A complete recount of ballots from the 2020 election is underway in Maricopa County, where Arizona Senate Republicans still question the results of the general election. There’s no timeline or budget for the manual audit, and election experts say this effort is highly prone to errors.
Guest: Andrew Oxford, reporter for the Arizona Republic.
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Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Davis Land, Danielle Hewitt, Elena Schwartz, and Carmel Delshad.
Some colleges and universities have announced that COVID vaccination will be mandatory (with some exemptions) and the FDA has authorized the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 12 to 15. While coronavirus infections are declining in the United States, vaccination rates also appear to be slowing down, so pediatricians and public health officials say they're trying to spread the word to overcome hesitancy, and get the vaccine out to people where they go to school and shop. Emily talks with NPR health correspondent Allison Aubrey about this and other topics in the pandemic news.
In this episode, we are talking to a British writer Ian Leslie, a journalist and author of acclaimed books on human behavior. His latest book, Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes (Harper Business, 2021), is about how to disagree better. Ian regularly publishes in The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Economist. He co-hosted the podcast series Polarized and created a BBC radio comedy series.
Israel carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip, last night, leading to the deaths of at least 20 people. This was in response to rockets launched by Hamas at Israel, and it marked the most destructive moment stemming from the ongoing conflict in Jerusalem. We discuss the circumstances that produced these violent clashes, as well as the international response.
President Biden announced yesterday that he will not put an end to the 300 dollar weekly bonus payments that are currently going to unemployed people, despite Republican calls to do so after a disappointing jobs report last week. Biden did say that workers who turn down jobs comparable to the ones they lost due to the pandemic should be cut off from unemployment benefits.
And in headlines: the FDA authorizes a vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds, state AG's oppose Instagram for Kids, and China practices COVID safety on the top of Mount Everest.
Show Notes:
Al Jazeera: "Twenty Palestinians killed in Israeli air raids on Gaza" – https://bit.ly/3f6XS68
Self-described cake artist Jack Phillips is again at the center of the debate over religious freedom, this time as the defendant in a state trial after being sued for declining to design and bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.
"Jack's been in the news for many years," as Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal, referring to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's finding that Phillips, a Christian, discriminated against a gay couple when he declined on religious grounds to make a custom cake to celebrate the two men's marriage.
Phillips, whose Masterpiece Cakeshop is in Lakewood, Colorado, took his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"In 2018, the Supreme Court said that Colorado had engaged in religious hostility toward Jack. And so he won that case, 7 to 2," says Tedesco, today's guest on "The Daily Signal Podcast."
"But then Colorado turned around right after that and considered another complaint against him, this time based on a gender transition cake that someone asked him to create. Eventually Colorado got the message and dismissed that complaint," Phillips' lawyer says, "but then the private citizen involved in filing that complaint filed a private lawsuit against Jack. And so that's why he's in court now."
Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read a lightly edited transcript below.
We also cover these stories:
The Biden administration reverses a Trump administration policy on health care and transgender individuals.
The FBI announces that a criminal gang called DarkSide is behind an attack on the Colonial Pipeline network.
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, a biological male, is on track to compete as a woman in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
A growing chorus of dissenters on Liberty’s campus are speaking up, as Jerry Falwell Jr’s behavior gets increasingly called into question. Giancarlo struggles to start over in DC as he can’t seem to outrun his relationship with the Falwells.
Topics for today include: Bustin’; The Junkie Horse; Elon SNL; Keir Starmer: Born To Lose; Ongoing Israeli assault on Palestinians (we will have a more in-depth interview on this topic after Eid); Elizabeth Warren persists; Return to the Workplace, Or Else.
Get the Sarah Vaccine on Means TV here: https://means.tv/programs/sarahvaccine
And of course, get tix to FRQNCY1 here: https://frqncy.live/frqncy1
And tune in to Felix’s FromSoftware stream this Saturday on
twitch.tv/chapotraphouse to benefit:
Movement to Safeguard Palestinian Communities
Islamic Relief of Canada Palestinian Emergency Fund
eye.on.palestine
Amanda Holmes reads Mary Robinson’s poem “The Haunted Beach.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
