyways, those are the headlines. Like, I don't understand. Something's not adding up. But anyways, those are the headlines. We'll be back after some ads with some more discussion of celebrity air travel. Buckle up. It's a good one. It's Wednesday, Wild Squad. And for today's Temp Check, we are returning to the topic of celebrities and their unmatched skills at making birds cough, specifically through the use of CO2 spewing private jets.

After Taylor Swift topped one list of celebrities whose excessive flying is putting Mother Nature in a chokehold late last week, the Daily Mail published photos of her getting off her plane while covering her face with an umbrella. That photo was actually taken in early July, but it did capture the prevailing mood, namely that chronic private jet use is embarrassing. Notably, Swift's plane has only gone wheels up once since the list was first published on July 29th. That's not that impressive to me because it's been like, you know, a few days.

But Alex Rodriguez's plane has flown three times and the Top Gun himself, Tom Cruise, has flown four times. It's been like four days, man. Where are you going? So Josie, what is your take on all of this? Okay. So first I feel like we need to specify that when we say Taylor Swift comes at number one, she's like a thousand times more than the average person's annual emissions at this point already. And it's August. Yes. It's not great. Love Taylor Swift, but she spent like 15 days in the air. It's like, where are you flying? And it's August, by the way. This is just this calendar year. There's that. But also,

I do feel like we had a global pandemic. And what we learned in the global pandemic is that you actually don't have to be everywhere in person. You can use Zoom. You can use a phone. You don't have to fly there. And so for that reason, I do feel like this is just absurd. It's certainly egregious. I hear you. I agree with everything you're saying. But as a person who has recently traveled, you know, this summer, it's chaotic out there. Let me just say, if Taylor Swift decided to go to a normal airport was like, hey, nevermind. I seen the error of my ways. I'm flying commercial now. Fucking pandemonium. It would be crazy. Those places are already awful enough. If she did that, like she is, you know, she shouldn't be flying that much. Like I think

maybe, you know, take a car, do some zooms, like whatever. I think her like shortest flight was like 30 minutes or something like something nuts. Right. Yeah. Really, really wild. It wasn't like the Kylie Jenner, which, you know, this was orchestrated by Kris Jenner after Kylie got in trouble for taking like a seven minute flight like you know Kris was like well you know what Taylor's worse yeah and and slip this to some journalist so I agree she cannot go to the airport she can't she can't do it first of all stay home sometimes Taylor like are you even on tour right now what are you doing like stay home it's fine you're good I will say at the very least where celebrities always do the thing where it's like I'm just like you I was bullied when I was like a kid

because like I was too hot or like whatever it is that they say they should be a measure of like how down to earth are you because like this thing where you and like your one friend get on your like 30 seat plane and fly across the country to whatever have dinner at Nobu or whatever you people are doing. That's ridiculous. Yeah, you gotta make the trip worth it. It can't be for some stupid shit. You have to tell us publicly

why you use your plane every time. That's what you should have to do. When you're taking pictures of that private jet on Instagram, I want to know in the caption, what are you doing and is it worth it? Exactly. Is it worth it? Just like that. We have checked our temps. They are. They're simmering. We've come to consensus here. One more thing before we go. Episode two of Another Russia is here. This week, Zhanna and Ben dive back into Boris Nemtsov's political journey

as he becomes Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and discovers whether his idealism can trump money, power, and corruption.

Feel like I know how that story goes. But listen to new episodes of Another Russia each Monday wherever you get your podcasts. That is all for today.

If you like this show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, buy a refurbished iPhone from the Department of Defense, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just celebrity flight logs like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe.

I'm Josie Duffy Rice. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And let's not make Snowpiercer come true. The only movie we're trying to make come true is The Parent Trap. Sorry. And Legally Blonde. Truly. Devil Wears Prada.

I don't know if we need to make that one true. Nah, everybody needs that experience. A little Devil Wears Prada in their life. A little bit. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance, Jazzy Marine, and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producer is Leo Duran. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.