If you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle.
Now I said the eggs, not the hatchlings.
That's also a panel about the eggs.
The criminal penalties are severe up to $100,000 fine and a year in prison.
Now why?
Republican senator Steve Daines of Montana is about
to demonstrate that he doesn't actually know why.
>> Why do we have laws in place that protect the eggs of a sea turtle or
the eggs of eagles?
Because we need to destroy an egg,
you're killing a preborn baby sea turtle or a preborn baby eagle.
Yet when it comes to a preborn human baby rather than a sea turtle,
that baby will be stripped of all protections in all 50
states under the Democrats bill will be voting on tomorrow.
>> My favorite part of that video is that he said something so
incredibly moronic, but really thought to himself nailed it.
I gotta prop and everything nailed it, totally nailed it.
A few things that we should keep in mind first of all,
humans are a little different from sea turtles.
Humans are also little different from endangered species, which is why
there are certain penalties and fines for destroying sea turtle or bald eagle eggs.
But I'm sure he either knew that and decided to be deceitful in his
argument there or is just so incredibly ignorant that he had no idea.
Also, it's worth noting that not all eggs are viable and
the real point here is, maybe humans shouldn't get involved in
the reproductive process or decisions of other living things.
Including sea turtles,
including other women who should be able to make decisions about their own bodies.
But republicans who purport to be in favor of liberty and
freedom have no problem in forced pregnancies and
forced childbirth because that's exactly what they're advocating here for.
Now that speech that you heard was one that he gave during the I get the debate
over whether or not the Senate should codify reproductive rights to ensure
that even with the reversal of Roe V wade.
All women would have access to abortions.
We already expected that vote to fail and it did in fact fail, Joe Manchin,
a democrat came out and said that he would vote against the legislation.
No surprise there, he seems to bask in being a piece of crap.
So there you have it.
But I do want to talk a little bit about senator Daines, who he is and
how much of a hypocrite he really tends to be much like other republican lawmakers.
Some of you might have great memories.
He's the same republican senator who interrupted Senator Elizabeth Warren
as she was on the senate floor reading a letter from Coretta Scott King
when the senate was making decisions about Jeff sessions.
He didn't like that.
So he kept interrupting her to kind of prevent her from reading the letter from
Miss King.
But I also wanna talk about how there's a lot of death.
There's a lot of despair in the country that actually impacts not zygotes,
not embryos, but living breathing human beings.
And that death and despair is empowered by right wingers in this country.
So why don't we take a look at the latest data that was released in regard to
gun violence and people who die as a result of gun violence in America,
something that right wingers wanna do absolutely nothing about.
For instance, homicides from guns rose 35% during the first
year of the pandemic to the highest level since 1994
according to CDC morbidity and mortality weekly report.
The homicide rate from firearms increased to 6.1 per 100,000
people in 2020 compared with 4.6 per 100,000 and 2019.
So we knew gun violence was already a massive problem in the country
prior to the pandemic.
I mean it was a regular topic on the show.
We talked about the mass shootings that happened on school campuses, at wal marts,
all over the place.
It actually got worse during the pandemic.
And we had previously shared some statistics showing just how many guns were
purchased in the first year of the pandemic as well.
I'm guessing that this is a result of that.
Now excluding suicides, more than 19,000 people were killed by
guns in 2020 compared with more than 14,000 the year prior,
according to the CDC report, which is based on death certificates.
So methodology seems pretty sound.
They're relying on death certificates, so that's good.
But the results of the report not so good cuz again,
lots of living breathing human beings who needlessly ended up needlessly
dying because of the fact that guns are easily accessible to anyone and everyone.
The study did not include accidental gun deaths or
deaths where intent could not be determined.
Okay, so the number could actually be much higher.
They were very narrow and how they interpreted these numbers, homicides from
gun violence increased among people of every age in most racial groups.
So this isn't something that's only impacting one racial group or
one group of people depending on what their ages for men and
women in cities and rural areas and in every single region of the nation.
