Robin Marty & Dana Ballout

secession movement and the national divorce concept. But first we have the author of the new handbook for a post row America, the West Alabama Women's Center's very own Robin Marty. Welcome to Fast Politics. Robin, Hello, thank you for having me back. Thank you for coming back. We've interviewed you a bunch of times during the SPA when we saw what was coming, then the year of horrible nous between SPA and the leaked Dobbs decision, then that dog sitution,

then in Coming Down. It's been now a couple of months. How has life changed in Alabama? That is such a huge question. And honestly, I'm afraid to talk to you because every time I talk to you, things get worse. I promise I'm not a witch you. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, So we are still at West Alabama Women's Center, and

we are surprisingly still open. Originally we thought we had about three months left in us to be able to stay around, but we did a lot of fundraising and so we are still here and we are going to be here until at least June of next year, according to my books. So I'm very excited about that, and it's good because we're going to a pretty desperate state out here right now. I mean state physically, in state emotionally. Obviously,

the need for abortion did not go away. But one of the things that has been so very disheartening out here is the fact that I think a lot of us assumed that people were going to try to leave the state. We assume that people were going to self manage and that they would need us to be able to help them. But the reality is we are seeing patients who do not want to be pregnant, do not want to have another child or a first child, but

they are just resigned to it. And they're resigned to it because they see this as just another way that the government has forced something on them that they didn't want in a long series of these sort of government actions against their body. They see this as another way that they are being harmed in the same way of not being given decent jobs or healthcare or schools drinking water. This is just another way that the government says we do not care about you, and you don't have any

choice in your future. And so that's what we're trying to address right now. One of our primary goals right now is that we do pregnancy confirmation, which is required when a person is pregnant and uninsured in order to get onto Medicaid, so that they can then be seen for prenatal care appointments and doctors. We're doing that confirmation because obviously people who are uninsured can't get a doctor to confirm their pregnancy, which is what they need to

get Medicaid in order to get a doctor. So we're seeing them, we're providing early prenatal care, and then we are just trying to address every need that we can. Today or yesterday, we had a patient who came in who was eight months pregnant. She thought she had no very insist so she did not realize that she was

that far along. She's advanced maternal age, all of these other things, and so we saw her and we're getting trying to get her referred to a hospital for a doctor who can deliver, and it will be a high risk pregnancy. But she's also eight months. I mean that's like very far along. Yeah, and it had no prenatal care, has nothing. And so this is what we see in Alabama. People who don't have access to health in time to

know that something's wrong. People who don't understand even necessarily how their bodies are supposed to work in order to be able to recognize pregnancy. If there's a lack of health care, there's a lack of education, and there's such a lack of compassion. So you're saying to me, you're seeing people who are just resigned to this is what my life is now. Yes, very much so. I mean it's not like they then get some check. I mean, they can't afford to do this right, not at all.

And the thing that was so heartbreaking about this patient is that she actually surprisingly ended up next door at the crisis pregnancy center instead of us, because they're still there. What are they even doing now if there's no abortion in the state. They did nothing for her because I talked to them a couple of times, and they had asked what we were doing, and I mentioned that we were doing prenatal care now and if they had people who need assistance to be good help that we're doing

STI testing and treatment. If they have people who need assistance, we can help. We're not doing abortion. And an eight month pregnant woman walks in and they don't help her, and they don't give her instructions how to get to us who are right next door. They told her that they didn't know where we were. So I mean Alabama. I've only been here two years. But there is this this aura of people who are in charge will do anything in order to keep their power in place, and

they don't care who they hurt. They don't care what happens to people that are not them, as long as they are maintaining their power and their control over the state. What does that even mean? Like the thing you were telling me about that really haunted me, which I feel like you're going to tell me worse things about now. Are the women who are in the middle of having a miscarriage who can't get treatment. Is that still going on?

And it is still going on? Um, we have been able to see some of them, which is would we know there are probably more? This is still. I mean, we're still six months in, so this is still pretty new. We are still seeing people who have come to the hospital and who have been turned away from the hospital for whatever reason, oftentimes just to wait out and see if anything changes, if they miscarry on their own, that

sort of thing. I'm very worried about next year in all honesty, because our state are politicians that are in charge are still zealous. We have now had six months in which the Attorney General has been successful at convincing everybody including us, that there is such a thing as a conspiracy law that would make it illegal for us

to help people leave the state. And what I am very worried about is the way that that is going to get doubled down on next year, because we already know, for instance, that a group has found a lawmaker that is supposed to be proposing a bill that abortion will be illegal and anyone will be punished for having an abortion, so it will be the person who obtains the abortion as well, and that, according to the bill includes if they go out of state to have an abortion, that

