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The Daily Beans
Refried Beans | Huffing My Woobies (feat. Elie Mystal) | 5.18.2022
00:49:38
Wednesday, May 18th, 2022 In the Hot Notes: The DoJ has asked the 1/6 committee for transcripts of their depositions; Tom Barrack is hit with superseding indictments; former RNC finance chair Steve Wynn has been sued to compel him to register as a foreign agent to China for Donald Trump; the 1/6 committee is unlikely to call Donald Trump to testify; Matt Gaetz went ballistic on FBI agents in his house 15 minutes before he went on Tucker Carlson’s show to deny child sex trafficking allegations; and a senior Trump official at the State Department met with election denial activists on January 6th; plus Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Martin Sheen
Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news. Even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday, Season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah, 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world. But I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? Say you want to take back your Sundays? So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, season three, available now. Don't mess with my Sunday.
- [01:11]
Allison Gill
And thank you for listening, MSW Media. Hey, everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago, so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
- [01:35]
Ellie Mustahl
Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time.
- [01:58]
Allison Gill
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Huge news day today. The Department of Justice has asked the January 6 committee for transcripts of their depositions. Tom Barrack is hit with superseding indictments. Former RNC finance chair Steve Wynn has been sued to compel him to register as a foreign agent for China to Donald Trump. The 16 Committee is unlikely to call Donald Trump to testify. Matt Gaetz went ballistic on FBI agents in his home 15 minutes before he went on Tucker Carlson show to deny child sex trafficking allegations. And a senior Trump official at the State Department met with election denial activists on January 6th. I'm Alison Gill.
- [02:37]
Dana Goldberg
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
- [02:41]
Allison Gill
We almost had a record for the longest intro.
- [02:44]
Dana Goldberg
I was gonna say, goodness, don't even ask how I am. Let's just get into this because we've
- [02:48]
Allison Gill
got a lot to cover. Yeah, it's a hell of a news day for justice. Some quick notes. Tom Barrack has been superseded today for accepting $374 million from the United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund in exchange for pushing policy to Trump. And former finance chair of the RNC who had to resign for sexual misconduct. Casino mogul Steve Wynn has been sued by the Justice Department to compel him to register as a foreign agent for China to Donald Trump. I'm going to go over these stories in detail on Mueller, she wrote this Sunday, so tune in for that. And later in the show, I'm going to be speaking with Ellie Mostal about his piece in the Nation about three test cases progressives can file in response to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ellie had reached out to me, including a test case over violations of the Eighth Amendment, after reading my thread on Twitter about military sexual trauma and subsequent abortion. You do not want to miss this interview, which is coming up in just a bit. So with all that, oh my God, so much news, let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes from Glenn Thrush and Luke Broadwater at the New York Times. The Justice Department has asked the house committee investigating Jan. 6 for transcripts of interviews it is conducting, which have included discussions with associates of former President Donald Trump. And that's according to people with knowledge of the situation. The move, coming as Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to be ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol riot, is the clearest sign yet of a wide ranging inquiry at the Justice Department. I don't know how many signs you need of wide ranging inquiry at the Justice Department, but here we are. The House committee has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far, and the transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases to pursue new leads or as a baseline text for new interviews conducted by federal law enforcement officials. This is big news. Aides to Representative Benny Thompson, who is the chair of the committee, have yet to reach a final agreement with the Justice Department on what will be turned over, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. However, Bennie Thompson has said we aren't going to hand anything over to the, to the Justice Department right now. We're still investigating and we're still doing our, you know, working on our work product here. I immediately got very angry on Twitter. I said, what the fuck, Benny? Why are you not just handing everything? But then some folks pointed out to me, hey, this could be to keep that wall of separation up between the department and the committee to avoid politicization of any criminal investigations at the Justice Department. And then, you know, I started to think, what if the shoe were on the other foot. What if we had a Republican attorney general like Bill Barr who was demanding documents from a Democratic House of Representatives? I would want a subpoena, too. So I have cooled my tits.
- [05:31]
Dana Goldberg
That's such a good saying.
- [05:32]
Allison Gill
Now, again, this is huge news, as it appears that the Justice Department has done everything it can quietly and now is at the point in their massive investigation into leaders of the coup where they can no longer operate silently. That means things are going to start happening at a faster clip, which should please a lot of people frustrated by the seemingly slow pace of the probe, based on the silence at the justice department on April 20th. So this was like a month ago. Kenneth Polite, that's such a good name. The assistant attorney General for the Criminal Division. And Matt Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote to Timothy Heaphy, the lead investigator for the House panel, advising him that some of the committee interviews, quote, may contain information relevant to a criminal investigation we are conducting. Yes, and some people got upset with the May language. May contain information, but here's why the Justice Department said that. Because if they said it does contain information, that would be admitting that there's an ongoing investigation which is against DOJ policy. So that's why they said may. It does. They do. Now, Mr. Polite, Mr. Graves did not indicate the number of transcripts they were requesting or the names or whether any interviews were of particular interest in their letter. They made a broad request asking the panel provide to us transcripts of these interviews and of any additional interviews you conduct in the future. I've been concerned about Iran Contra like problems since the beginning of the investigation, and this news kind of assuages those fears.
