Supreme Court Says States Can Defund Abortion Providers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the end of June, which means this always happens
around the end of June, that the Supreme Court is
at the end of its term. The Supreme Court term
runs from what is it. I think it's October, not sometime.
I think it's October through the end of June. And
in that time frame, that's the time frame when the
Supreme Court hears most of its big cases. So the

(00:27):
fully developed cases that have fully reached the Supreme Court,
not emergency appeals. Emergency appeals they hear throughout the course
of the year, and they might even hear in the summertime.
The so called shadow docket, which has been a lot
of the stuff that's been in the news with the
Supreme Court the last since Trump took office, has been
stuff in the so called shadow docket. It's not a

(00:48):
full case with full oral argument, full written briefing, opportunity
for full deliberation, for writing out long opinions. The Court
has been facing a lot of emergency appeals of temporary
restraining orders. But at the end of June, the Supreme

(01:12):
Court issues its rulings on these big, long term cases
that have fully matured and gotten all the way to
the Supreme Court with full briefing, etc. And I think
this is where Amy Cony Barrett is really shining. A
lot of people have been upset at Justice Barrett, and
not without reason for her decisions in a lot of

(01:35):
these shadow docket cases. Basically, Justice Barrett hates the shadow docket.
She hates these emergency appeals and the Supreme Court being
called upon to decide very consequential decisions without full opportunity
for full briefing, and in the context of the shadow docket,
she genuinely dislikes that from a procedural perspective, and as

(01:58):
a result, she hasn't really quote delivered a lot of
conservative victories in the shadow docket cases, in the cases
where there is full briefing, the big, full matured cases
that have the longest kind of stable effect. Justice Barrett's
been great, but it's these shadow docket cases that ever

(02:23):
since she was appointed in twenty twenty, she hasn't really been,
as you know, forcefully conservative, as a lot of people
have wanted. Now. I don't know that's a totally illegitimate
perspective for her to have. It's not the perspective I
would have, but she's certainly been terrific when it comes
to these, you know, these big time cases, and she's

(02:46):
had a couple of them this term that have just
been fantastic, including a big decision today, big decision today
about medicaid and abortion providers. I want to talk about
this because I'm starting to do some research on this.
I think I might write a big national review column
about it. So basically, I think Planned Parenthood and other

(03:16):
big time national abortion providers are about to reach a
crisis point from a number of different perspectives, One is
that a lot of Blue states are finally reaching a
kind of reckoning with their loose, free spending ways and

(03:39):
are cutting their state medicaid programs in a variety of ways,
most significantly California. We then have California is having to
cut back on its state medicaid program and not fund

(03:59):
as money much Medicaid funding for illegal aliens. You've got
Minnesota doing the same thing, you have Illinois doing the
same thing. So Planned parentids facing threats even in blue
states to their Medicaid funding. Then you've got the federal
government looking to cut off all federal Medicaid reimbursement to

(04:23):
Planned Parents. And let me take maybe a step back
here just to explain this. So, abortion providers get a
lot of federal funding. The largest bulk of federal funding
they get is from the federal Medicaid program, and the
way Medicaid functions today, effectively, it's just health insurance for
lower income people. So you make under a certain income threshold,

(04:45):
you qualify for coverage through Medicaid. Every individual state has
its own Medicaid program, and Medicaid functions as this joint
federal state program where your state government funds a big
chunk of it, and then the federal government provides a
certain percentage match. That percentage match varies from state to

(05:10):
state depending on how wealthy the state is, with a
minimum of fifty percent. So the federal government for California,
it's a fifty percent match. So in California, the federal
government is funding fifty percent. Sorry, the federal government is
funding x amount and the state government is paying two x.

(05:34):
So the way abortion providers get most of their federal funding.
They get something like seven hundred million dollars in federal
funding per year. How do they do that well, they
get it because they are providing services to Medicaid patients.
A Medicaid patient comes in, or in California, a medical
patient comes in, they get STD testing or treatment, or

(06:01):
they get birth control or whatever. The federal government reimburses
a portion of that. Basically, the reimbursement that goes to
Planned Parenthood comes from two parts from the state government,
one part from the federal government. Federal government's doing a
fifty percent match of whatever the state is paying, So

(06:23):
that federal bit that Planned Parenthood gets for that one
person getting birth control, that is part of the big
pot of federal Medicaid money the Planned Parenthood gets all right,
So Planned Parenthood is a Medicaid provider. They get something