they could be punished for it in Alabama. So that allegedly is going to be introduced in the next session. I've been seeing all of this pop up of Comstock Act laws. So um Comstock Act was in the nineteen hundred's early nineteen hundreds, the idea that it is illegal to provide information about birth control or contraception or abortion, or to provide that in the mail. This is what the anti abortion activists are using in order to try to get the FDA to withdraw their their approval of

medication abortion. Then we've seen it in different state and city ordinances that are being introduced, like the one that was in Pueblo, Colorado when they were trying to stop a new clinic from opening there. So everything that is is bad, everything that is the most extreme, the most Christian theocratic part of what law could be like. I expect all of these things to be tried out in Alabama, and it terrifies me because in Alabama it will pass. Is it still that if you're bleeding and you go

to the hospital, they won't treat you. Is it worse? Is it a little better? I mean, well, it's difficult to tell. I believe I know that the medical professionals have met on this, and I believe that there is some organizing and trying to find out what they are in fact allowed to do. Our issue in Tuscaloosa is the fact that we literally only have one hospital. So in our city there is no option other than going

to Juid City Health. That is where you go, and so that is if you are having bleeding and an issue, you would go there or you would come to us. And so now obviously we're in the situation where we can do an ultrasound and seed leading. We can do ultrasounds and see is the feat of developing, is the embryo developing, does it have a heartbeat, is it in

the right place? All of those things. We can do testing to make sure that the amount of pregnancy hormone in the blood level is not increasing the way that it's supposed to, and all of those things should say. Because of the fact that we did them, we have proven that this is not a viable pregnancy, this is not an abortion, and we should be fine, but we don't know if we are. And that's what's scary about it.

Because if you watch anti abortion UM literature, all of their press releases lately, everything, they are being very very specific about the idea that an abortion is an elective procedure anything else is not an abortion. And so essentially it comes down to your intent with your pregnancy. Did you want to be pregnant, then you can have an abortion. Did you not want to be pregnant, you cannot have

an abortion. You need to remain pregnant. So it's really punitive and nonsensical, like the Republican Party right, exactly right. And it's where you get the idea there is no medically necessary abortion, because then they'll say that whatever happened that was not actually an abortion, that was a removal of a piece of tube that happened to have an embryo in it, that was making labor, making labor happen

before the fetus was viable. That's what they will always use as their acrobatics around it, when it's really just it comes down to did you want to be pregnant, then it's okay. Did you not want to be pregnant, then it's bad. Is this increasing maternal fetal mortality? I mean, I have to assume it's going to It's too soon

for us to be able to see the numbers. Yet I can tell you that we are seeing patients who come in who are more pregnant than would usually be in having their first appointments, so we know that that will eventually lead to to bad health outcomes because it always does. But the other thing is it's not as much we are going to have bad maternal mortality right away.

A lot of the impacts of the maternal mortality is the idea of child space, sing and so letting your body be able to recover from a pregnant before they're pregnant again. So we might not see the impact in the first year, but then as the second year comes and they're pregnant again, and the third year comes and they're pregnant again. Because again Alabama is doing nothing to try to expand any sort of access to contraception. They're

just saying, Okay, you can't have an abortion. So this is not something that is going to be a one cycle. This is going to be they are going to become pregnant over and over and over until they die. I mean, is there education about birth control or now? And not so much. Um, there really isn't much in the way

of sex said in our schools. In fact, it was up until I think two years ago, it was actually okay for what sex said does exist for in public schools to say that being gay was high risk life that would likely kill you, and that that actually took I believe three sessions in the legislature before the bill was passed that removed that from the sex sidon curriculum. I don't believe we're as bad as Mississippi, where you

can't actually show a condom being put on anything. I think we are allowed to put a condom on a banana, but I'm not positive. But the reality is the groups that usually do this sort of sex aid outreach, we don't really have much in the way of planned parent put down here. We don't have reproductive health care centers that are going to do that, and so inevitably it's going to be these faith based groups that are tapped that end up going into do set said and they

are totally unscientific. They are yeah, this is the do you want to be that used piece of tape? Are you that chewed piece of bubble gum? That's the kind of stuff that they do. I don't even know what that is, but I don't even want to now. Oh,

the bubble gum one is great. It's it's the idea of Okay, so if you have sex with somebody, then it's like being a chewed piece of bubble gum And is anybody else gonna want to put you in your in their mouth once you've already been in And it's always about the women obviously, yeah right, no man, They're like, yeah, you're ruining yourself anyway. But so yeah, it's it's it's very shameful, and it's mostly about making making those who

who are female feel ashamed of their bodies. Wow, that is really so fuck cost is the I like the chocolate the chocolate bar one where they will actually take a bar of chocolate and everybody passes it around and then and they're supposed to hold it for like thirty seconds, and then by the time it gets the last person, it's all melted. And they're like, yep, that's what happens when you have sex with too many people. You are a melted, ugly bar melty chocolate. That's pretty stupid. What