- [06:54]
Dana Goldberg
Good.
- [06:55]
Allison Gill
The Times reminds us that several months ago, the department quietly detailed a veteran federal prosecutor from Maryland, Thomas Windom, who I talked about to the department's headquarters. He is overseeing the politically fraught question of whether a case can be made related to other efforts to overturn the election. Aside from the storming of the Capitol, that task could move the investigation closer to Trump and his inner circle. It already has, according to subpoenas that the New York Times viewed. I don't know why they are saying that. And it goes on to say the Justice Department's request for transcripts underscores how much ground the House committee has covered and the unusual nature of a situation where a well staffed congressional investigation has obtained testimony from key witnesses before a grand jury investigation. At least 16 Trump allies have signaled they will not fully cooperate with the committee. Faced with such resistance, investigators on the panel have taken a page out of organized crime prosecutions and have quietly turned at least six lower level Trump administration staff members into witnesses who have provided information about their boss's activities.
- [07:52]
Dana Goldberg
At least they're starting to play hardball. I like it. And AG Speaking of recalcitrant witnesses, Rep. Benny Thompson as we spoke earlier, he said that the 16 select committee is unlikely to call former President Donald Trump as a witness, contending that Trump's testimony was not necessary to advance the committee's mounting evidence of the former President's EFF to subvert the 2020 election. We got enough. We don't need him up here and we don't want to give him the time of day. And this is a quote. We're not sure that the evidence that we receive can be any more validated with his presence. We know this shit's true and we don't need him to say that it is. And he's probably not going to Thompson. That's what he told reporters Tuesday. He continued to say, I think the concern is whether or not he would add any more value with his testimony. He won't. Thompson said discussions with former Vice President Mike Pence were ongoing, though he has previously suggested Pence's testimony may not be necessary in light of high level cooperation from his top advisors. Now Pence could serve a unique role in the panel as he could function as both a witness to attempts to overturn the election as well as a victim since he was targeted by Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election. The committee's 10 month investigation has produced reams of evidence, described a complex and multifaceted plan by the former guy to prevent the transfer of power to Biden from seeking to unravel his defeat in court to increasingly desperate maneuvers to get state legislatures to overturn the results after his legal challenges. All failed. All of them. And there were a lot of them. Eventually, the former president homed in on the January 6, 2021 session of Congress when lawmakers were required by the Constitution to count electoral votes and finalize the 2020 presidential election. Now get this AG in a related story, during a pretrial hearing for the Oath Keepers today, the defense actually argued that the seditious conspiracy charge he dropped because you can only seditiously conspire against the executive branch and not the legislative branch. They also claimed the indictment lacked specificity as to which parts of the conspiracy interfered with the execution of which laws. Now the government arg they've alleged that the Oath Keepers conspired to interfere with the government's execution of the transition of presidential power through force. And they don't need to identify specific government actors the defendants interfered with to further that conspiracy. So right now, there's no rulings in that hearing. It's an interesting argument.
- [10:23]
Allison Gill
Yeah, they wanted that to be dropped. And the judge was like, this is Judge Amit Meta. So he was like, no, bro. He didn't make any rulings. But, you know, it was clear where that's going. And 15 minutes before Matt Gaetz Milkshake Matt was due to go on Tuck Em's Fox News show on March 30, 2021. God, it's been over a year. Hours after a bombshell report that he was under investigation for allegedly sex trafficking a minor, Gates was shouting repeatedly at FBI agents in his house. Do you have a warrant to be here? He yelled, according to an FBI report obtained by the Daily Beast. But as adversarial as Gates was, in those moments, the agents weren't there. They weren't after him. They weren't there for that. They were actually there to help him and his father, who had been cooperating with the FBI for several days in a sting operation that Gates claimed on live TV minutes later would clear his name. So they came in. So they came in to help him out. He's like, do you have a warrant to be. That's something totally innocent people.
- [11:25]
Dana Goldberg
Absolutely.
- [11:27]
Allison Gill
And, of course, all that did was prove that his dad was willing. That whole investigation, all it did was prove that his daddy was willing to spend $5 million on a pardon for his very innocent son. Now, this scene and others are detailed in previously unreported documents that shed new light on the sting operation which Gates helped orchestrate in the frenzied days before the New York Times published an explosive report that changed the panhandle congressman's public and political life. The documents, in possession of federal prosecutors and obtained by the Daily Beast, confirmed parts of the story, international intrigue and attempted fraud that Gates described to Carlson minutes after the agents left his home. But the records also contradict fundamental claims in Gaetz's version of events, raising new questions about Gaetz's own role in the sting, as well as when and why he began to cooperate with the feds. One document contains a key but so far elusive detail about the origins of the ongoing federal sex trafficking investigation into Gates. When exactly it began. That's the key. When Gates first recounted the story to Carlson, it was for an unprepared public still processing the news of sex trafficking probes. A head spinning chain of events. According to Matt, two men approached his father Don, the wealthy former president of the Florida Senate and political power broker, with a bizarre quid pro quo. If Don would give them $25 million, they could make the investigation into Maddie Matt go away.
