2907 - The Politics of the IRA w/ Heather Digby Parton & Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou

It's Casual Friday! Sam hosts Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo, to round up the week in news. Then, Sam is joined by Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, candidate for Congress in New York's 10th Congressional District, to give an update from the campaign trail ahead of next Tuesday's primary. First, Sam walks through a South Carolina legislator’s revelation that actually his 6-week fetal heartbeat bill actually CAN put literal teenagers through bodily horror and incredible danger, forcing his hand on the legislature’s upcoming totalistic abortion ban… to recuse his vote. Then, Digby joins as she and Sam dive right into the passing of Manchin’s Inflation Reduction Act as a scaled-back form of Biden’s Build Back Better, walking through the frustrating and INSTITUTIONALLY dysfunctional process that lead to this quarter-sandwich of a bill, and situating whether this counts as getting something done for the Democrats heading into the midterms. They also run through the positives of the bill, including opening up medicare negotiations for prescription drug prices, why it importantly opens up the ability to create price benchmarks even if there’s no immediate impact for non-medicare patients, before exploring why, despite this, Democrats still need to take on culture war issues like abortion, fascism, and trans rights if they want to keep their steam heading into the midterms. Next, they shift to the topic of Liz Cheney, exploring her unsurprising loss in the Wyoming primaries, her recent history of citing Democrats’ abortion policy as baby “killing fields,” and how, despite all of this, she’s still achieved the status of “Deified republican,” before wrapping up with a conversation on the Mar-a-Lago raids, and how the FBI knew exactly where to look for Trump’s classified documents. Then, Sam is joined by congressional candidate for NY-10 Yuh-Line Niou, exploring how she made a name for herself in a race with three mainstream progressives, the importance of running in a district that represents the entirety of her assembly district, and what sets her apart from her corporate rival Dan Goldman (there’s a lot). They wrap up their interview by taking on the topics of abortion rights (Dan’s biggest weak point), getting NY real estate money out of politics (also a weak point for Dan), and the roles of housing and climate policy in her campaign (okay, this one is another of Dan’s many weak points). Check out Digby's work at Salon here: https://www.salon.com/writer/heather_digby_parton Check out Yuh-Line's campaign here: https://www.nioufornewyork.com/ Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app Check out today’s sponsors: Sunset Lake CBD: sunsetlakecbd is a majority employee owned farm in Vermont, producing 100% pesticide free CBD products. Great company, great product and fans of the show! Use code Leftisbest and get 20% off at http://www.sunsetlakecbd.com. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattBinder @MattLech @BF1nn @BradKAlsop Check out Matt’s show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder - https://majorityreportradio.com/