can the casual listener to this podcast do? I think that, in all honesty, the thing that I would love to see the most is I wish that people would remember that we still have eleven states down here, all in the same region, all in the poorest area of the United States that have not expanded medicaid, and I'm starting to I mean, I think everybody's abandoned us over that idea. Like it was one thing when there were more states that hadn't done it, but now it's like we've moved

on from it. We understand that Obamacare is not its best the best that it could be. And I know that we all want universal single payer and I am a for that, But the reality is that until we can get to that, and until we can find something that will happen nationally that our states can't opt out of, we need to be pushing for medicaid in these states down here in order to make sure that people have access to preventative healthcare. Are Preventative healthcare is going to

get them through these pregnancies. Preventative healthcare is going to help them prevent pregnancies if they if they don't want to become pregnant. And I firmly believe that if we could just find one state in this group that the rest of them will crumble. It's just because these eleven

have held fast together for so long. If one of them does it, then it would shame the rest and I'm looking at Atlanta, Georgia basically as being that place that could really flip things if Georgia could expand medicaid. I believe that Florida, Alabama, Mississippi. I believe that Texas really has a chance. But we need people to remember that that's still a fight that exists. It's not over for us, and it is literally killing people every day.

So interesting. Thank you so much, Robin. I hope next time we talk to you there will be some good news. The right still relying on something or at least don't make it worse sor right. Thank you so much. Dana Blut is a producer for the podcast The Last Resort. Welcome to Fast Politics. Dana, thanks so much for having me. You have a pretty wild idea here talk to me about California secession. It's a really broad topic, but definitely

not a new one. The idea of California succeeding from the United States has been around for quite a while, but for this particular podcast, we focused on a group that is an interesting one. You know. It was started by two guys, and Louis Marinelli and Marcus Ruise Evans, and they built a movement Um, that's been around for I would say at least the past ten years, and they believe that California would be better off becoming it's an independent country, and that the United States would be

better off without California. They've built followers, but overall it's been I would say it's been a tumultuous ride for this group. Can you explain to me why they think we'd be better off separating from the fifth largest economy

in the world the rest of America. They think that, you know, America would get laws, for example, past a lot easier, that we are culturally, at our core, very difference than the rest of the country, and that the United States has different political values, and that sometimes it is held back by liberal California. So why not have the United States? So they're conservatives, know, the group in

California is liberal. Yeah, they assume that the rest of the United States is more conservative than California and therefore would be better off, you know, passing its conservative laws or being the conservative country that they believe. Yeah, the United States is, So that's why they think they'd be the rest of the country would be. They're off, But frankly, they just think more than anything, they think California would be a lot better off, right, Well, that makes a

lot more sense. Tell us why California. I mean, I think we would be screwed, But tell us why California would be better off. Yeah, it kind of depends where

you sit on the political spectrum. But they believe that California, as the fifth largest economy in the in the world, as you know, America's bread basket, as a place that has these utopian values at times, would be better off being independent, would have a lot more global power, not just you know, amongst its neighbors, but also in the world, and so would be able to play a bigger role in even global politics and arms deals and um, trying

to spread you know, better environmental laws, and would have you know, a lot of cards in its corner being the fifth largest economy in the world and being America's bread basket and where you know, some of the water comes from, so, you know, on the surface, when I first started out, like m this is an interesting idea, Yeah, I guess you know, it does. On the surface it can seem like a compelling, compelling argument for California, just not for the rest of us. Yeah, not for the

rest of the country. The rest of us are completely screwed. Tell me about the tumult. And also I want to know. I don't know if this is them or a different part of the California's secession movement, but it does seem to me that Russia was giving some money into one of these organizations. Part of that the Russian division stuff is they love secession movements. Yes, this is the group that we had a podcast about. Yes, and that is

probably the biggest tumult of all. So this group, the leader, as I said, Louis Marinelli, was one of the founders and the president for a really long time. Louis is a complicated character. He started out as a conservative while advocating against same sex marriage and was you know, started out as a staunch conservative and over the years, you know, he says that he made the turn and became more liberal and started this group because he wanted better immigration policies.