- [12:51]
Dana Goldberg
Interesting.
- [12:53]
Allison Gill
The stated motivation for the 25 million dollar payment was even more bizarre. The men said they wanted to use the money to rescue Bob Levinson, an American taken hostage in Iran and long presumed dead. Quote, our family was so troubled by that we went to the FBI, Gates told Carlson. But FBI records dispute that sequence of events.
- [13:11]
Dana Goldberg
Really shocking.
- [13:13]
Allison Gill
According to the documents, the FBI learned of the Levinson plot independently through layers of intermediaries. Agents only spoke to Matt Gates after reaching out to him through one of those intermediaries. So Gates didn't call the FBI. The FBI called him. Gates also mangled the story in other ways, telling Carlson without evidence that this was all a deep state plot. He claimed the allegations in the Times report somehow sprang from this same thing. But that logic doesn't hold. The Gates probe was already several months old.
- [13:41]
Dana Goldberg
Whoops.
- [13:42]
Allison Gill
The FBI investigation into the Levinson plot had just started days earlier. When the Fox News segment was over, a baffled Carlson called it one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted.
- [13:53]
Dana Goldberg
I remember that.
- [13:55]
Allison Gill
Eventually, however, Gaetz achieved some degree of vindication when one of the men at the center of the hostage plan, convicted felon Steven Alford, admitted last November to wire fraud in connection with that plot. Still, the records contradict Gaetz's more then they confirm his sequence of events. Okay. According to the documents, Gates had his first conversation with the FBI on March 19, where he told agents that he and his father had already met. The two men, Alford and another associate just the day before to discuss their offer in person. It wasn't as Gaetz had claimed that his family contacted the FBI to discuss an extortion scheme. According to that FBI Special Agents field report, the agent learned of the plot earlier that day when a retired agent from Jacksonville tipped her off. The active agent followed that lead to another former FBI agent, this one based in Miami, who told her about the Levinson plan. The men making the offer, this Miami agent said had claimed to have information on Congressman Gates. The report also clarifies that the Miami agent's tip did not come from Gaetz. When FBI finally got in touch with Matt Gaetz over the phone, he claimed that on the previous day, his father had two in person meetings with the men to Discuss their plan. Alfred was brought in for the second meeting. Matt Gaetz noted and promised to make Congressman Gates's criminal case go away. So they were into it. It wasn't a sting operation. They were like, Fuck yeah, here's 25 million. Yep, get me a pardon. At the end of the phone call, Gates asked the FBI agents to call his dad. Sorry, I know. Contact between the Gates's and Alford ceased without a deal. And on March 25, one week after meeting with Alford, Don Gates was in the FBI's Fort Walton beach office with his attorney and two special agents. A record of that meeting shows the agents spun through a PowerPoint assisted strategy session designed to restart the Levinson negotiations and sting the alleged perpetrators. So they found out about the Levinson operation, called up the Gateses and said, help us catch these guys. In that meeting, Don Gates mentioned the investigation into his son. He told the pair of agents that he had heard third hand that a former Justice Department attorney tied to the Levinson plan had brought up the investigation in a conversation. When agents inquired further, Don Gaetz's attorney intervened and referred them to Matt Gaetz's lawyer. Don't talk about what your fucking son did, please. We're the FBI. Matt Gaetz, whose campaign paid $5,000 to Trump whisperer and notorious Deep State antagonist Roger Stone for strategic consulting the day before his father's meeting with the FBI, would days later invoke that former DOJ attorney as a Deep State boogeyman in his Carlson appearance. Nice. The next day, on March 26, Don Gates surreptitiously taped an in person conversation with Alfred's lawyer, the former DOJ attorney mentioned above. He later recorded another conversation with Alfred himself, where Alfred promised a presidential pardon for his kid. And then, according to the records, around 2:30pm On March 30, Don Gates met a special agent at a Publix grocery store in Niceville, Florida to receive a recording device for a follow up conversation with Alford the next day. Hours later, the New York Times disclosed the sex trafficking investigation. That evening, around 7:45, according to the FBI report, two special agents rang the bell at Gates family residence. They had come for their recording device. The sting was off, but the records don't explain why and they don't mention the Times story. After Don Gates handed them the recording device, the agents asked if they could take photos of his text messages with Alford. According to FBI records, Don Gates voluntarily handed over his phone and as an agent snapped one photo of a text, Matt Gaetz appeared outside from another area, the home, and yelled, he has a lawyer. Multiple times.
- [17:38]
Dana Goldberg
Also, what innocent people do.
- [17:40]
Allison Gill
Totally. The agent handed the phone back to Don Gates and they arranged to get in touch with his attorney. As the agents walked back to their vehicle, according to the document, Gates yelled, do you have a warrant to be here? And asked his father if they took anything from him. The agents did not respond. Don Gates answered his son, no, son. They only took the recording device that they gave us. Remember?
