[Applause] [Music] welcome to feminist Buzz kills the show that thinks the House of Representative needs a better HR department I'm Liz Winstead and as always I'm joined by my co-host Moji alod hey Buzz kills today we Premiere Johnson watch where each week will bring you all the unfolding creepiness about the most powerful Johnson in the House of Representatives and Moji and I look at the extra layer of Cruelty with these abortion banss mental health in States passing total banss or near total bands the mental health of the person seeking care is not an exception revealing yet again that the cruelty is indeed the point and Liz and I are going to talk about rage journalist and author Rebecca Tracer joins us to analyze who gets to have rage who doesn't and the rage we all feel about the Democrats lack of abortion strategy oh my God there is so much rage and comedian uni Kim joins to talk about her own rage about stuff like being a Korean mom who has been mistaken for an incel but first some updates from last week so last week we told you about a Colorado judge who ruled that fake clinics have the First Amendment right to promote the dangerous junk science of abortion reversal citing religious liberty this week Kansas judge says that that state cannot force doctors to promote abortion reversal because it's dangerous junk science two completely different takes from two completely different judges in one week this has scotus written all over it so stay tuned plus Missouri shuts Ashcraft down we've been following the shenanigans Missouri attorney general Jay Ashcraft who decided to write six parts of a reproductive Freedom ballot initiative to make it all scary inserting partial birth abortion language and other garbage well this week an appeals court smacked the pen out of ashcraft's hand and said all the anti-abortion Detroit as he added to the measure was partisan lied to voters about what the amendment was about and ruled basically to revert language back to the nutral language initially written of course Ashcraft is appealing now it doesn't look good for him but it's great to see the smackdown of a dishonest Liberty chimp wish they' done out in Ohio anyway now on to Johnson watch our limited or possibly unlimited series that each week brings you the latest creepy things about the undesirable Johnson currently holding the job of speaker of the house we're GNA bring Molly on to join us in this hey mul hey mul hello I am thrilled aren't you be here yes this week Twitter user receipt hav found a clip of Mike Johnson talking about a Christian AI accountability app he uses and Evan Hurst at wanek broke it down further it's called Covenant eyes Liz explain Covenant eyes Okay it shouldn't be confused with Covenant marriage which uh Mike Johnson's also in Covenant eyes is this app that tracks his internet use his keyword searches on every single device to make sure he's not accessing anything basically porn now when you use the app you choose an accountability buddy and okay and they get reports sent to each other about each other's usage and it's kind of this odd surveillance insanity and so if this app text anything that is nefarious it immediately sends uh like rapid response text or email or buzzing or I'm unclear what with a picture of the you don't have a sub swifting yet the person is viewing so that they can intervene in your terrible Behavior but as the commercial say don't listen to me let's hear how Mike Johnson sells it it scans every all the activity on your phone or your devices your laptop tablet what have you we do all of it and then it sends a report to your accountability partner so my account accountability partner right now is Jack my son right and so he's 17 so he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices once a week if anything objectionable comes up your accountability partner gets an immediate notice I'm proud to tell you my son is he's got a clean slate all right oh God okay where do we even start first of all when you're jerk bud is your 17-year-old son what is that about what in the underage they don't believe in boundaries I guess no boundaries isn't that like sexual harassment there's some underage issues happening I I don't know what the hell happened to Family Values but apparently it's Father and Son bonding over how much gay porn they don't watch now also it's a virtual circle jerk it's basically just like what what are you getting off on or not or not or hoping that you're gonna get something but also like this is a popular app like he was literally talking about this app on stage at his Baptist Church in a conversation about how to keep demons away and so I'm thinking that every Christian has this app on their phone with their accountability buddy and it's probably popping off like what like what if you're at a board meeting and just like your app just your accountability buddy is just like at the at you know leatherfest and it's like oh my God sounds like some non-consenting Kink stuff that like okay that's weird that's weird it is so weird and I've never heard of this before in my life and the fact that Mike Johnson was on stage sounding like you know not only am my client I'm also the owner like he sounded he had that kind of he was like look at my table I got flyers for you was his son at the conference like his poor son his son was probably watching porn at home yeah he's like quick I have an interval my burner phone my burner phone and like where are moms of Liberty like if your phone is popping off so much I think it becomes a masturbatory tool at some point I think that's the thing just keep just keep sending those messages so that your phone just becomes this like vibrating jerk off you know they probably have a special case for it that's like a Fleshlight so you can actually the phone also his son is 17 like 17 year olds deserve some privacy it is not great it is not great no no you got to have a digital chastity belt for all of your children no no no sex education just um a way to punish them if they ever get curious you know conservatives could have spent way more time doing research on Mike Johnson instead of like Hunter Biden's laptop which they were also searching for and watching his porn so I feel like this porn obsessed conservative um like just like fixation is so wild but that is just the beginning of Mike Johnson watch next week we're going to have a fabulous story about a son he may or may not have adopted unclear on Mike Johnson watch Molly thanks for joining us we're going to toss it over to you to take us through the steaming news dump this week absolutely always a pleasure to talk Johnson's with you welcome back to your steaming news dump because America is constipated with misogyny and someone's got to release it and that person is me first up the Washington Post reports that doctors in states with abortion bands are begging their hospitals for Clarity on when they can provide life-saving abortion and they're getting back a resounding new phone who is this means that the vaguely worded bands are working exactly as intended causing so much confusion that pregnant people end up getting teased right up onto the edge of death and you know call me oldfashioned but I think we should keep edging for orgasms in the bedroom and not for surviving in operating rooms here here here speaking of kingsters with a fetish for criminalizing doctors in Arizona the Mistress of justice is punishing them with a severe case of blue balls that's right a federal appeals court ruled that a group of Physicians can challenge the state's ban on abortions for genetic abnormalities yet again another vague law that threatens doctors with jail time look you know I don't like to Kink shame so if you get off on asking someone the reason they need an abortion just keep the cosplay for the dungeon and out of the discourse please do us all a favor I think that's fair good compromise Molly way to go here here reasonable compromise this last story is gonna make you seek out some serious after care the reproductive Justice group if when how has dropped massive study around abortion and who gets criminalized for it it's a mustre so uh listen to this this was interesting between 2 and 2020 61 people were criminally investigated or arrested for allegedly ending their own pregnancies or helping someone else do it and who is turning them in you ask turns out sadly it's medical providers