(06:44):
like seven hundred million dollars from the federal Medicaid program.
And what's happening right now is because Medicaid is in
a perilous financial state as it is, and Republicans have
built up their strength to say, we don't want abortion

(07:05):
providers to be able to participate in the Medicaid program.
We don't want to indirectly fund subsidize abortion by paying
for all the other services that Planned Parenthood does. So
the federal Medicaid program, federal dollars can't go to reimbursing
medication to reimbursing Planned Parenthood and entities like that for

(07:27):
abortion except in cases of rape or incests. This is
because a federal law called the Hide Amendment. The High
Amendment is this writer that gets attached to the federal
budget every year, and it basically says no federal funding
for abortion, accepting cases of rape or incest. However, Planned

(07:48):
Parenthood abortion providers they do get this federal funding for
all the non abortion services they do. So this seven
hundred million dollars that Planned Parenthood gets every year is
helping offset its cost for all their non abortion services,
which allows them to allocate more time, energy resources to abortion.
A lot of Blue states will have their state Medicaid program,

(08:12):
Medical for example, in California, directly pay for abortion reimbursements
with a stream of purely state taxpayer dollars. So California
Medical will pay will pay providers for performing abortions. They
use just California tax dollars for it. They don't use

(08:33):
federal tax dollars for it. Okay. So with that background,
the reasons why Planned parent is in trouble with Medicaid
are one. As I said before, a lot of Blue
states are in difficult financial circumstances they're having to cut
back on Medicaid. Gavin Newsom was trying to rob a

(08:54):
store of Planned Parenthood funds to direct it towards other things.
Things furious at Gavin Newsom. Two, you have the federal
government getting ready to pass President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill,

(09:17):
which cuts Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers off from
federal Medicaid reimbursement. So that's seven hundred million dollars Planned
Parenthood's not going to get. And Thirdly, you have individual
red states that have been trying to kick abortion providers

(09:38):
like Planned Parenthood out of their state's medicaid program for years,
and the Supreme Court today just said, yes, you can
do this. So in a six to three decision, the
Supreme Court says, yes, individual states are able to disqualify
certain kinds of providers for a variety of reasons as

(10:00):
being able to participate in the state medicaid program. So
instead of getting some money for some of their services
from the state medicaid program. Specifically, this case was brought
out of South Carolina, and the Supreme Court said, actually,

(10:22):
in a six to three decision, all the Conservative, all
the Republican appointees in the majority. They said yes, you you.
South Carolina can disqualified Planned Parenthood as being able to
participate in Medicaid. Now, this is a huge blow for
planned parenthood. If all of these things happen, Blue states

(10:43):
are having to cut back on Medicaid spending. Individual states
can just kick planned parenthood off of their state Medicaid program,
which I'm sure if South Carolina is doing this right now,
look for every other Red state to just kick Planned
parents Hood off immediately, or a lot of Red states

(11:05):
to kick Planned Parenthood off their state Medica Medicaid program,
and their federal Medicaid reimbursement is all going to go
away so they can't get so basically all they'll be
left with is Blue state Medicaid reimbursement. Blue states are

(11:25):
going to have to start you know, they won't be
able to Planned Parenthood will be unable to function, I
think in a lot of states because a huge percentage
of planned parenthood's patient population is on Medicaid. Okay, this
is lower income people for the most part. Is that

(11:47):
this is planned Parenthood's bread and butter. And when I
look through the nine to nineties of different planned parenthood
of affiliates throughout the country. I just don't think they
can survive this. I think a lot of them can't.
And you know, Planned Parenthood had come out with you know,

(12:10):
they trotted Chuck Schumer out with this that they trotted
Chuck Schumer out with this press conference in which Schumer's saying,
if this happens, if the Republicans passed the one Big
Beautiful Bill, two hundred of the six hundred Planned Parenthood
clinics around the country are going to close. A quarter

(12:32):
of all abortion providers in the country are going to
close down. Yes, please, thank you. That sounds really good.
I'm very much looking forward to that concept. So I
think they're facing a real crisis, and it's a crisis

(12:56):
that I don't think can be substitute did that, it
can't be substituted for with donations. Okay. Mackenzie Scott, who's
Jeff Bezos's ex wife, who's like one of the wealthiest