- [18:01]
Dana Goldberg
Remember they gave us for that sting? They wanted that back. We didn't get to keep it.
- [18:04]
Allison Gill
Minutes later, Matt Gaetz was on national television delivering a broadside against the men he still alleges extorted his family, while at the same time describing a series of events that FBI records show is complete bullshit. According to previous news reports, the doj, led by Trump appointed Attorney General Bill Barr, launched this investigation in the final months of the Trump administration. But the FBI documents more narrowly ascribe the start of the probe and to the summer of 2020.
- [18:29]
Dana Goldberg
Good Lord, Matt Gaetz is a mess. So is that entire damn family. Yeah. All right, A.G. last story in this segment. On January 6, 2021, around the time that thousands of Donald Trump supporters swarmed the U.S. capitol, a top Trump appointee at the U.S. department met with two activists who had been key to spreading the false narrative that the presidential election had been stolen. Now, the meeting came as Trump's allies repressing theories that election machines had been hacked by foreign powers. And we're angling for the former guy to employ the vast powers of national security establishment to seize voting machines or even rerun the election. None of that was gonna happen. Now, Robert Destrow, he's a law professor at the Catholic University of America and then serving as an assistant Secretary of state, he confirmed to the Washington Post he met with two men, Colorado podcaster Joe Altman and Michigan lawyer Matthew Diperno. And this was in the midst of the very tumultuous day. So the two men had previously claimed to have huddled on January 6th with State Department leaders who Altman said were sympathetic to the claims that a coup was underway to steal the presidency from Donald. Now, they have not identified with whom they met. Destro's acknowledgment is the first independent confirmation that they successfully gained the high level audience. It's unclear whether the meeting led to any action at all. Now, Altman and DiPerno, they played important behind the scene roles in crafting the baseless allegations that the alle election was stolen from Trump and that's from a review of emails and public statements from the Trump allies. That's what that showed. Now, the State Department meeting provides new evidence of the success that activists spreading false claims about the election had in gaining access to top administration officials. I mean, Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was in close contact with activists pushing false fraud narratives, as were high level officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Now, in response to questions from the Post, Destro confirmed an email that he met with Altman and DiPerno, now the Republican nominee for attorney general in Michigan, by the way. But Destro, he declined to answer other questions, including what was discussed that day, whether other officials took part, and whether anyone took action as a result of that discussion. Now, Virginia Bennett and Virginia's a former career foreign service officer who was Destro's predecessor as acting assistant secretary at the start of the Trump administration. What she said, she said the job generally involves meeting with foreigners as well as American activists involved in human rights advocacy overseas. But she said it would be atypical for the assistant secretary to hold meetings about U.S. elections. This is a quote. I can't understand why anyone who is examining US Election practices and who is not foreign would have had a meeting at the State Department, she said. She went on to say, the Department of State has no authority from statute or other mandate over US Elections. Period, end of sentence. And then she said, I don't understand how anybody could have thought that was a good idea.
- [21:31]
Allison Gill
I know how.
- [21:33]
Dana Goldberg
Oh my God. Thinking is the key word. Nobody.
- [21:37]
Allison Gill
Yeah. Wow. Very interesting. And that that person's running for office is also a problem.
- [21:43]
Dana Goldberg
Yes, indeed.
- [21:44]
Allison Gill
Yeah. All right, everybody, we'll be back with the author of Allow Me to Retort, which is the current MSW Book Club book. And that first episode is out now, wherever you listen to podcasts. So up next, we'll be talking about a piece that Ellie Mistahl penned for the Nation in which he describes test cases we can file post Roe. Stay with us after these messages.
- [22:04]
Ellie Mustahl
We'll be right back.
- [22:08]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you need in your life? The Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can resist. Subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. It's the news we think you need to hear.
- [22:33]
Dana Goldberg
That's right.
- [22:34]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
We think you need to hear it okay.
- [22:36]
Ellie Mustahl
Yeah.
- [22:36]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
It's what we say, so.
- [22:37]
Dana Goldberg
That's right.
- [22:38]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
And because all we do is give. Every Thursday, you can listen to our hysterical podcast, Idiot of the Week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to.
- [22:47]
Dana Goldberg
Okay.
- [22:48]
Allison Gill
All we do is give. Hey, everybody, welcome back. Please welcome justice correspondent for the Nation, MSNBC legal contributor and author of the instant New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort, A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution, Ellie Mustall. Ellie, hi.
- [23:09]
Ellie Mustahl
Hi. How are you?
- [23:11]
Allison Gill
I am doing, you know, under the circumstances. I woke up today. So there's that, you know, at least
- [23:16]
Ellie Mustahl
you're not a sea turtle. Oh, wait,
- [23:21]
Allison Gill
yes. Or a liquid chicken or whatever.
- [23:23]
Ellie Mustahl
Right?