people in their lives and Truth social user women are horse Patriots 69 he is prolific that's been your steaming news dump back to you guys thanks Molly thanks Molly oh my god well let's get into the stories we want to dive deeper into Moji kick us off all right so mental health challenges including suicide and substance abuse turn out they count for 23% of maternal deaths but that hasn't stopped 10 states with abortion bands from explicitly excluding mental health exceptions from their bands and these policies imply that mental health is far less important than physical health which is a dangerous form of discrimination don't you think this story I don't think a lot of people again it just proves when they create these bands either they're just trying to be cruel or they literally didn't think through or sometimes both it's definitely both yeah but I just feel like to not include mental health or to not Center mental health explicitly exclud it is really the part that gets in my goat and unexpectedly Alabama the king of criminal Iz in pregnancy does have a mental health exception in their ban and this is the only time you're ever going to hear me cheering for any part of Alabama Law so Relish in it yeah you know and as you said mental health conditions total for 23% of maternal deaths with an identified cause and here's what I just couldn't believe Moi as we were doing research because I was like is there politicians when they said they explicitly wanted to keep it out like did they say the quiet part out loud and sure enough in some states they did I was in Iowa which is one of these states where they argue to explicitly leave it out this representative Shannon lungren doubled down saying I would like to recognize that abortion isn't a treatment for mental illness and then she went on to say obviously if we have someone whose life is in danger a doctor should take an approach to make sure they immediately refer them to impatient care in Alabama they just jail them yeah but like to say abortion is not a treatment for mental illness that isn't the point the point is if you're somebody who has mental illness and have assessed for yourself that you don't have capacity for parenting you don't honor that you know if postpartum depression or psychosis is something that you are particularly predisposed to abortion is in fact a cure for your particular illness and one in five pregnant people have pregnancy or postpartum mental health conditions which actually matches up what the 23% of people you know pregnant people die because of these sort of inequities it's really concerning and just like in this world we live in where feelings over facts are constantly the dominant narrative like this is so harmful and I just want to say for people that don't know there was an extensive study that followed people for five years in their post-abortive journey and it was a study called the turnaway study and its whole purpose was to find out what were the mental health Health ramifications when people are turned away from abortion care and the two and there was unbelievable consequences serious consequences for people with night abortion care but they also found that 95% of the women who had abortions through that fiveyear post-abortive um space they were living said that abortion was the right decision for them even if they felt they had challenges around their abortion they felt it was the right decision for them so be mad abortion regret is a madeup thing it's not a thing that happens to most people right it's not a thing well also if you do regret your abortion it is a thing there's people that regret their abortions but that's not the society's problem it's not a thing we legislate around no it's not a thing we should legislate around no it absolutely is not I know and so you know speaking of just what Kens people into a state we have two states that are kining people into wildness that have elections coming up and they're using gaslighting to double down on lying about abortion we have elections coming up we have elections coming up all over but particularly in Ohio and Virginia when they go to the polls abortion is in fact on the ballot both Governors are getting highly involved in whatever is happening in their State's electoral place and they're pushing the larger talking points of the anti-abortion movement and trying for something really anything that will deliver an electoral win on abortion something that has not happened in this country since the Dub's decisions so let's start with Ohio in Ohio the voters will have an opportunity to enshrine Reproductive Rights into their constitution and while doing it thwart a six- we abortion ban that the state supreme court is already deliberating on so naturally Ohio anti-abortion activists and politicians are getting desperate and acting out actually recently governor dwine and his wife appeared in an ad encouraging people to vote no on Amendment one and this ad is a Whopper everywhere we go voters tell tell us they're confused about issue one so Fran and I have carefully studied it issue one would allow an abortion at any time during a pregnancy and it would deny parents the right to be involved when their daughter is making the most important decision of her life I know Ohioans are divided on the issue of abortion but whether you're pro-life or pro-choice issue one is just not right for Ohio voters are confused because you're lying to them so imagine abortion being the biggest decision in your life no I mean also like the Whoppers in this ad a it allows abortion up until birth so let's talk about what that means a that's not a thing and B the amendment explicitly says that it allows abortion up into this point of viability which is around 24 weeks that's actually in the amendment if you read it yeah and also we have to stop allowing this right-wing narrative that allowing abortion up until birth there's people who need abortions in their pregnancies in 28 weeks 30 weeks when something can go horribly wrong you know they paint it as though someone's going into labor and then they're you know having some ghoulish kind of abortion and it's really up but also that's not what this amendment does no at all it just it brings it up to viability basically remember roie Wade the thing where all pissed about that went away it basically falls into that tenant I mean I would argue that they should have done abortion up until anytime a person needed it but listen a win is a win is a win and restoring abortion rights or maintaining abortion rights in in Ohio will be a win the other lie they had is that parents have no say in their child's abortion well they do have a parental notification law in um Ohio right now A this amendment won't get rid of it and B they have a Judicial bypass so e even if things stay exactly as they are children who need abortions and don't feel that they are in a safe place to talk to their parents can indeed get around their parental notification law so how does this change anything exactly and I'm telling you if you are 14 and need an abortion you're normally finding a trusted adult who can help you because you don't have the kind of money and I'm somebody who had an abortion at 16 and couldn't tell their parents and I felt really grateful to be able to have it as we all know a safer than Tylenol or safer than things that teenagers can buy over the counter or safer than pregnancy especially if you're somebody whose reproductive parts are still developing like it can be incredibly hard to give birth as a teen so just shut the up Mike dwine also Mike dwine has been gaslighting Ohio forever I will never forget when we just launched um our organization and all of the videos that we talked about last week were launched out into the Forefront Mike dwine was leading the charge in Ohio talking about plan Parenthood selling baby parts and all this and he did a press conference where they did this exhaustive search about Planned Parenthood and all the clinics in Ohio to find out whether or not they were selling baby parts and he had to hold a press conference to say guess what they found nothing but here's this lie he threw in at this press conference because he couldn't just have a press conference saying oh I guess I was wrong here's what he said at the press conference dwine added his State investigators uncovered something he said was not Humane first cooking fetuses