He was married to a Russian he and wanted to be able to bring his wife over and live in peace in California without having to go through all the complicated immigration policies. So he, you know, made the switch. But Louis is someone that has ties has long time ties with Russia. He went there first to teach English and so taught English there for a while, and then it came back for a little bit, married a Russian and then moved again and became you know, Moscow became

his base while he was president of Yes California. So he says, you know that it was never he just chose to live there because he likes it, doesn't you know,

shouldn't say anything about his loyalty to California. The story that you referenced comes from the fact that he struck up a friendship with a guy named Alexander I. Knov or Yonov, and Alexander Jonov started this group in Russia called the anti globalization movement, and actually not just California secessionists, but Texas secessionists and Hawaiian secessionists and other American secessionists

around them around the country. Uh participated in Alexander Jonov's is summit that he had for anti globalization movements across the world. So it's not just Californians that actually went to Moscow to be at this summit, but also Texans

and otherwise. And but Louis Louis because he was based in Moscow, became you know, I guess um friends or at least friendly with him, and Alexander Yonov gave him an office to to make the California Embassy based in Moscow, and as the FBI indictments that came out a couple of months ago, will say he did receive money from Alexander Yonov, which neither one of them denies, but they um they say it was five hundred dollars and that it wasn't used towards a protest. But of course, you

know TBD on that. I don't know that. I it's hard to know what to believe. But we did ask both of them about receiving funds from Alexander Yonov and whether he had ties to the Russian governments as an FBI and Diatmond says, Alexander Yonov does deny that he has ties to the Russian intelligence. Again, I don't. I wouldn't. Um, Yeah, I don't have evidence either way, but yeah, exactly exactly why would he lie? I mean wild he lie? Right, So there's certainly is some sense that it's possible that

this California succession movement was birthed in Moscow. I didn't know that it was birthed in Moscow, but it definitely had ties to it, and I would say that it received It's undoubted that it received support from from Moscow. Do you get the sense that these people are more

than just chaos agents? You mean, like, yes, Californya, the secession group, I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are some people who really believe it, but I mean, clearly, Russia's interest in this has nothing to do with, you know,

with California. I mean, it has to do with creating chaos, right, Yeah, I think Russian interests are kind of supporting, as you say, chaos agents maybe, And although obviously that's not what they would say, but I actually would say these two founders did believe that, especially Marcus Ruiz Evans, the other you know, founder, did strongly and still strongly, really believes in this wholeheartedly.

So I personally wouldn't just say that, you know, I wouldn't want to reduce them to just chaos agents, because I do believe, especially Marcus, I do believe that he is genuine in his wanting California to succeed, even if a part of it might be also ego, you know, male ego is quite strong and to to be the president of something, and in one interview he said, well, you know, if California sees like you know, maybe we could be president of California. You know, it's like a

ego is a very strong actor. Here it sounds insane. This is a pretty fringy movement. Yes, it is fringy. Although secession movements in America right, like in Texas, right, things are fringe until they're not. As we have seen, especially over the past five years, as we have unfortunately experienced, there's a bloodless secession. Talk to us about that. They believe in a non violence Yeah, well, the national divorce idea. So basically this would be brexit, right, Yes, I guess

that's what they would hope except worse referendum. But they think they would like for it to be bloodless. In our podcast, we really go down the rabbit hole and sink would this be bloodless? And I think we land on the fact that that would be very difficult. As one of like Barbara Walter wrote the book about Civil War in America and has studied civil wars globally. As you know, the most violent wars are around secession globally, so they've always been the most violent wars around land.

And so it would be very hard to believe that a, you know, California could secede without blood and yeah, and then there's a whole host of other things, the fact that Northern California is quite armed and very stands on a very opposite political spectrum then these guys or Calxit, So it would be hard to imagine that secession would be bloodless. Um, what weird stuff did you learn during this podcast? I learned a lot. The Russia stuff was quite fascinating to me. I had heard and speaking to

Alexander Yonav which we did twice, that was quite strange. Yeah, we spoke on a zoom call and he I don't know, there's like weird wallpaper in the back, and you know, there were those kind of weird moments. I spent some time with the State of Jefferson group up in northern California around reading and was really interesting to me and interesting to them as well, because I think very few people from Los Angeles where I live ever interact with them.

But you know, there's a very violence movement, a heart far right movements in northern California that's growing. Is that like the New Idaho stuff? Yeah, yeah, similar to that. They you know, they want to create, you know, a state of Jefferson, which kind of incorporates some of the Idaho counties that also you know a great you know, stand along the same political lines. They also have militias,

you know. Yeah, spend some time with the militia. You know, there's yeah, I mean, the the United States is changing a lot. You know, I'm disheartened, I think after making this podcast sadly with the state of the country. I think the division is a lot more aggressive, angry, and

visceral than I had imagined. And lastly, I would say the thing that I learned the most, it's not weird, but quite amazing, was you know, the landback movement that STSCA, the host is very much involved in, and you know, it's an incredible movement of indigenous activists really trying to get some of their learned back, or some of their rights at least back. And California has one of the most violent histories against indigenous populations and that was something

I didn't know before making us. Is there any chance that they can get some of it back? They have they have gotten some of their land back in northern California. Other parts of the country, they're they're starting to get some of their land back. So it is like a growing, growing movement. But yeah, it's positive in a lot of ways as well. Thank you so much. This is great. Thank you, thanks so much for having me. That's it

for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.