- [23:23]
Allison Gill
Yeah. And I'm so excited to talk to you today. You had reached out about part of a piece that you wrote for the Nation, and I want to go over that with you because I had told my story about had Roe not existed when I was in the military, I probably wouldn't be here today. And you put a piece out in the Nation about three test cases. It's called Three Test Cases. Progressives should bring in a post Roe world on how, if that had happened to me, which it will now happen to other people, what sort of lawsuits can be brought? What can we do? And I believe your lead here is it's time to take a page from the conservative playbook and bring a torrent of lawsuits against every state that passes a forced birth mandate. So first, can you explain what happens when Roe is overturned this summer?
- [24:13]
Ellie Mustahl
Yeah. So what's, what's going to happen is quite simply, each of the states will then get to make its own determination about whether abortion is legal, when it is legal up to and the circumstances under which a pregnant person can get an abortion. And that sounds, I think, to some people like a compromise. Oh, we should let the states decide and whatever. And I would just like to point out that you don't compromise on fundamental human rights. All right.
- [24:43]
Allison Gill
Yeah. Do we have some sort of history in this country about states rights and allowing states to do things?
- [24:48]
Ellie Mustahl
States rights is, you know, a bad argument that has been used to do great evil in this country before. And so using it again doesn't sanitize it in some way. All right. So like if you're in a situation where you're not a full human, depending on which side of an arbitrary line you happen to get impregnated on, you happen to get assaulted on, that should not be. And so this idea that we're going to take a fundamental right and let Texas and Florida and New York and California have different laws about it is like fundamentally stupid and quite frankly, fundamentally offensive to the concept of human rights. But that's what's going to happen. And already we live in a world where while your right to an abortion is arguably guaranteed by the soon to be overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, your access to abortion is already highly restricted depending on what state you live in and depending on how much money you have to put towards the project, whether or not you can even get access to this constitutional right. So we already live in a, in a world in a dystopia where access to your own body kind of depends on what state you're living in. They're just gonna make that kind of more formalized once Roe is officially overturned.
- [26:09]
Allison Gill
Yeah, and me when I was in the military, we'll talk about the 8th amendment here in a second, but when I was in the military, first of all, I'm super white, super privileged, and if something happens to me now, and if I were able to get pregnant, I could travel, I have the means to travel. But when I was in the military, I did not have, I wasn't afforded the ability to travel or get leave from my military base. But this isn't just about people like me and, or people in the military who are unable to travel. There are just people by reasons of 200 plus years of white supremacy in this country who are unable to travel to have access to this, this healthcare. So it's, it's, you know, it's, we all have our own niches about what we can and can't do, but everyone seems to forget about other people, say
- [26:54]
Ellie Mustahl
nothing of just, you know, just the economics of it all. Traveling is not cheap. Traveling across state lines is not cheap. Traveling away from your potentially wage earning job, as one of the things we know is that many women, I think it's most women actually who seek abortion services already have children. So getting time off in your job, potentially getting childcare for your children to go to another state to wait for a long time for, let's not forget a medical procedure, right? You can't just walk in and then hop back on the Greyhound and go home. So you're talking about the need to put forward some serious cash in order to get this done if you cannot do it locally. And that's just beyond the means of lots of people in this country. And of course the bad guys know that. Of course the people who are in favor of overturning abortions understand that their privileged white mistresses will be able to go where they need to go to take care of themselves. Right. Like, they understand that there will be ways, you know, the suburban white woman who's going to vote for Trump twice in a row, she understands that if she needs one or if her daughter needs one, there's going to be a way to go and find and figure that out. Right. They understand that the people who are being most constrained here are poor women who are going to be disproportionately minority, of course, but, but fundamentally are women who don't have access and don't have funding to go get that done. They understand exactly who they're hurting when they support these laws.
- [28:30]
Allison Gill
Yeah, they ripped that page right out of the voter suppression handbook for the Republicans.
- [28:34]
Martin Sheen
Yup.
- [28:34]
Allison Gill
All right, so let's talk about the first test case. Forced birth violates religious liberty. Talk about.