and then disposing them of them in a landfill is not Humane cooking fetuses oh were they doing that in Ohio were they were they doing that you know what they were doing sterilizing medical waste so that they could dispose of it properly not in a landfill not in a landfill why would you cook it and then put it in a landfill you know what I mean that's like ridiculous that's like you know what I'm going to do is wash up my garbage before I put it in the garbage no they were literally preparing to dispose of it the way that you do like you do any medical waste so again just showing up with the lies all the time Mike dwine it's unbelievable and this doesn't even talk about all the crazy crap that they're doing for this ballot amendment that they are going to vote on next week they are a I brought up before ignoring that this six we ban that is on the books that passed in 2019 isn't going to happen if Amendment one fails it will yeah they basically are saying if you vote no the status quo will remain in Ohio and abortions are at 22 weeks right now in Ohio so just you know give yourself time to think about it that is such the Supreme Court is imminently waiting to release their decision in Ohio to see how this ballot initiative plays out because if the people vote we want abortion codified the Supreme Court they're not gonna lay down a decision doesn't matter right have a decision it doesn't matter exactly exactly State unconstitutional yeah so that is such some vague where they're just like let's just pretend like this isn't happening but then Moji talk about what on the official website this is what's crazy this is cuckoo bananas you never seen this before well I've never seen this before politicians are using a government back backed blog to lie about the contents of amendment one and this is particularly Insidious because search engines prioritize government websites because it's expected that they'll give neutral unbiased opinions but when you go to their website you get things like among other things this amendment will give Planned Parenthood the right to make life and death decisions since when or this will allow genital mutilation of children without parental consent again where and how this is like really diving off the deep end of an accurate partisan speech and an for an online misinformation just stated bluntly that she'd never seen anything like this before like it's just devious well they also said that it was chopping up children while they were alive like it also said that and you're like what kind of ghoulish Halloween Horror flick is this I do feel like anti have to lead with this horror gross out thing that makes no well I guess it makes sense that's exactly what they're leading with it's the only way I've ever heard like pro-choice people be like oh but I'm still uncomfortable with these kind of abortions and it's like learn about these kind of abortions what happens on what they do and the thing is again they don't want to talk about is the anti-abortion movement is like in the bushes like lurking in the bushes with laws that are even if you can believe it bills that they've already written that are worse than the six week band right they're sitting there waiting with it's called an abolition Bill equal protection which means that life begins from fertilization till natural death whatever whatever that is right so there sitting there waiting that if for some reason the six we ban goes into effect and this amendment fails they're going to swing in hard with an even more Draconian bill that is all not just such dirty tricks talk about the dirtiest trick of all maybe oh the dirtiest trick of all is just before the deadline closed to re-register or to register the Secretary of the State just quietly purged 27,000 voters from the roles 27,000 voters were just removed from the roles with with no announcement which is normally what they do they actually do this purging but they usually do it with a lot more time for a person to look up and be like oh shoot I was purged let me go re-register there was no time to do that no and he didn't announce it no there's such a there's such a mess with all of it and that is the way that the tricks just keep on coming and they they are so freaked out we opened up the Pandora's Box what happened us as advocates force the issue put it in front of people people understood their relationship to abortion and aren't having any of it and they don't know what to do except these dirty tricks and we talked about Virginia also having uh election on Tuesday as well yeah and in Virginia governor Ying is also personally jumping in to turn the gas light all the way up to 11 claiming his party isn't pursuing a ban at all right not at all as in not at all junkan pack is spending $ 1.4 million on ads claiming his party isn't pushing for a ban now Virginia has different Stakes on Tuesday um what's going on in Virginia on Tuesday is every single seat in the Virginia state house is up for election and Glenn yunan as a republican the governor if the Republicans gain a trifecta they're going to move to pass a 15-week abortion ban and why this is scary is just to give you some context Virginia is the last state in the South not to restrict abortion at or before 12 weeks and as we're waiting for the Florida Supreme Court to rule on their 15we abortion ban which if Florida Supreme Court upholds that ban that means 30 days from the ruling that rule will turn into a six-week ban because the legislature and the governor already signed a bill for a six we ban so we're in a Southern mass that is really could be really scary Governor Yan is is being touted as this moderate with this 15-week ban and they're trying to conservatives are trying to reframe a 15we ban as some sort of compassionate compromise when we know that a 15we abortion ban is an abortion ban it's not a reasonable compromise but they're looking for talking points that will let them win elections again ever since the dobs decision has gone into effect every time abortion is on the ballot abortion wins and so they're trying to find a way to talk to moderates and to talk people into thinking that they are not trying to take away their right and that's our job to like educate people and these politicians do not seem to want to hear from and you can see the media and you can see politicians buying into this narrative that yeah that seems reasonable you've got three months to get your abortion and to understand not taking into account that people need to get money for their abortions people don't have money they need to travel if you don't have regular periods sometimes you don't even know you're pregnant until eight weeks in like none of this is reasonable not to mention what is the line America that you say this is the week that you're Buy body no longer becomes your own and becomes what the government tells you it's going to become if you think there's a line for yourself you tell me what that is because I don't believe it I don't believe that anybody no government should decide at what week your body no longer becomes your own also these 15we bands push people into later abortions because a where are they going to get abortions how are they going to get money to get there where are the clinics that are open when your whole region has banned abortion exactly and when you think about that region if for Virginia you know goes the other way and then Florida that means you literally have a swath from the southern tip of Florida all the way up to Washington DC where there is no access to abortion some states have six weeks but it's really a mess and so as please pay attention on next Tuesday for the Ohio ballot Initiative for how the um whole state house elections go in Virginia because it really really matters and as always all these stories and the stories Molly talked about will be in the show notes and you can find the best most up- to-the-minute resources on accessing abortion care and funding your care on our website aaf front.org Our Charlie chatbot is on the bottom right corner and we'll walk anyone anywhere in the country through their options for resources for abortion all right joining us now to continue some of this conversation is one of the foremost Authorities on us abortion policy sexism and justifiable rage she's a journalist and author with two New York Times bestsellers please welcome Rebecca Tracer hey Rebecca hi