A justice in waiting, Oklahoma House passes new abortion bill: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: A justice in waiting
Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze explains Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's unique waiting game. Plus, the topic of Russian war crimes dominates a U.N. meeting, Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma pass a bill that would make performing an abortion a felony, education reporter Chris Quintana breaks down President Joe Biden's extended moratorium on federal student loan payments and jury deliberations continue in the trial of those accused of plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Wednesday, the 6th of April 2022. Today, a justice in waiting. Plus the latest war crimes accusations in Ukraine and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- A third suspect has been arrested in connection with this weekend's shooting in Sacramento. Daviyonne Dawson and Smiley Martin were arrested yesterday after Smiley's brother, Dandrae Martin was arrested on Monday. At least six people were killed in the shooting while others are still in the hospital.
- A car crashed into the gate of the Russian embassy in Bucharest yesterday, bursting into flames and killing the driver. There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
- And severe weather is possible again today across the American South. That's after violent storms killed at least two people in Georgia and Texas yesterday.
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For Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, taking a seat on the Supreme Court will be a study in hurry up and wait. Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze says that if Jackson is confirmed this week, it'll create a rare situation where she has to wait for Justice Stephen Breyer to retire before she can take his spot on the bench.
John Fritze:
So the interesting thing about Breyer is that he's not going to leave the court until the end of the term, which is late June or early July. That's not unusual, by the way. That's how it often works. What is unusual is that Breyer's announcement was in January. Usually the announcement is much closer to the end of the term. So that means this whole fight over replacing the justice sort of carries into the summer and the deadline, ostensible deadline, the sort of goal is to get this nominee onto the court by October, when the court comes back to Washington and restarts its work. That was all thrown off by Breyer's announcement coming out in January and that moved the deadline to all right, let's get this nominee in place before the end of the term. But Breyer's not going anywhere until end of June or early July. So you've got this really historical oddity. I think it certainly hasn't happened in modern times where you're going to have a Supreme Court nominee who has been confirmed by the Senate, but is not going to be appointed to the court, is going to be sitting around for two, almost three months waiting for her seat to open up.
We're not aware of it ever happening before. Now a lot of weird stuff happened at the founding of the country and during the Civil War. No one that I've spoken to is aware of a prior instance of this happening with the Supreme Court. It has happened in lower courts. So there was an instance a few years back with a US court of appeals for the DC circuit, which is sort of the second most important court in the nation. There you had a Trump appointee for a judgeship who was confirmed by the Senate and waited around for a couple of months to actually take his seat. So it does happen in the lower courts, but it's pretty rare.
Part of what's driving it is the way that these judges and justices are announcing their decisions with defined dates and making it contingent on a replacement. So there's been sort of an uptick in that, in the way that's been announced, but the real driver here was two things. One, the way Breyer announced it, and two, the way Democrats were moving very quickly. And that gets back to Barrett. Democrats saw how quickly Republicans moved through Barrett's confirmation and there was a real pull on the left of the party to, "Hey, if they can do that, we can do it too." I think there was a real push to get Jackson done as soon as possible. And it's very close. I think they did Barrett in 27 days and it looks like we're going to do Jackson in 38, 39 days. So far closer to the rapid pace with Barrett than for past nominees prior to Barrett, which usually takes a couple of months, this process. So they moved very quickly. The weird announcement from Breyer creates this really unusual historic situation.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find more of John's great Supreme Court coverage with a link in today's show description.
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War crimes. They were the central theme at the United Nation Security Council yesterday. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke calling for a tribunal to be set up similar to the one established at Nuremberg after World War II. He outlines some of the specific atrocities Ukrainian authorities are alleging since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February. A warning, some of the details are graphic.
Taylor Wilson translating for Volodymyr Zelensky:
"I'm addressing you on behalf of the people who honor the memory of the deceased and the memory of civilians who died, who were shot and killed in the back of their head after being tortured. Some of them were shot on the streets. Others were thrown into the wells so they died there in suffering. They were killed in their apartments, houses, blown up by grenades. The civilians were crushed by tanks while sitting in their cars."
Over the past few days, images have circulated of apparent gruesome crimes against civilians in suburbs outside the capital of Kyiv. Journalists from the Associated Press have counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes in the town of Bucha in particular. Satellite imagery has also shown that many bodies were lying in the open for weeks while Russian forces were in town.
The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at the Hague has also opened an investigation into war crimes, doing so about a month ago. Ukrainian officials say bodies of more than 400 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv. The AP and PBS series Frontline have jointly verified at least 90 incidents during the war that appear to violate international law. But Moscow's UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia denied Russia targeting civilians and said that Ukraine has faked footage of dead bodies.
