Episode

5/6 The Coming Republican Ban On Abortion & Why It Shouldn’t Be A Surprise w/ Heather Digby Parton & Russ Feingold

May 6, 2022

It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by Russ Feingold, President of the American Constitution Society and former United States Senator from Wisconsin to discuss the leaked Supreme Court Roe V. Wade opinion. Digby, Sam, and Emma get right into this leak as the culmination of the saga of neoconservatism starting with Reagan, looking back over the last three decades on how the democrats’ insisted on making more room for the GOP’s fundamentalist values, completely misunderstanding what fundamentalism is, and the impossibility of appeasing it. This brings them to the Democratic leadership, looking at their complete lapse in understanding the fight they are supposedly up again, from going soft on pro-life arguments in the early aughts to suddenly being faced with a clear cut outcome, yet still “scrambling” for what to do, likely to resort to the only tactic they do commit to: fundraising. After briefly touching on the state of the undemocratic institutions that are the Supreme Court and US Senate, Sam, Emma, and Digby take on the likelihood of a national ban coming from a Republican majority legislature, as well as the other mass changes to the US constitution we can expect, from Plessy v. Ferguson to Gov. Abbott’s recent challenge to teaching migrants. Then, Russ Feingold brings up the idea of this being a product of a Republican Party led by Donald Trump, versus it as a culmination of anti-choice rhetoric starting with Reagan, looking to the complete lack of precedent for such a decision, and diving into Feingold’s relationship to the Supreme Court. They wrap up their discussion by diving into the American Consitution Society’s method for recruiting and evaluating potential judicial nominees, from lower circuits to the Supreme Court. Sam and Emma also discuss Joe Biden’s Senate as a filibuster-controlled wing of the legislature, California’s attempt to be an abortion refuge, and Louisiana’s attempt to ban abortion after fertilization. They also touch on updates from Ukraine and Mariupol and dive into the political implication of the SCOTUS leak.

And in the Fun Half: Sam dives into his waiting experience, Emma reflects on early movie-viewing experiences, and the crew dives into Tim Pool’s reaction to the Roe v. Wade decision, including his insistence on refusing to side with Democrats’ stance of letting abortion run rampant. Chris Smalls appears on Bloomberg and gives Amazon shareholders worldwide heart attacks, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh goes on MSNBC to assuage any worries of the Biden Administration actually following through on their campaign promises to move against union-busting. Ron Johnson dives into a whole new vaccines-cause-AIDs theory, and gets challenged when it comes to the nuances. Greg Gutfeld celebrates Donald Trump’s ability to punch up on illegal immigrants and reporters with disabilities, plus, your IMs!

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