it's so nice to be here so great of you to join us oh my God so great to see you and I haven't seen you in 100 100 years and I'm so excited yeah me too so Rebecca a few weeks ago we were on a panel organized by the new Republic and it included Joan Walsh Erin Carmen incredible women and we were talking about abortion and the presidential race and to summarize something you said really eloquently you said politicians have been given a gift from citizen-led movements when we're passing ballot initiatives repeatedly and the public is declaring their support for abortion access pretty loudly and proudly yet politicians have run away from the issue for so long they have no Playbook to campaign effectively on this issue so are democratic politicians aware of how unprepared they are for this moment no they are not well it really depends on which Democratic politicians because one of the crucial things you have to understand about I think both parties but the ratic party is where it's super dysfunctional right now is that the generational divide between leadership and the people coming up within the party is so vast yeah and you know we don't need to get into this but I do think there's something about how on the Republican side all the oldsters on the Republican side look at the extreme conservatism of the youth like the the tea party for example and all those guys McCain McConnell they were like great we're going right these young people the future wants to go right we're g to we we have the controls we know to how to steer that ship we're going to steal the Supreme Court seat and we're going to make the road for them okay meanwhile on the left the leadership class and people who have been in power for literally like five decades look at the young people and they're like those are our activist enemies like they actually treat their the younger generation as a force to be fought off not as the future that they want to like help pave a path for okay so that's I think there's a crucial party difference both parties are run by a gerontocracy but the Democrats treat younger people with different ideas about how to govern and what it might mean to be a Democrat as if they are the enemy whereas the right treats them like the extreme right-wing as if it's the future so what we have and I don't I don't want to be agist about it because there are certainly older people within the party including Barbara Lee who is been talking eloquently about abortion for years and in fact who prior to the Dos decision prior to roow prior to the Trump to Trump's election introduced the each Act formerly known as the each Woman Act in part in response to an A young activist movement All Above All reproductive Justice Young reproductive Justice Advocates who pointed out that Democrats hadn't been fighting fiercely against the freaking height Amendment over a period of decades and they found their audience with Barbara Lee who obviously has been in office for a long time has been a righteous member of the democratic party for a long time and has been holding down the left end of that caucus for a long time and told her own abortion story yeah and who more recently told her own abortion story very beautifully and very powerfully um so I don't want to make this about age but it is absolutely true that there was a fantasy I think by a lot of people who were very like the the people who are like don't be hysterical who are like don't worry we'll just return to where we were where we were was total dysfunction and in fact Democratic Leadership truly in 1972 I've written about this there was lot of the women's movement broadly defined at that point was pushing for there to be a national plank on legalization of abortion 1972 that election and a lot of feminists actually ironically enough decided not to support Shirley chism's candidacy for the presidency because they figured she didn't actually have a chance of winning never mind that Charley Chisum was speaking fluently beautifully powerfully on abortion rights she was the honorary first co-chair of Nal so much of what her work was was around had to do with reproductive justice issues they instead decided that they could get leverage from the guy who was going to be the candidate George McGovern and so they forsook Shirley chism's candidacy decided to support George McGovern and George McGovern them over at the 1972 Democratic Convention not only by not supporting an abortion plank but by having an anti-abortion activist speak from the floor so they got screwed and that was the summer of 1972 and then in January of 1973 we get row obviously a Supreme Court decision that that sort of takes care of it temporarily I was gonna say that phrase is doing a lot of work here I know I I I wanna I want to signal that I understand that that is the fantasy version of what Ro did but it was a federal you know it was it was federal law and at that point the legislative fight for legalization was ended right and and in fact because it was such a surprise decision and such a felt I think to a lot of people who were still really working out their positions around this felt like a radical shift and it was a radical shift in law across the country the Democratic party didn't treat it as something that needed to be improved upon protected at all costs that was going to be fought against they were like oh well that's done boy we don't have to worry about that meanwhile Reagan and the the the Unholy Coalition of the of Christian conservatism and economic conservatism that got embodied by like what would become the rean presidency in 1980 the right-wing starts forming itself around this there were still Republicans who were who were actually fighting amazingly like against Hyde one of the people who fought most vociferously against Hyde was Bob pacwood oh yeah pansy Bob pacwood yes Moji do you remember do you do you have I have only the slightest memory of Bob p no memory of Bob P oh oh so having having family in Oregon I can tell you Bob pacwood was probably the most one of the most socially Liberal Republicans from Oregon had to be Oregon you know it's like being a Rockefeller in New York and it was all well and good till Bob pacwood started chasing his AIDS around his desk and was unceremoniously left office right he had to literally resigned for both harassment and I believe assault charges yeah wasn't great boy was he a righteous defender of abortion rights and thought vociferously against the height Amendment so in the category of people are complicated Bob pacwood but the right did begin to to Really organize around an anti-abortion stance so you had lots of Republican politicians from Reagan who had signed a liberal abortion law in California in 1967 to George HW Bush of course the bushes had historically been a huge supporter of Planned Parenthood I don't want to leave off here some of the troubling connections between right-wing politics and Eugenics and support of reproductive Healthcare but I do want to say that there was a lot of tune changing on the Republican Party because they understood that they were going to get a base vote on this and that they could organize themselves around this in the meantime Democrats were like that's a yucky thing that we don't have to worry about anymore because it's done never mind that a couple years later you actually get hied which of course makes abortion all but inaccessible to poor people and also Henry Hyde also unceremoniously had you know women on his lap that were not his wife having Affairs you know that the hypocrisy is but you know one thing that I wanted to just throw in quickly Rebecca before you go on is the fact that not only were Democrats like okay we're good that's how we got all these zombie laws that stayed on the books that we are now still fighting you know with all these opportunities States didn't do and Americans didn't vote in midterms well and talk about States not doing another thing that really that isn't directly abortion aligned but that has everything to do with how we got here is that part of how Republicans organized after the series of defeats that they suffered right so the victories of the social movements of the mid- 20th century certainly around Reproductive Rights and access around gay rights civil rights um you know the the union protections and expansions of the of the new deal right and all of those losses that conservatism suffered