(13:17):
people in one of the wealthiest women in America and California,
on the basis of her divorce from Jeff Bezos, I
think she's got like, I don't know, fifteen or twenty
billion dollars or something. She in one year gave Planned
Parenthood a three hundred million dollar donation, a one time
lump some three hundred million dollar donation. She can't do

(13:40):
that every year. And I don't care how much Planned
Parenthood ramps up their fundraising. I think they are going
to have to close down a lot. And especially I
was looking at I was looking at nine nineties of
different Planned Parents, the most recent nine nineties available or

(14:00):
for text you're twenty twenty three, so it's not the
most up to date. But a lot of Planned Parenthood
affiliates are losing money, even some in California. Okay, Planned
Parenthood Marmanti, which runs basically the way Planned Parenthood works
is it's divided up into regions, so each region is
its own nonprofit that runs a series of clinics within

(14:22):
that region. So for example, Planned parentoedd Marmonti. They run
all the Planned Parenthood clinics in the central the San
Joaquin Valley, bunch in the Bay Area, and then in Nevada.
So it's something like thirty one clinics, including the big

(14:42):
the two Planned Parenthood clinics that are in Fresno. And
they're losing money. I mean they have about one hundred
and twenty nine million dollars in revenue, but they had
one hundred and thirty five million dollars in costs in
twenty twenty three, So I mean they lost six million dollars. Now,

(15:05):
companies can't sustain losses like that again and again and
again and again. So I'm really wondering between so again,
between today's Supreme Court decision, Blue States being in a
tight financial place. Look if because this is the thing,

(15:25):
even with California, Okay, California Planned parented clinics are probably
in a better place, you'd think than most. Here's Gavin
Newsom trying to rob Peter to pay Paul, trying to
take money that Planned parentod had been able to set
aside for itself within the state budget, trying to use
it for other things. Yes, California state dollars fund Planned
Parenthood's abortion provision and other things. But if Planned Parenthood

(15:51):
clinics in California lose all their federal reimbursement, California is
not going to step up to provide them with more.
They can't. California is out of money. So I'm extremely

(16:14):
suspicious here that Planned Parenthood is going to be facing
that Planned parent as the nation's largest abortion provider, and
other abortion providers as well, because I think there are
a lot of other abortion providers that are similarly situated
a Planned Parenthood, particularly groups like Family Planning Associates, which
is like a purely California based chain of abortion providers.

(16:38):
They're sort of the RC if Planned Parenthood is Coca
Cola Family Planning Associates, They're kind of like r C Cola,
not as well known, a different brand. I really think
Planned Parenthood is in bad shape when we return. While
I'm glad Planned Parenthood is going to run out of money,

(16:59):
my fear about how ultimately impactful that will be on
actual abortions happening or not happening. Next on the John
Jrardy Show, here's my fear with defunding Planned Parenthood. Well,
I should clarify I have no fears about the actual

(17:19):
defunding of entities like Planned Parenthood itself. There's no nothing
I'm afraid of there. I don't feel like they they
do not provide such essential services that there's no way
humanly possible. As much as they try to argue that
it's not like there's no way humanly possible. People can

(17:40):
get the kinds of non abortion services the Planned Parenthood provides.
There are gazillions of places, especially with the explosion of
federally qualified health clinics all over the country, there are
gazillions of places that offer all the same stuff planned
Parenthood does. Planned Parenthood is just marketed itself so well
that people think that's like the only place to go
if you have an SDD, it's the only place to go.

(18:01):
If you need birth control, it's the only place to go. No,
there're zillions of places where people can go for this.
My fear is how impactful it's actually going to be
on abortion numbers. Given the changing landscape of abortion provision

(18:21):
in America, most abortions are happening with the abortion pill
now miff of pristo. It's not happening as a result
of someone getting a surgery. It's like sixty three percent
of abortions and it's a growing number. And some Plain
Paradode affiliates it's like seventy five percent of their abortions
are done via the abortion pill, which per the Joe

(18:44):
Biden twenty twenty one rules. The Joe Biden's FDA in
twenty twenty one change the rules here, the abortion pill
can be shipped to your house, it can be prescribed
with a telemedicine visit, and it's getting shipped to people's
houses illegally, even in states where abortion has been outlawed.