So if you are someone living in a blue state and
you love to celebrate the more restrictive gun laws in your state,
you shouldn't celebrate that because it doesn't matter.
We live in one country, your state is not an island unless you live in Hawaii.
But you get what I'm saying.
So if you have super lax gun laws in places like Texas where anyone can
buy a gun without a background check without having to
worry about any type of obstacle in the way.
That you can just cross state lines with those guns and
wreak havoc in whatever state that you'd like to wreak havoc in.
And that is what we're seeing.
It's just in the US 79% of homicides and
53% of suicides involved guns in 2020.
According to the CDC, more than 24,000 suicides involved firearms in 2020.
So I give you all those numbers, right?
Because again, whenever it comes to common sense policies like
honestly mild gun regulations, closing the loopholes to
ensure that the federal background checks apply to everyone.
Closing the gun show loophole, closing the loophole that allows a private seller to
sell to an individual without background checks.
All those loopholes should be closed.
Is it gonna impact law abiding citizens who wanna get their hands on a gun for
hunting or whatever hobby they have.
No, if you're a law abiding citizen you'd still have access to a gun.
But the point of a federal background check one in which loopholes do not apply.
It's all about ensuring that bad guys don't get their hands
on lethal weapons like guns.
It's very simple.
And guess what?
That is the type of simple legislation that Senator Daines not in favor of.
In fact, he was asked about this during his reelection campaign,
let's hear what he had to say.
>> The Second Amendment is very clear, the right of the people to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed.
The NRA has endorsed me and gave me an a plus rating.
And as we have studied this issue, the conclusion is, guns are not the problem.
More gun control would not have prevented many of these tragedies we see
across our country, this is an issue fundamental of violence of mental health.
The second one is not about hunting, it's about liberty, it's about freedom.
>> Ensuring that every individual, regardless of their criminal background,
can get their hands on a lethal weapon like a gun is all about liberty.
It's all about freedom.
I mean, who cares about the liberties and the freedoms of women in this country?
Who cares about that?
But when it comes to something that has proven to be a huge problem in terms of
violence, in terms of taking lives prematurely,
doesn't wanna do a damn thing about it.
He mentioned how this isn't a gun problem, this is a mental health problem, everyone,
it's a mental health problem.
But, if he genuinely thought that it was a mental health
problem shouldn't his record prove that,
shouldn't his record demonstrate that he cares about human life so much.
And he really genuinely does believe that gun violence is the result of mental
health issues.
So his record should absolutely show that he has fought by
sponsoring legislation to fund healthcare in America.
His record should show that he's really going out of his way to ensure that we're
properly handling this mental health crisis.
But his record doesn't show that of course because he's a Republican, he's a liar and
he doesn't actually care about human lives at all.
As I've said a billion times on this show, I'll repeat it again.
This is not about life and death, this is about control, this is about
political brownie points from right wing evangelicals who by the way,
prior to Roe V Wade, we're actually pretty split on reproductive rights.
They were not fired up about abortion.
They didn't want to strip a woman of her right to choose.
But a right wing evangelical named Paul Weir Eric realized, we need an issue,
something that the right wing can make its own in order to accumulate power.
And guess what?
That strategy was first implemented by Nixon and his presidential campaign.
And Pete, managed to get right wing voters religious right wing
voters to back him after he started running on an antichoice message.
But the person who really succeeded with that message was, of course,
Ronald Reagan, it's all about political power.
So let's go back to Dane's record,
because I'm curious what does this record show in regard to health care?
Because health care, by the way, is important to keep people alive in general.
But health care is also important if you genuinely think that gun violence in
the country is a mental health issue.
And that we can solve it by getting people mental health treatment,
ensuring that people who need prescription drugs for their mental health issue.
They can get their hands on those drugs without astronomical prices or
other obstacles that stand in the way.
Let's look at his record, 2013.
2013 Daines voted for a total repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Daines voted for HR 45, an act to repeal the patient protection and
affordable Care Act and healthcare related provisions in the health care and
education reconciliation act of 2010.
Fun, okay, great.