and then got realigned around a new modern Republican Party part of what Republicans did was organized on a state and a local level they cared they understood that a pipeline to power me taking over state legislatures which meant Schoolboard seats city council seats State Legislative seats right Governor's mansions and they've been doing that over decades they built a Judicial pipeline to make baby conservative justices and shoot them into the world okay they also were willing to lose I mean you know how many times they tried to pass laws to defund Planned Parenthood and they lost and they lost and they lost and they lost and they lost they didn't run from their losses they understood that by fighting for these personhood amendments that were voted down right even in conservative states that but they were signaling a base that they were willing to fight for something Democrats were doing the exact opposite thing in every way they they totally forsook state and local politics they did not think it was sexy they did not invest in local politics thereby letting Republicans Take Over States where they controlled not only laws around reproduction but the voting roles gerrymandering redistricting all of the things that that we're dealing with right now make democracy almost impossible right now impossible I mean half of our abortion fights now are like laws that passed in the 90s and the 2000s exactly and when on some level again a willingness to lose to say you know this isn't going to go into effect now but maybe you know someday so there was a real organiz organizational difference and there was nobody doing this kind of work over decades so what you have is a generation of politicians who are still in power right there is it is absolutely a j coate right and they don't have any practice with the exceptions like Barber Le right and Rebecca you let us perfectly into what we wanted to talk about because if you cannot articulate the moral good the community good of abortion there is no way we're moving the needle forward Because unless politicians can articulate what US activists do and by the way they never talk to us they talk to prognosticators and people in the horse race and all this other they won't do it so what do they gain from not talking to us in this moment so that they can bring forth an empathy in the moment that everybody who's had abortions and people who know people who've had abortions are leading the conversation and the politicians are not so I don't think that the politicians gain anything and you have to we have to understand that there is an entire class of like political Consultants who were also became political consultants and became highly paid in the era in which the Democratic party policy was we don't talk about it or we use a euphemism like Choice and then we try to talk about something else as soon as possible Right those people are literally invested their livings are made by coaching politicians to stay away from this lightning rod issue right and those are the people the horse race people the Consultants are the people who a certain generation of Democrats listen to because they have been like you know they just believe that these are the people who know how to make them win never mind that we in fact have lost and lost and lost and lost but there is a generation of people who speak differently about this and by the way who I think also do listen to activists right and you can recognize them because the Democratic Leadership casts them as activists right you know Squad members and doesn't back them up no of course not and in fact cast them out you know whenever all the time you can listen to Ayanna Presley you can listen to Corey Bush and not a squad member and in fact somebody considerably more toward the center Gretchen Whitmer is a great example of somebody who speaks about this fluently and with ease and in fact her entire like the the Democratic party leadership in the state of Michigan which is a great example of how to do this they're all doing it differently and there is a generation of people who are coming at this differently and I think are winning whitmer's victory in Michigan and in fact the Democratic Victory as a whole in 2022 it was attached to an actual referendum about the state law about a trigger law that would have gone into effect and so there was high turnout Whitmer and all of the Democrats who were running with her were coached by those Consultants to not emphasize abortion it was going to be a dying issue it was going to not you know and they resisted it because they actually knew themselves and had the confidence to say this is a resonant issue for voters they were out there talking to voters they overrode that and a thing that I want to point to something that Whitmer does that I think is very rare and I think that everybody could learn from is she integrates abortion as part of the larger fabric now anybody who's paid attention to activism knows that this is what the reproductive Justice movement is all about literally foundationally right that you cannot Silo abortion off in its own little icky corner or its own fetishized corner right that in fact it is tied to access to health care to other civil rights protections to housing policy to education to child care to paid leave to all these kinds of policies to to to Union protections labor issues all of that Whitmer does that I I don't want to say she sounds like a republican but she sounds like a very classic politician she does it as a pro business business pit she understands the relationship between abortion restrictions and restrictions on gender affirming healthare and trans issues she she seamlessly connects lgbtq protections with reproductive protections and then presents it as part of a pro business pitch that is also ultimately about family values it's like it's like watching like an ice skater right except it shouldn't be that hard because it's so obvious she says bring your businesses to Michigan don't stay in these states that are going to not let you and your family live the lives you want to live and aren't going to aren't going to let you be free come here bring your company here and then your workers are going to be here and your kids are going to want to stay here so Grandma and Grandpa you get to be with your grandkids right she's doing all these things that it has been somehow very difficult for Democrats to do when it shouldn't be I mean this is something permilla jaipal talks about this too that the right has like gobbled up the language of family values of faith of freedom of patriotism when I obviously all of those things are very much on the side of Reproductive Rights Justice access all of it and we could all be using those words and I think that you want to look for the politicians who understand that this is a pro- family pitch so glad you brought that up too because I think it dub sales into another question we had which is why is it that the media keeps repeating these right-wing talking points or and using them to like justify things like these 12we bands these 15we bands or like using abortion is tragedy porn like what does the media need to know as well everything that we're talking about because the media the media is not is not made of different stuff than a Democratic party establishment right where do you think they're getting the numbers for the horse race stuff it's from a media that thinks political coverage is like a an election needle but where we're just predicting and then basing again the thing I said earlier about Republicans willingness to lose I think horse race political media and I cover political races right I don't want to separate myself from this I work in this industry I'm sure I've been guilty of many of these sins right though I really try not to be in part because I don't think this is a game or a race or anything that you like score people's lives but this is a political horse race media while telling itself that the correct journalistic stance is objective and distant okay which is horeshit by the way but also has made all of this so distant lives in a bubble of privileges and protections like the number of people in my own profession who truly believed that row was sufficient a that it was not imperil but B that as long as it stood abortion was legal the only way you can believe that is if in fact you yourself do not encounter challenges