Taylor Wilson translating for Vassily Nebenzia:
"You only saw what they showed you. You couldn't ignore the flagrant inconsistencies in the version of events that are being promoted by Ukrainian and Western media."
Representatives from both Ukraine and Russia expressed optimism during peace talks last week. But yesterday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow will not accept a Ukrainian demand that a possible peace deal include an immediate pullout of Russian troops followed by a Ukrainian referendum on that agreement. Lavrov said a new deal would then have to be negotiated if that vote failed and added, "We don't want to play such cat and mouse."
Meanwhile, the US along with the European Union and group of seven nations will roll out new sanctions on Russia today. They include a ban on all new investment in the country. But there are differences on what to do about Russian energy imports in Europe, the US and beyond. The EU's executive branch yesterday proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia. That would be the first time the block has sanctioned Russia's energy industry over the war. But Western nations on the whole are divided on how far to go. Germany and others fear that a full boycott of Russian oil and gas would send the continent into an economic crisis. Still, Germany has expelled a number of Russian diplomats as had France. Romania, Italy, Spain, and Denmark followed suit yesterday. A Russian spokesperson criticized those moves for hurting communications and said they would be met with reciprocal steps.
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Republican House lawmakers in Oklahoma have passed legislation that would make performing an abortion a felony. It only makes exceptions for medical emergencies. Violations would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison or fines of up to a hundred thousand dollars. The bill will now go to Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who has vowed to sign all anti-abortion bills that come to his desk. Emily Wales is the interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. She said Senate Bill 612 is unconstitutional.
Emily Wales:
We're here today on the peoples steps to send a clear message to the legislature that the bands they are introducing and moving forward and even passed today are not reflective of the needs of Oklahomans. Texas did, I think, what many people thought they couldn't do. They passed a law and they put an enforcement provision in it that made it very hard to challenge. And so now you see legislatures like Idaho and Oklahoma doing all they can to one up and be more extreme.
Taylor Wilson:
She's referring to a Texas law that allows private citizens to sue people who help others seek an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. And other states have since followed suit with their own Republican-led legislation. Such a law could be particularly devastating for people in Oklahoma and across the region. The state had already become a safe haven for people seeking abortions after the Texas law was created last year. And advocates argue that the further away someone has to travel for an abortion, the more the issue becomes a matter of class.
Still, supporters of the bill like Republican Oklahoma House author Representative Jim Olsen said the new legislation would penalize doctors, not patients. And president pro temp of the Oklahoma Senate, Greg Treat said there is a "urgent need for lawmakers to pursue policies at every level to protect life at all stages." For more coverage of abortion legislation in Oklahoma, stick with the oklahoman.com, part of the Paste BN Network.
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President Joe Biden plans to extend the moratorium on federal student loan payments through August 31st. That means for tens of millions of Americans, the student debt limbo will continue for another three months. Education reporter Chris Quintana has more.
Chris Quintana:
On Tuesday, we started to get reports that the federal student loan payment pause would be extended again. As a reporter covering the higher education space, we'd sort of expected this announcement, been some signs that Ron Klain, Chief of Staff, had suggested that this was a possibility, so what we saw on Monday is just sort of a confirmation that this is likely ... the official announcement is likely coming on Wednesday, but we did get some early details. It looks like the pause is now going to last through August 31st. And it had been scheduled to end in the beginning of May.
And so the May extension, that was in and of itself an extension, which was an extension. And so borrowers have been in this sort of limbo for a little bit more than two years now. And so for a lot of folks there's both excitement about the fact that this has been extended, but also a sense of frustration. There's a real desire to see action from the administration.
It's a little bit of a sense of appreciation for borrowers who are struggling or who would struggle to remake or to start making payments again, but also just a sense that this feels like kicking the can down the road. I think we've already seen AOC expressing discontent about this and Warren and Schumer as well, kind of in that space. It's not that they're upset about the extension so much as it is just like there's a desire for more, and that more is cancellation or ... the more is cancellation, but how much more hasn't been specified yet. The progressive lawmakers had been talking about up to $50,000 in student loan debt per person. They put out a letter recently that didn't specify how much debt relief that they necessarily wanted, which seems to suggest that they're open to negotiating on that amount. And just to add there briefly, the president himself had campaigned on forgiving up to $10,000 in student loan debt per person.
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Taylor Wilson:
Jury deliberations will enter a third day today in the trial centering around a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are charged with the kidnapping conspiracy. Prosecutors say the conspiracy against Whitmer was fueled by anti-government extremism and anger over her COVID-19 restrictions. No verdict was reached yesterday after the judge turned down the jury's request for trial transcripts.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're here every morning, year long, wherever you like to find your podcasts. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.