- [28:39]
Ellie Mustahl
I just want to say right up top, because I don't want to give anybody false hope. These are lawsuits that I think should be brought. I think that we should choke the system with lawsuits. I say we're going to win because Republicans have controlled the court system both at the state level, the local federal level and the national federal level. Republicans control the court system up and down that system. So when I'm talking about bringing lawsuits either locally or federally, I'm talking about losing. People are going to have to understand that there is going to be be a lot more losing in the future. I say that we should do it anyway, not just for mere performative like it makes me feel good, not just for that, although there is some performance benefit to it. I say that because according to Republicans own logic, the reason why, according to Republicans, that it is okay to throw out 50 years of subtle precedent about abortion is because, well, people kept suing. So clearly it was never accepted because there were always lawsuits. So if that's their. That's their logic. Right. So according to Republicans, the way that we lodge our continued dissent and disrespect for their forced birth laws is to sue them constantly. That's actually what the Republicans say we have to do to make sure that future generations know that we did not accept these laws. So according to again the Republicans own logic, you gotta sue. And while. So that's number one, number two, continually putting the Republican jurist on question, you know, up to the question of just how dystopian they wanna be, has its own value because it continually refocuses the country on who the bad people are and what they're doing and why it's important for Democrats to take the court seriously, something that Republicans have done for a generation because of this very issue. The Democrats have not. So, like, that's another just reminding people of why the courts are important. Huge part of this lawsuit strategy. And while we're generally going to lose, you never know, somebody look, the anti abortion people, they brought lawsuits that they didn't think we're going to win all the time. And eventually some of them won. So sometimes you never know. So that as a preface, I don't want to give people false hope. These are not lawsuits that Republican judges will agree with, but they should be brought anyway. And yes, the first one is one on religious freedom. People need to understand, and I don't mean to be rude to spiritual people when I say this, trust me, when I mean to be rude, you'll know. But the concept that life begins at conception is a particularly Christian concept and a particularly Christian fundamentalist concept. Not everybody believes that. And the thing about forced birth is that if you don't believe that, there's no other good legal reason to prevent women from controlling their own bodies, you actually have to have that fundamentalist Christian belief of when life starts to even make any of this make sense. All right, so the first lawsuit should be about somebody who doesn't believe that, who just straight up, you know, there are lots of talks about which religions don't believe that. You know, lots of, look, I'm not a spiritual person. I did not go to seminary. It is not my place. My whole thing is to not impose religious views on other people. Right? So like, but there are certainly people, believers of other faiths. The Jewish faith gets brought out a lot when you talk about, when you talk to Jewish people, at least in my neck and the words in New York and online that the Jewish concept of abortion is complicated, but it does not rest on this idea that life begins at conception. So a woman who is prevented from getting an abortion in Texas, in Florida, in Idaho, in Oklahoma and one of these states seems to me to have a pretty good religious freedom argument to make.
- [32:45]
Allison Gill
Right? What's good for the gay cake is good for the abortion.
- [32:48]
Ellie Mustahl
Right? Like that's a. And remember, the Republicans, the current Republicans love religious freedom arguments. They actually think that religious freedom is so important to Republicans that it justifies secular bigotry. That is what they will say, that it is okay to be bigoted against gay people trying to get married if you have a deeply held religious belief. Well, what if you're a woman, you have a deeply held religious belief that life does not Start till birth. And so you want to have access to medical care. That seems to me to be a valid religious objection. Right. And so that should be the first lawsuit. And again, that lawsuit should happen in every state that does this.
- [33:24]
Allison Gill
Yeah, absolutely. Second potential lawsuit that could be brought is 8th amendment. It's what applies to my story, and that's that birth mandates are considered. Would fall under cruel and unusual punishment for rape. Survivors talk a little bit about that.
- [33:39]
Ellie Mustahl
Yeah, so I. I hate to, you know, I'm very aware that I have, you know, I'm one of the people who has a stunted Y chromosome. Right. Like, there's an aspect of here that I do not want to sound flippant or strident about. In the worst situations, in a situation where a woman has been assaulted and impregnated, attached to that assault, and she wants to end, Terminate that pregnancy, and the state prevents her from terminating that pregnancy, not just because, oh, it's a state law and whatever. Because they physically restrict her movement, which is what happens when you are raped in prison and then are forced to bring the pregnancy to term. It's what happens when you, as you were saying, when you're in the military and you're sexually assaulted in the military, but you can't leave your base, you can't leave your post without this. Other agents of the state, other agents of the military giving you leave when the state, both when you've been assaulted and the state restricts your movement. What is that? And as I read the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, certainly there is no crime that you can be convicted of where carrying a pregnancy to term against your will is an appropriate punishment for that crime. That's just not something you can imagine. I mean, I'm not making this up. You can imagine, you know, being convicted of a drug charge, of a drug offense. Right. Getting raped or getting impregnated or even voluntarily getting impregnated, but being incarcerated in a state that doesn't allow abortions and then not being able to leave as this pregnancy is growing inside of you against your will, that's just. That is barbaric. That is madness that cannot be done by a legitimate society. You must give this person their choice about what is going on inside their body, especially when that happened against their will in the first place. And to not give them that choice is, to my mind, cruel and unusual punishment. I also like to, just for the legal nerds out there, throw back one of Neil Gorsuch's, you know, conservative jurist words back at them in a 2019 death penalty case. Neil Gorsuch made up a new standard for the 8th amendment because one of the things that originalists do is that whenever the law disagrees with them, they just make something up. So Neil Gorsuch made up a whole new standard for the 8th amendment and said that the way to understand cruel and unusual punishment is when pain or disgrace or terror is super added on top of the regular punishment. And again, I cannot think of any kind of any better definition of pain, disgrace, or terror super added to a prison sentence than being forced to carry a pregnancy. Determine against your will.
- [36:38]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Allison Gill
Especially if the survivor of sexual assault.
- [36:42]
Ellie Mustahl
Right.
- [36:42]
Allison Gill
Finally, forced labor is already unconstitutional.