is true of so much if you do not encounter challenges getting Healthcare if you do not encounter challenges getting accessing contraception or abortion care if you yourself do not encounter strong big challenges in terms of accessing child Child Care um if you yourself get paid leave if you don't have any problem voting right like that's pretty much the only way in which you can believe that all those protections had not even before the gutting of the Voting Rights Act even before the overturn of row that these things had not become Battlegrounds and that people weren't encountering those challenges so the fact that people treated row as a settled law and was it was only it was a hysterical position to suggest that it was imperiled and who didn't acknowledge that even while Rose stood there were vasas of this country that did not have access to abortion care I mean that that is the mainstream political media and I'm a part of it right I'm not I'm not trying to to throw stones at it with without acknowledging that I am in this ecosystem and I have my platform is because of it right you know as we look at this right-wing shift to try to normalize 12we bands and 15we bands as though that's some kind of compromise you know we do have an opportunity to hold the media accountable for all that but like you know I wanted to get into rage because at this point we've been gaset for so long that our rage was not justified and that um our rage was not we weren't entitled to it so I wanted to just shift a little bit while still talking about this to talk about how our rage ties in and where do you think we are at like a fivepoint scale of like zero being they don't give us any entitlement to our rage and five being finally Society understands and accepts our rage where are we at at this moment well in part we are probably at different places because two of us are white and one is black so that makes a real difference which is not to say that white women's rage so white women's rage it's not quite as easy to say like oh it's it's accepted and everybody Embraces it that is not the case it is mocked it's dismissed as wine mom right like dumb stupid Suburban white lady stuff it is deployed when that rage is on behalf of a power system so all the white moms out there trying to keep critical race Theory and you know mentions of racism out of their school libraries that kind of rage is in fact given a spotlight and taken very seriously when white women's rage is directed toward a power system then it is either highly mockable intellectually unserious or unsexy there's a definite unsex of it I feel like our former president loved to talk about how unsexy super ugly and nobody like nobody wants to date that crazy who's always yelling right black women's rage Brown women's rage is treated as dangerous the source of comedy and entertainment right like a caricature um you know a a neck snapping character but it is also very quickly turned into something monstrous and dangerous and you can see that all the time in terms of the expression of when black women Express anger it is also true you know one of the things that I wrote about and and talked to a lot of people about that black women are assumed to be angry even in instances where they're not expressing anger all the time I feel like all of my black women friends of which I have several it's like oh it's almost like you can't raise your voice or you are that angry black woman right yeah even if someone's rolling their car on your foot right and I was going to say like what about when you are angry a lot right like and it to to consider somebody already a stereotype of anger is to rob that anger of any power yeah and any agency and agency and you know and I kind of sometimes look at how rage is accepted in in in the parallels of how accepted for example like men love the woman who invented spanks she's a gillionaire no man wanted to invented spanks good for her she's in her Lane but if you want to be president and you want to have your power that way so it's kind of like do you want to have power to use it to help guide everyone's lives or just women's lives or specific things you know it's like when is it acceptable and when it isn't the whole thing is just rage B phap raging for the patriarchy was beloved so oh beloved right and Nikki Haley in her own way would be beloved I got to say like I don't know that we're going to get there unless you know anything could H truly truly Anything could happen at this point but you know if you'd asked me 10 years ago I would have told you I would have truly pre Hillary pre you know I would have told you that Nikki Haley was likely to be our first female president I really hope that this is something I'm super wrong about in the long run but I'm not sure I can we can say I'm wrong yet but the metric for me and this go to your Spanx example is that think about that rage and a power structure and who's in the top and who's in the bottom and then think about where power and rage are directed if you're a woman and if so the Spanx inventor who is super powerful by making women's bodies conform to stereotypes that they're supposed to conform to right that's definitely working on behalf of a patriarchal a white patriarchal capitalist power structure making a lot of money by making women suck their bellies in okay so she's awesome the women who are challenging that system and when you think of what direction power moves in are moving Against the Grain those women their power and their anger are going to be rendered problematic hysterical comical dangerous or monstrous and that's how you that's how you figure out which which way you get cast is what is your relationship to how power works oh my God Rebecca we have to wrap up will you come back and talk talk to us again about rage and about power because you are literally one of my favorite public thinkers and you're just the best and I'm so happy that you joined us because you just dropped so many knowledge bombs that I kind of can't believe it thank you so much for having me oh my God so great thank you thank you for joining us Rebecca you can check out her work at New York Magazine the cut or you can read her latest book The Mad and the bad well as you know we cannot do the work of this podcast without the tireless support of our fake sponsors Emoji can you tell us about this week's Advertiser hey Bible believing women loving Christian guys you're probably always asking how can you protect yourself and your home from the siren song 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had a commercial for uh from the people from covenant eyes they're listening to PO they were trying to get in really early they were like these are our people and we want them to know who we are and care my God I feel like this is a great transition to our next guest she's a Chicago based comedian improviser and host of the podcast two Kim's onep pod she also knows a thing or two about rage listen up I have friends with a lot of young people that are like very Progressive right and they're constantly railing about the Insidious nature of casual racism trauma and immigrant rights it kind of makes me feel like they don't know any immigrant moms cuz no one is inflicting more trauma and engaging in more casual racism than immigrant moms my mom only describes my friends by their ethnicity and the physical trait they are most insecure about please welcome uni Kim hi thank you for joining us hi so we just had this incredible conversation with Rebecca Tracer about just about rage and especially women's rage and how Society actually where we're at on the scale of like how it accepts our rage does it accept our rage and we're full of Rage as we come to you I think people are always surprised by how angry I am given how I look you me because you're short I'm very small I'm I'm bobblehead you know what I mean like I'm very small stick and then huge head so but I I do think that people are surprised by the tenor of my rage it is the Rage of a woman but it's interesting that you were talking about she's trying to justify it it never occurred to me to justify because it feels so evident why women should be allowed to be angry and I think when you said that it struck aord with me because I am very fascinated by male rage it's the reason why my Tik Tac algorithm is all incels Tik Tac 100% thinks I'm an Asian incel and it's a it's a bit