So essentially take a what was originally a Republican healthcare
plan from mitt Romney in his state of Massachusetts.
Take that and all of a sudden be against it because a democrat is
the one who is trying to push it through.
As a democrat is the one who succeeded in getting it passed.
And so repealing it would mean less people would be covered in America,
that means less people would have access to mental health treatment,
less access to affordable pharmaceutical drugs for their mental health concerns.
But he wasn't done.
In 2015, Daines voted to repeal most of the Affordable Care Act.
Daines voted for legislation that gutted the Affordable Care Act by
eliminating the insurance exchanges and subsidies and
repealing the Medicaid expansion accepted by 30 states, including Nevada.
The Medicaid expansion ensured that the poorest people in
these states had coverage.
That's what the Medicaid expansion component of the affordable Care Act did,
a lot of red States didn't like it.
Lot of Red States with their right wing politicians did not
want to expand Medicaid which would cost them nothing.
Okay, it was the federal government subsidizing the expansion of Medicaid
in their states to make sure poor people who don't have health
care are properly covered.
That's what the Medicaid expansion component of the Affordable Care Act was,
what that does that keeps people alive, that keeps people healthy.
But Senator Daines, he ain't about that unless
he gets to regulate what a woman can and can't do with her uterus.
That's when it matters to him.
Let me give you more, 2017.
He was real active in 2017.
Daines voted for the fiscal year 2018 budget resolution
which included 473 billion dollars in cuts, in cuts to Medicare over 10 years.
If you cut Medicare, what do you think happens?
People don't get the coverage they need to do what to stay alive.
Yeah. Mr. Sea Turtle guy, maybe consider that,
but he knows, he knows this, he totally knows this, he's just a liar.
Let me give you more.
2017 again, Daines voted for
the fiscal year 2018 budget resolution which cut funding for
non-Medicare health programs, most notably Medicaid by $1.3 trillion.
A 20% cut over the course of 10 years increasing to a 29.3% cut by 2027.
So that's who that guy is.
And just in case,
just in case I need to remind you guys of what that would all mean.
If you actually succeeded along with the other Republican authoritarians in
getting these bills passed.
What would it mean?
It would mean that protections for 425,900 Montanans with pre existing conditions.
They would lose those protections if they buy their coverage on their own,
improvements to Medicare, including reduced costs for prescription drugs.
That's what the Affordable Care Act would do or does they would repeal that?
He was against allowing kids to stay on their parents insurance until
the age of 26.
He was against the ban on annual and lifetime limits on what you pay for
health insurance.
He was against the ban on insurance, discrimination against women,
which isn't that surprising to be quite honest with you.
He was against the limit on out of pocket costs for Americans on health care.
He was also against, as you know, based on multiple votes,
Medicaid expansion currently covering roughly 85,000 Montanans.
So it turns out for Senator Daines lives don't matter at all.
Not even a little bit, what matters to Daines is controlling people
controlling women, taking their freedom away, taking their autonomy away.
I mean, the guy, it compared us to freaking sea turtles and bald eagles.
He's a clown.
He's a joke.
And the only thing that frustrates me is that he's
winning along with all of the other right wing authoritarians in the country.
Finally, from 2007 to 2020 Daines has received
$110,000 in contributions from pharmaceutical companies.
I just give you that last piece of news because lives apparently
matter kind of unless he's looking out for his campaign coffers.
Unless he needs to bow down to the pharmaceutical companies and
to the private health insurance companies,
that will always take priority over human lives.
Always.
It's incredibly frustrating.
These people are complete nutter liars.
They refused to do anything that would solve unnecessary deaths of
actual viable living breathing human beings in this country.
And then they turn around and they pretend as though they're the self righteous ones.
They pretend as though they're the ones who are looking out for unborn fetuses.
Ok, don't buy it for a second.
It's all about control and it's sick that this is happening in this country.
But it's what you have when one party is super organized, they have
a strategy in place, they're willing to take decades to get what they want.
And then the other party, the opposition party really has no plan at all.
It's infuriating