- [36:45]
Ellie Mustahl
I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong. We had a war about this, right? Like, we, like, I remember, like, there's like, there's a woman in, like, Atlanta, she was, like, never going to go hungry again. And then Sherman came through. It was a whole war. So there was a movie about it. Right. And we decided, I thought forever, that involuntary servitude was going to be illegal in these United States, that you couldn't. No matter the state interest, no matter how compelling the state really needed you to pick cotton. The entire economy is based on it. You have to know you can't force people to work against their will for free. You cannot do it except as punishment of a crime, which we just discussed. Right. So the idea that the state, no matter how compelling it thinks its interest is in the unborn fetus, no matter how it's unreasonable to think that the state can then compel, can force, can essentially rent out a woman's insides to do this labor on behalf of the state against her will for free. It's just not a thing. It's not. It's not. Again, one of the ways that we have to flip our conversation about this is that for way too long, the left has ceded the language battle to the right. Right wing is not pro life. We know that from their stance in the death penalty. We know that from their stance on what happens to a baby the minute it's out of the womb. They don't seem to care if it has baby formula, if it's the wrong color, and certainly don't seem to care if it has access to healthcare or education or anything else. So we know they're not actually pro life. We've ceded that language to the right wing. I don't know why forced birth is what we're talking about. We're talking about mandating people to carry pregnancies to term. Against their will, at the end of which it's going to be one of the most painful things I've ever heard about. And again, I've got a Y chromosome, so this is not my. This is not something I have to kind of worry about. But, you know, I've had two children and from what I've heard, it's painful.
- [39:01]
Allison Gill
But we call it labor for a reason.
- [39:03]
Ellie Mustahl
Right. So like the idea that you can force. To me, it's a miracle that anybody wants to do it voluntarily. It's a miracle. I mean, there are women who have one kid and then sign up for another. That's a mirror. That's amazing to me.
- [39:18]
Dana Goldberg
Right.
- [39:19]
Ellie Mustahl
But the miracle is that anybody wants to do it willingly. The idea that somebody could be forced to unwillingly, that's just barbaric. And so from my, from where I sit, the 13th amendment already prohibits that kind of barbaric idea. That kind of. The idea that you can force people to work for the state for the state's compelling interest, against their will, for free. That's just, that's just not something that we do.
- [39:45]
Dana Goldberg
No.
- [39:46]
Allison Gill
And it's, it's actually terrifying to think about when you talk about that terror super ad. That's. Yeah, I'm. That's what goes on in my mind.
- [39:53]
Ellie Mustahl
Right.
- [39:54]
Allison Gill
Yeah, absolutely. Especially considering whose baby it is. Right. Not just mine. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Tell us about this, everybody. Check out this piece in the nation. It's called three test cases. Progressives should bring in a post Roe world. Follow Ellie on on Twitter and good news. Ellie's best selling book, Allow Me to A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution will be our next book series on the MSW Book Club. The first episode is already out, so please listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much, Ellie, for joining us today. Everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back for the good news.
- [40:27]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you mean in your life the Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can hashtag resist, subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. It's the news we think you need to hear.
- [40:52]
Dana Goldberg
That's right.
- [40:53]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
We think you need to hear it. Okay.
- [40:55]
Allison Gill
Yeah.
- [40:55]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
It's what we say, so.
- [40:56]
Dana Goldberg
That's right.
- [40:57]
Frangela (Frances Collier and Angela V. Shelton)
And because all we do is give Every Thursday you can listen to our hysterical podcast, idiot of the week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to.
- [41:06]
Dana Goldberg
Okay?
- [41:07]
Allison Gill
All we do is give. Everyone welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
- [41:19]
Martin Sheen
Everyone.
- [41:20]
Ellie Mustahl
Then good news, everyone.
- [41:27]
Allison Gill
Good news, good news. And if you have any good news, corrections, confessions, whatever you need to send into us. Pod, pet pics, Wooby stories. I miss the whoopie stories. I want more for sure. Anything you want to send in to us, you can do that by going to DailyBeansPod.com and click on Contact. And Dana, why don't you kick us off today?
- [41:45]
Dana Goldberg
I would love to. This one's from Judy Pronoun. She and her Dear ladies, I think a trigger warning is needed. Last week you played an intro to the good news block that featured animal noises. My cats were in the room and the podcast was playing on the speaker. They heard the intro and freaked the fuck out. Out. One of them ran all over the room looking for the potential feline intruders. They recovered quickly, but next time, maybe I should put on headphones for my pet tacks. Attached are pictures of my cats and more relaxed modes. Dash is the younger one named for Dash from the Incredibles because of his mask. Awesome. He's on a diet. It's not working. Tuck is my old man. 17 plus years and hanging in. He's aptly named because like to tuck himself into cat sized places. The question is, did Dash lure Tuck into the slow cooker? Thank you all for everything you do. I've been listening since the early days of Molly She Wrote, and I appreciate your knowledgeable explanations, your measured perspectives, and of course, your senses of humor. Your take on things is often what allows me to sleep at night.
- [42:49]
Allison Gill
Okay, all right. This dude.
- [42:51]
Dana Goldberg
Yep.