I'm doing it right now on stage about how Tik toac thinks I'm an Asian incel that loves watching white women get ready and it's very specifically like it's bizarre and I think it's I love watching male anger my favorite things when I'm um like anxious or depressed I have a YouTube playlist that I like to watch until it calms me down and it's all like it's Christian Bale screaming on that Sound Stage the Alec Baldwin White Men Behaving Badly yes Tomlin won as well yes the hes guy on set oh yes um uh Alec Baldwin screaming at his daughter do you have step Crowder screaming at his wife do you have that one no oh my God Steven Crowder yelling at his wife and it's caught on their ring oh my god oh his pregnant wife yeah yes his pregnant wife she's like 11 months pregnant she wants to go to the store and he's like having this wild uh Covenant marriage meltdown that is you got oh my God I'm so glad I could bring you a new so much my my like nipples are hard the way that you're describing it I'm like that is so erotic like I love that I mean it is there's a part of it because it's such naked rage that is I mean and all of these a lot of these are happening in intimate moments or in workplaces like with people that you're trying to get along with and they're allowed and permitted and granted tacid permission to behave this way yeah and I think something about that is very enticing to me for me I started doing comedy because it was a vehicle to bring humor to my rage to stage and I think that a lot of marginalized folks queer folks women would co-sign on that being one of the catalysts would you say you're in that camp Oh you think things were going good and that's why I'm doing comedy well you did start doing comedy at 30 weeks pregnant um so what was life before that that you're like I'm going to try this as the next step also like while so pregnant because I had a child and I think 30 weeks is when I stopped doing everything and you're here picking up new skills oh well I mean I was doing improv for a long time and then you know this is a different time I I I think it would be less weird now but when I started there was just everyone was 25 and a dude and impr I just like audiences didn't want to see a 30 eight week lady chasing her dreams do you know what I mean yeah you think they do now I don't know I just I maybe like the scene is they're just like it just feels different now I I think they would allow for that sort of difference just at the time people were just like this lady needs to go home and it was the last second City audition I ever did like I was also heavily pregnant like they asked you a non improv fact about you that you could talk talk about at the top of the audition and my non- improv fact about me was I was two cmers dilated the room like they were like like oh no people like the connection between um like how little people understood about the women's I I'm sure 100 like men in that room thought the baby was going to fall out of me yeah how big is a centimeter they were all like can I Google centimeter yes like I'm not shoving her back but because I'm unwell like I just want I needed the time and the that space I booked a gig for six weeks postpartum postpartum of my due date okay and I was a week late because it was my first so and I did that gig let's talk about that I need to unpack that with you yeah also I was so tired at five weeks tell me more about this energy you crazy I was leaking through my shirt like it was crazy I had to put in those thing it was crazy I don't know why I did it I think I was so afraid of losing momentum because you know there's so often times inside of comedy and any creative work everyone is telling you no and there's so much um inertia and uh obstacles so any momentum is very easily lost so I just was so terrified of that I think I made that you know if I I didn't do that postpartum I knowing my future self and how lazy I am I may set that date and I just went I I think because you know in that time your body is just operating in autopilot so I was like I guess this is on my calendar I gotta go like it it didn't occur to me not to uh you know White supremacy's Foundation is that you can't even differentiate what's urgent anymore and also that fear of if you do not show up you will be forgotten forever or if you don't do this everything has this equal urgent way especially in a field that is still dominated by white dudes who your value is judged by whether or not your life experience is interesting to them yes that is a whole crazy bath that we chose to do we pick pit you guys just walk into it as adult women with other options yeah it it is strange to have so much of your life evaluated in this way not evaluated like um with kindness but with like weights and measures right this amount of trauma Garners this with because you have this you're allowed you you can give um you know you can pitch me something you can write a pilot about that but not about this like everything is Quantified and codified in a way that has is divorced from your lived experience right so it's really cified in a way to put you into a box that gets smaller and smaller unless less meaningful to you you're like I guess I guess this is the part where I'm selling the bisexual line through line in my story like or this is when I'm talking about how like my immigrant you know and none of it is none of it can be packaged in a way you where you are allowed to be yourself especially if you're at all deviating from the norm right like currently you know as people of color or like so much of our stories are being sold in packaged in these like small little easily digestible packets and pellets so like you have to be very careful I don't know it's it's something that I'm as I get deeper into show business I'm like brother like I I don't know if I have the stomach to repackage my story meat this way yeah you know we when we were just talking with Rebecca we were talking kind of about this very thing where it's like they'll accept you and your power if you stay in a lane that they don't want to be in right you know and if you want to expand out of that lane you know then it's then it's a whole conversation then you're a threat then it's a whole thing what if you wanted to play you know y Yago in like what if you wanted to do a role that that's just like out there roles are roles stories that you want to tell of being of your Humanity or even stories you want to tell of your immigrant life that don't fit a narrative they want to hear about immigrant life it's wild to me how we have to force our authenticity I mean especially when we talk about rage so much of my immigrant experience is filled with that you said that in your comedy in the clip that we've rolled in when you came in we want I wanted to I wanted to ask you about that because immigrant moms are some Next Level it seems like and it's specifically within the Korean culture it's a concept called Han and it's a very post-modern postcolonial idea where it's like an elic sort of relationship we have a Bittersweet relationship we have to our rage and there is sort of no word for it but it's a rage but it's also sad you know and like that is a big through line in at least my family story because it's they're an immigrant family where like didn't really work out I was explaining this to one of my friends it's like my parents are addicted to financial ruin it is something I have inh it from them I I am trying to get into recovery but I'm addicted to it what can I say and in the 90s when they they signed NAFTA my father's like business all that manufacturing went to Mexico my parents got caught up into 2008 2009 like the building thing they uh got swindled by country ride they got part of the settlement forced into a bankruptsy lost her house and so things didn't work out but they what's crazy is they really don't hate America they're hate themselves oh that's capitalism that is 100% capitalism that forces you to hate yourself because you don't succeed in a structure that was not made for you it's crazy and it's like and when I see online all of the sort of um outrage from like specifically that incel Community I'm like this was kind of built for you it's this it's your fubo it's for you by you like you know yes this is kind of operating you know this is for you and that it's even it's not even sustaining that like it's crushing those that it was once