(19:12):
So my fear is we're gonna defund Planned Parenthood and
it's gonna be yay hooray like we did it. We
socked those bad guys in the nose, and that abortion
numbers are still gonna be going up. Let's not forget
like since twenty twenty one, when Biden instituted these new
changes to the abortion pill, the total number of abortions

(19:34):
in America have increased by two hundred thousand a year.
It was like nine hundred twenty twenty one, it's one
point one million today. So I'm I mean, I am.

(19:54):
I am one hundred percent unqualifiedly happy that the Supreme
Court ruled that states can disqualify planned parented from their
medicaid program. I am delighted that Republicans are going to
defund Planned Parenthood through through the one big beautiful Bill.
I am delighted with all of it. I don't want

(20:15):
to give them a dime of my taxpayer money. I
am delighted at the financial problems planned parented clinics are
having throughout the country. I think it's great. I want
as many of them to shut down as humanly possible.
My fear though, is that Republicans will take this as
this great victory, and meanwhile abortion numbers will keep going up,
because at the end of the day, it's not so

(20:38):
much the vehicle as much as it is the end
result that we have to be focused on. Here, what
is happening in America that one point one million women
are aborting their children every year? And how do we
stop it? Both at the level of how do we
stop making it this easy to ship the abortion pill

(20:59):
right to your house? But also what is happening at
a spiritual level or at a individual economic level that
is incentivizing women to go for this. And that's why
a lot of and a lot of that work I
think has to be locals. Why I've done all the
work locally, I've done to try to help provide resources

(21:20):
to women who are in difficult, struggling situations. But I
you know, I defunding Planned parenthood, taking money away from
planned parenthood, shutting down planned parenthood, or shutting down abortion
providers or closing abortion clinics is not the end goal.
The end goal is not having children be murdered. That's

(21:44):
the end goal. Not having women have their lives ruined
and their children murdered. That is the end goal. So
I guess that's my fear is you know again, I'm delighted.
I want I don't want planned parenthood to have a dime.
I have no I'm one hundred percent supportive of these things.

(22:08):
I guess I'm just afraid though, that the face of
abortion provision has changed enormously in America. Eliminating planned parenthood
might not actually eliminate abortion in the same way it
would have even seven years ago. When we return, we'll

(22:29):
talk about local politicians being concerned with topics of national concern. Oh,
all of a sudden, it's okay when it's the mayor
of New York taking bizarrely aggressive foreign policy stances. Next
on right till Life ready ex Yeah, not right to life.
On the John Girardi Show, Zorn Mamdani, the winner of

(22:52):
the Democratic primary election in New York City, is really
the talk of American politics, and he had some comments
that really made me perk my ears up because of
how I feel it relates to certain local government fights.

(23:12):
So the two people who've been most on the receiving
end of this criticism in local politics have been Gary
Brettefeld and Diane Pierce. And the criticism is this, you
two are too focused. Gary Brettefeld, formerly on the president
of city Council, now county supervisor, Diane Pierce, member of

(23:33):
the Clovis City Council, and they have been criticized for this.
You are too focused on these hyper ideological questions, these
hyper ideological conservative questions. How come you're so focused on this?
Why are you focused, Diane Pierce, on trying to have
Clovis not be a sanctuary city for illegal immigration anymore

(23:54):
and fight against the state on this? Why are you
having the city of Clovis fight against the state of
California when it comes to boys playing in girls' sports?
Why are you doing this? Blah blah blah blah blah.
You're terrible. And the underlying assumption being that you're a
local government official. Local government officials have a limited range

(24:15):
of activity that they can actually do. They can't change
state law local government. This is kind of a universal
principle of local government throughout pretty much all of America
is that local governments are creatures of state government, and
for the most part, they don't have the kind of
independent field of action from state government in the way

(24:39):
that states do from the federal government. Okay. So we
have a system of federalism in the United States where
we have two sovereigns. We have our state government and
our federal government. And the state government has a certain
field of activity in which it can engage separate from,
distinct from, independent from, and not answerable to, the federal government. Okay. Uh.

