In early July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott installed a chain of buoys and barbed wire in the Rio Grande as part of his “Operation Lone Star” plan to crack down on illegal border crossings. Then, a few days later, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in response to the floating buoy border. The DOJ is using an obscure 1899 law called the Rivers and Harbors Act as the legal basis for this suit, claiming the border obstructs navigable waterways. Will that be enough for the DOJ to force Abbott to remove the buoys? Weeds host Jonquilyn Hill asks Texas A&M law professor Gabriel Eckstein and Texas Tribune reporter Uriel García to find out. 

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Biden is taking Texas to court over its floating border barrier

Eagle Pass residents sour on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star 

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Jonquilyn Hill, host

Katelyn Bogucki, producer

Sofi LaLonde, producer

Cristian Ayala, engineer

A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts

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Finding a therapist can be exhausting. Between connecting with a clinician you like and locating someone who takes your insurance, it can be a daunting process. And despite a 2008 law that requires parity between mental and physical health care, insurers have found workarounds. Now, the Biden administration is moving to strengthen the parity law to make it easier for folks to access mental health care. Will it work? Vox’s Dylan Scott explains.  

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Why it’s so hard to get health insurance to pay for therapy - Vox 

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Jonquilyn Hill, host

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Cristian Ayala, engineer

A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts

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For the first time ever in America, a birth control pill will be available over the counter. In July 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Opill, a progestin-only form of daily oral contraception. This move could open the doors to millions of people who need, and want, to use birth control. To understand the court rulings that got us here, the potential obstacles to equal access, and what Opill means for the future of contraceptives in the US, host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, an OBGYN and the CEO of Power to Decide, and Khiara M. Bridges, a professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law.

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Last month, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Student loan debt these days weighs in at about $1.7 trillion. Leah Litman and Josh Mitchell join us on the latest episode of The Weeds to dive into the legal landscape and discuss how we got this student loan system in the first place. 

Read More:

The Supreme Court’s student loan decision in Biden v. Nebraska is lawless and completely partisan | Vox

The Supreme Court put itself in charge of the executive branch with its major questions doctrine | Vox  

Student Debt Relief Bad, Bigotry Good | Crooked Media 

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Many states have extremely punitive policies around cannabis and pregnancy. But researchers don't actually have great data on cannabis's harms. This episode of Unexplainable originally aired in May 2023.

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Weed in pregnancy: Is it safe? - Vox 

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If you’re buying a new home, there’s a good chance it’s part of a homeowners association. HOAs are a form of common interest housing, and roughly a quarter of Americans live in communities with one. These private entities work as a pseudo-government in many neighborhoods, and they’re shaping housing policy across the country.

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When your neighbors become your overlords 

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A popular saying is that public libraries are the last bastion of true democracy. But in recent months, Republican state lawmakers and local elected boards in states including Texas and Missouri have threatened libraries as a way to control what materials patrons can and cannot access. But these funding threats didn’t come out of nowhere. They often start with book bans in public schools. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we dig into threats to defund public libraries and the growing movement to ban books at schools and libraries across the country. Cody Croan, an administrative librarian in Missouri, talks about what he’s seen on the ground, and Kasey Meehan, the program director for Freedom to Read at PEN America, tells us what this new level of censorship means for American democracy. 

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Why Republicans want to defund public libraries and ban books | Vox 

The “anti-intellectual attack” on higher ed will take years to undo | Vox 

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In this live taping of The Weeds from TruCon 2023, host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, for a conversation about the role of Africa in the current geopolitical landscape. They discuss the ongoing conflict in Sudan, Uganda’s new anti-LGBTQ law, South Africa’s move to supply weapons to Russia, and take some audience questions. 

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For many Black children, their first encounter with the discrimination that will trail them their whole lives comes from the school system — a system where they are five times more likely to attend a segregated school than their white counterparts. This early exposure to segregation is one of many possible factors contributing to what’s known as the racial achievement gap — the gap between Black and white students’ test scores. Education experts have looked to a number of factors as root causes of the gap: family income, single parenthood, school resources. Another is the disparities in school discipline. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we dig into school discipline and the achievement gap with Francis Pearman of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.

Read more:

Discrimination everywhere | Vox and Capital B

Abbott Elementary Recap: Janine and Gregory Sitting in a Tree | Vulture

Excerpt: Collective Racial Bias and the Black-White Test Score Gap

Schools are still segregated, and Black children are paying a price | Economic Policy Institute 

Full study: Collective Racial Bias and the Black-White Test Score Gap | SpringerLink  

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Do Montanans have a constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment? According to the state constitution they do. And a group of young people are using that language to sue the state over its energy policies. The case is called Held v. Montana, and the plaintiffs want to prove the state’s energy policies directly harm the Montana environment. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we’ll dig into the case with Amanda Eggert (@amandaleggert), environmental reporter at the Montana Free Press, and also hear from a plaintiff about why she decided to join the lawsuit. 

You can read more reporting from Amanda on the Montana legislature, state energy policy, and the environment at MontanaFreePress.org

We reached out to the Montana attorney general’s office for comment. Here is the full statement below: 

“Following the legislative session, there are no existing laws or policies for the district court to rule on. A show trial on laws that do not exist, as the district court seems intent on holding, would be a colossal waste of taxpayer resources. This same lawsuit has been thrown out of federal court and courts in a dozen other states — and it should be dismissed here in Montana as well.” —Emily Flower, spokeswoman for Attorney General Austin Knudsen

“This entire lawsuit is a meritless publicity stunt to increase fundraising for their political activism at the expense of Montana taxpayers. Our Children’s Trust is a special-interest group that is exploiting well-intentioned Montana kids — including a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old — to achieve its goal of shutting down responsible energy development in our state. Unable to implement their policies through the normal processes of representative government, these out-of-state climate activists are trying to use liberal courts to impose their authoritarian climate agenda on Montanans.” —Kyler Nerison, communications director for Attorney General Austin Knudsen

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A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts

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