made by and for and so like when I see that and I look at my parents I feel such sadness for them that they can't you know be uh feel relief from that shame right as you're talking I'm thinking about how white male rage is being externalized in a way I remember growing up one of my parents if like you know you be walking around and a panhandler would like ask you for money and whenever it was a white man my mother would be like I have three black children here like this is your structure how dare you ask me for money like you how can you not like come on now and I'm like oh but now you know 20 30 I'm older than that so maybe 40 years later they're just like we're going to rage on YouTube at everyone else because the structure that was built for us doesn't work for us either but also with the incels when you create your own personal structure of being profoundly unfuckable and then you blame it on everyone else and it's a movement it's like you Choice privil are unfuckable privileged wow I think about this all the time and I was telling one of my friends as a mother a son I feel like I have two goals one that he doesn't rape anybody and two that in 30 years that I don't there's not some lady who's really mad at me you're saying you don't want a daughter-in-law that's what I mean I don't want her to be pissed at me because there's there's sometimes when I'm looking at my husband just being like being so stupid that I get piss at his mom you know what I mean where I'm like where did what happened like how did she tell you how to do this I'm going to lighten up just a little bit because you are so fascinating and dynamic can you tell us what's basic about you yeah because I'm like we've like gone deep and I'm like okay just what what's your Starbucks order or something you know okay I was asking my friend this and she she was like the most basic thing about us is that we are both attracted to men and it is that is really lame as a fellow yeah that's that's really lame I would say the most basic thing about I am very into like it's it's actually so embarrassing but I'm really into teen romance movies like I'm not they're they cannot be good it is literally it has to be like where it gets like 13y old girls wet like that's the thing like I like that feeling in movies TV shows do you watch the Outer Banks I have seen the and yes that is the what I like same I Riverdale I went wild for I feel like I was the only person on staff not watching Riverdale I also don't understand why and I maybe it is it goes back to that like feeling when you're like this feels like I have to go to the bathroom but not really I call it I call it loin poles loin poles Lally it's like is that is that tugging at heartstrings is literally it's so sex it's erotic but it is not sexual like it's um it's I I like watching Jealousy on screen and I enjoy watching desire and it's not explicit in any of these things usually sometimes it is and that's fine but it's all the tension I enjoy it's the same reason why I think kramas are so popular it is 100% just like it's the look it's the you know Pride and Prejudice the original BBC had it a ton of that too like I that's the most basic thing about me it's like I like looking at honestly I'm 41 so these are these a lot of these actors are old enough to be my child you know what I mean and it wouldn't have been like a tragedy or anything like it been like oh like I'm like a Mormon mom sort of thing and like it is so embarrassing like I've watched the kissing booth so often truly a horrible movie I do not recommend anyone watch it unless you enjoy that loin pull I just put it onto my queue as we're talking I love that you have a phrase for it too you and this has so fun we have to wrap it up but can you talk a little bit about what's happening with you right now where can people find you tell folks where they can have the full experience okay so I I usually don't ever say anything and don't plug because again I'm addicted to financial ruin relatable but I actually have a show coming up November 16th in Chicago at the Lincoln Lodge my podcast partner and I are doing a live taping of our podcast two Kims one POD at the Lincoln Lodge on November 16th and we'll be out in La December 16th at the lyric Hyperion we're going to be in Chicago in August to some up at the DNC oh my gosh so maybe you'll want to come out and join us and have a little fun oh absolutely yeah I love it this is really fun very easy thank you guys oh my gosh thank you so much bye bye follow all of her shenanigans on the best uni andthe best.com thanks uni and thanks again to Rebecca Tracer and before we get to all of our business on a personal note Moji and I want to just pay tribute to a great member of our movement that we tragically lost this week Andrea Miller who was the president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health she was a fellow Minnesotan tireless warrior in our movement she worked at the ACLU she was one of the founders of the Center for Reproductive Rights and during her tenure at the National Institute for Reproductive Health they have done incredible work on the ground state by state fighting these laws we were honored to work in partnership with them on operation save abortion on so many of our projects one of our first funders they even early on honored us with one of their champions of Choice Awards so Andrea Miller you will be sorely missed uh rest and power friend we will carry on your legacy with heart and determination you will be so deeply missed thank you everyone so much for listening and if you want to keep listening like subscribe and show us some love with a five-star rating and stay connected on social media at abortion front let's make a difference and let's have some fun doing it speaking of fun we've partnered with Works in progress LA on a groovy Textile Art piece proceeds benefit abortion access front link to buy is in our show notes and and looking for where you might fit in to do some abortion activism I mentioned it before it's the five-part training series operation save abortion at operations saave abortion.com and if you hit over there you'll also find our super cool activist calendar which is chalk full of local National actions and educational opportunities one of the featured events coming up on the calendar New Yorkers Wednesday November 8th at 630 head over to caveat on the Lower East Side or hop online to stream my body my voice Longs for safe access the event is an intimate evening of Music storytelling and solidarity for Reproductive Justice featuring upand cominging singer songwriters proceeds from the event will support the Bridget Alliance more information can be found on our activist calendar or on the event website links in the show notes next week we are dark but join us the following week for a special episode with bestselling author of white fragility Robin D'Angelo and self- Prest liberal redneck comedian Trey Crowder to help us navigate the tough conversations happening around the family dinner table over the holidays I can't wait for this I feel like everybody runs away in horror instead of like being able to like work out some at the table so that's going to be a super great episode if you like what we do please support us by joining our patreon you'll get great content and cool merch and you'll get experiences all the pledges support this pot and our activism at abortion access front pledge at patreon.com feminist buzzkills fbk is edited by Remy detor and is produced by abortion access front finally we leave you with the host of Fox's outkick Charlie Arnold a woman who's showing us her whole ass and the fact that she's never heard of water treatment [Music] facilities my biggest piece of advice ladies for the love of God stop drinking tap water tap water is effectively birth control because it has birth control in it because well it's just how it goes women pee and they are peeing out their medication so yes men also you need to definitely listen up this is a big heads up for you because also this estrogen in the water that you are drinking the tap water is also going to mess with your hormones feminist buzzkills the podcast from abortion access front new episodes drop Friday when be us is popping we pop off and if you want to support our podcast and all the work of abortion access front like subscribe and join our patreon at patreon.com feminist buzzkills