(25:02):
The governor of California is not a branch manager of
Donald Trump. The governor of California is not appointed by
answerable to It does not answer to Donald Trump. The
governor of California is his own person, his own locus
of authority. So which is why obviously we have different

(25:27):
elections for different people. He's not an appointee of the president.
You know, you can have the governor California could be a Democrat,
the president could be a Republican, as is happening right now. Okay,
So that that's our federalist system. It doesn't work that
way with local governments and their relationship to the state government. Okay, yes,
the state government can allow you know, individual local cities

(25:49):
to have their own separate elections, but cities and states
can only do what the state. Cities and counties rather,
can only do what the state government allows them to do.
Their field of activity is delineated by state law. They
exist as a result of state law. So you know,

(26:15):
the Presno County Board of Supervisors can't pass a law
saying Presno County will one cooperate with ICE in every
single way, shape or form. The Presdent County Sheriff's Department,
the Presne County Jails, the President County DA, the everyone,
We're all going to cooperate with ICE to the absolute

(26:37):
as much as we please. Well, no, they can't quite
do that. Why because there is state law on the books.
State law on the books has made California eight quote
sanctuary state. And what that actually means, tangibly is that
state law enforcement officials, and that includes local law enforcement officials.

(26:59):
So whether it's the californ we're in your highway patrol,
or the Fresno County Sheriff's Department, the Madera County Sheriff's Department,
the Merced County Sheriff's Apartment, the Orange County Sheriff's Department,
and local police officers. City of Fresno Police, City of
Clovis Police, City of Redley Police, City of Ialia Police.

(27:20):
All of those entities are bound by state law, and
the state law as it relates to against something like,
you know, sanctuary states, says all of you are required
not to cooperate with ice in this, this or this way.
So when Diane Pierce raises this issue and says, I

(27:41):
think City of Clovis should join with other cities maybe
in legally challenging the state of California when it comes
to sanctuary city status, she gets yelled and shouted down.
That's not your job as a city council member. That's
state policy. Why why are you getting all up to
you about this. Your job is to fix roads, higher cops,

(28:07):
fix potholes, et cetera. And what's presented is this sort
of this rallsy and approach John Rawls, who is this
political philosophers famous for sort of trying to give this
account of government, of political philosophy that basically all of
the big questions are decided and that in favor of liberalism.

(28:31):
Liberal principles dominate, and the only role of politics is
to this sort of formalistic process, this sort of process
focused formalism, and so basically all the big questions are
already decided, and your job is, particularly as it relates
to local government officials, is keep your head down and

(28:52):
just do all the normal stuff higher cops, fixed roads,
et cetera. Now this gets more complicated when our accepted
public reasoning begins to crumble, as we saw in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one, when all of a sudden,
you're a local government officially you're supposed to hire cops
and fill potholes. The concept of hiring cops all of

(29:13):
a sudden came into dispute. It's almost like this foundation
of what local government is supposed to do rests on
some pretty bedrock philosophical principles that maybe it's okay for
local governments to talk about, argue about debate. Maybe the

(29:34):
idea of local governments supporting good things and opposing bad things,
even if it's things that are at a broader level
than what the individual local city council or county board
of supervisors or school board can change, is a good
thing and we acknowledge it's a good thing when city
governments honor people for good things. In most other contexts,

(30:01):
we have no problem with this. Okay. We have ceremonies
every year in cities throughout the San Joaquin Valley, at
the county, etc. Honoring commemorating the victims of the Armenian
genocide which took place in the nineteen tens, in which
I believe about a million and a half Armenians, Greeks, Syrians,

(30:23):
Assyrians were horrifically killed by the Ottoman Empire, which led
to the Armenian diaspora and led to so many Armenians
coming to this country. And we have ceremonies to honor it.
And look, you know, we're not going to change foreign
policy that much. City of Fresno is not going to

(30:47):
change foreign policy that much. Although the fact that the
city cares about it, the fact that the city of
Fresno has public events honoring it, it has led to
I think our members of Congress that we send from
the valley being very strong and vigorous advocates for the
cause of Armenia. In the area of foreign policy, Jim

(31:07):
Costa has been a very vigorously pro Armenian advocate, as
of most of the other members of the House of
Representatives who come from the San Joaquin Valley. So we
are okay with supporting good things and opposing bad things
even when no the City of Fresno know, the City
of Clovis know, the County Board of Supervisors. They can't

(31:29):
do anything about Armenian politics, but they can stand up
for what's right and raise the issue to higher levels
of government where maybe it can make a difference. And
by the way, Fresno County, City of Fresno, let me

(31:49):
stick with the City of Presno. The City of Fresno
is not doing anything to change gay rights nationwide. And yet,
oh my gosh, how many Pride flag events are we
going to have City of presnew officials at How many
times is Jerry Dyer going to talk about how wonderful
he is for having had this big conversion of heart
about LGBT stuff, and blah blah blah blah blah. City

(32:14):
of President's not going to do anything to change gay
rights or anything, but the left thinks it's good, so
therefore we're gonna endorse it. Yet Another example is this
Zorn ma'mdani guy who now I recognize, am I am

(32:35):
I being a little hypocritical here. Maybe maybe I'm being
a little hypocritical, but I was just laughing at this.
How I guess I'm hope, hopefully, I'm more pointing out
the I'm more pointing out the ludicrousness of the left

(32:55):
and their their flip flopping hypocrisy on this, that they
want to just shut up conservatives from speaking out about
public policy things. But this did strike me as so,
I guess I'm not, in principle opposed again to local
politicians taking a stand on questions of international relations or
broader national questions of concern. However, this did catch my

(33:17):
eye as odd. Here's Zoron Mamdani. He was asked if
he would ever meet with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister
of India, if he were ever to visit New York.

(33:39):
If Zoron Mamdani was the Mayor of New York and
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, if he ever
came to visit New York on some kind of official visit,
what do you meet with him? And I, now, I
will admit I don't know much about Narendra Modi. I

(34:00):
don't know anything. I don't know if he's is he good,
bad and different? Liberal? Conservative? Is he horrible? Is he great?
I don't know, he's never He doesn't ever seem to
be listed as like a human rights violator on the
level of Vladimir Putin or Jijinping or anyone like that.

(34:20):
Seems like, again, you know, we're grading on a curve here.
I'm sure they're terrible. Maybe he's done some terrible things.
I don't know. India has been in kind of this
aggressive policy posture towards Pakistan lately, not like the Pakistanis.
I'm I don't know, getting the sense that the Pakistanis
are not all, you know, just a bunch of delightful

(34:41):
people to hang out with. And Mom Donnie said, no,
I would never meet with him. He's the butcher of Gujarat,
he calls him. Now, I don't know what Gujarat is.
I don't know in what sense Mody is a butcher.

(35:06):
And again I guess, I'm I guess I'm being a
little hypocritical that you know, here, I am tutting a
local government official for having an opinion about foreign policy.
But it call me crazy. This seems like a very
strong opinion to have about foreign policy. It seems like
maybe a little bit more than what you want out
of a mayor. Like if Jerry Dyer came up and

(35:29):
someone said, hey, Mayor Dyer, you know, if the president
of let me pick a random Latin American country, if
the president of of let's see, if the president of
Ecuador came to visit Presno, would you meet with him? No?

(35:52):
I would never meet with the butcher of San Domingo.
Like WHOA. Okay, that's a very seems like a very
particular policy position to take. I mean, okay, if we're
talking about Fidel Castro and the mayor of Miami was asked, hey,
would you ever meet with Fidel Castro? No, I'd never
meet with Fidel Castro. Okay, that's I understand that. I

(36:16):
don't know. Maybe this is just my lack of understanding
of Indian politics here that I guess. I don't know.
The level of you know, engagement Zoron has with these things.
I just struck me as odd that, you know, again,
liberalism that is so willing to tut tut shush silence
conservatives if they have any opinion that goes beyond the

(36:39):
charter of what you know, city government's supposed to do. Andy,
here's old Zoran saying I'll never meet with the butcher
of Gujarat, okay. Also, right after October seventh, Zoron had
some statement in which it seemed that he was saying
that Israel was the main bad guys in Palestine. So

(36:59):
that's great. It's amazing how the vote for mayor of
New York seem to have way more to do with
geopolitics than actual like New York politics. So apparently everyone
likes voting for local government as a basically an avatar
or I don't know, as a replacement for their national

(37:21):
or international geopolitical thoughts. When we return, are there food
deserts in the San Joaquin Valley? Next? On the John
Groardy Show, there's a lot of liberal stirm and drawings,
especially out of Zoron Mumdani's campaign in New York City,
about food deserts places where food is not readily available,
especially to lower income people. I don't know the food

(37:43):
deserts are real, because my wife was looking at the
USDA map. Probably this is a holdover for Biden of
food deserts locally here in Fresno. It says that Ashland
and Fowler and Clothes is a food desert. There's a
Van's like right there, and a bunch of restaurants, a
vans that accept you know, EBT so and all the
other food doeserts seem to have big grocery stores nearby.

(38:06):
There's a lot of food in America. I think we're
doing all right. That'll do it, John Girardi Show, See
you next time on Power Talk