- [42:54]
Allison Gill
Oh, my gosh. Look at the belly. Oh, that doesn't look like a very old cat. That's amazing.
- [43:00]
Dana Goldberg
I know. It really is. And beautiful.
- [43:02]
Allison Gill
I love tuxedos. They're such clowns. Okay, thank you for that. Thank you for sending. Oh, look up next. Oh, Wooby story.
- [43:09]
Dana Goldberg
Ta da. Asking you shall receive, my friend.
- [43:11]
Allison Gill
Indeed. Indeed. Can I get a Matt Gaetz indictment?
- [43:14]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, I'll work on that.
- [43:16]
Allison Gill
Thank you. All right, from Angie Pronoun. She and her greetings. I've been a fan since the kitchen table days. Your celebration of woobies has provided some very bright moments of connection. While sorting through my mom's possessions after her death, I unearthed a trove of woobies. The blanket in which I came home from the hospital was used for security. To pretend I had long hair, to play a nun in a habit, to serve as a mermaid's tail, and to be a tablecloth when we played house. The brown threadbear bear was my mom's before he was mine, so he's pushing 80. Then came Tinklebear, who had a bell in his ear and took several dips in the toilet. Okay, good name. Next came Snuggles, not pictured, who only I just realized was a stuffed dog and not a bear. Gordon Lightfoot served from 1983 to present as a confidant during high school and adulthood. Gordon Lightfoot. When I opened the box, they were in. The familiar smells and the way they felt pressed against my face unlocked all the memories. My brother came into the room and asked what I was doing, and I looked up, tears streaming down my face. I'm huffing my woobies.
- [44:19]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my God. Hilarious.
- [44:22]
Allison Gill
And we have an episode title.
- [44:23]
Dana Goldberg
Yes, indeed.
- [44:25]
Allison Gill
Huffing. I'm writing it down. Huffing my woobies. It's become a turn of phrase we use now when we need help coping with stuff. Life is hard, but woobies are soft.
- [44:32]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, man, these are some loved bears. And a lamb.
- [44:36]
Allison Gill
Oh, look at these babies.
- [44:39]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my God, I love all of them. Oh, my God, there's a very angry kitty. This is from. This is from Remy Pronoun. C and him. I just wanted to share this picture of a cat frowning because their hooman gave them a salad. I can understand why the cat frowned because I can never envision a cat liking a salad. I understand that dogs cannot frown, but seems that cats sure can. And the photo attribution to G22110 on Twitter. And this cat is definitely pissed about the salad.
- [45:11]
Allison Gill
I love TG's Twitter.
- [45:13]
Dana Goldberg
That's fantastic.
- [45:14]
Allison Gill
I think there might be a little Photoshop magic here, but yeah, that's an angry cat all right. Finally, we have a submission from Gigi Pronoun. She and her dear they. Of all the things leguminical, I like it. Yeah, look, y', all, I'm a 61ish ex Catholic, ex communicated Mormon, current spouse of an ordained minister. Okay, okay. She's a big old lesbian and Midwesterner. Well, this is really hard for me to say. Fuck. Nope. Not hard at all, it seems. And for transparency, my son, formerly of the US Navy, used to brag that I swore like a sailor's mother. So, yes. Fuck. I only wish I'd been part of the Leguminati since the kitchen table days. I found Mueller. She wrote on Twitter a couple years ago, but had not taken time to listen to any podcasts until 2020. Wonderful. This still isn't over and the Daily Beans was my first time. I know you will believe me when I tell you, Dana and Allison, that you have helped me scream and yell without any longer believing it was only into the void. So thank you both from the bottom of this old ish as I have stated previously, heart for understanding the gut wrenching anguish of watching the dominoes of our rights as women as queer as human tumble one by one, faster and faster, starting with the night in the fall of 2016, not when the Cubs won the World Series. That was awesome. The night that threw my PTSD into overdrive and broke my heart. You see, I knew they were coming for Roe and it was so obvious that that was the plan. I knew Orange Buffoonious didn't learn his lesson other than he could get away with everything. I knew it wouldn't end there. So as hard as it is to hear the news each day, hearing it from people who can explain it, who are so full of compassion and so willing to be vulnerable. So we feel that we can as well. Just thanks My wife and I have been together for 21 years. We were both in our early 40s and other than two sons, all of our six between us kids were grown. Now two decades later we're estranged from two because of evangelical bullshit, one because of Q, and in the process their families with a combined total of 11 grandchildren. Yes, the ones still in our lives are precious and so are the ones who aren't. I'm a disabled retired nurse, ptsd, bipolar disorder, ADHD became too much. Several years ago I learned to do video editing, amateur camera work, lights and how to use a steam vac. Around 12 years ago when my wife in seminary at the time and I started an online faith community that was sponsored by an open and affirming UCC church congregation in Southern Illinois. After she semi retired and we relocated, I began making lyrics videos for progressive Christian musicians. Yep, super niche and kind of nice. My website is openroads video.com if anyone checks it out. Do me a favor and check out the recommended links. Yes, the world is full of Christian music and musicians who work for and believe in a just fair world. For pet tax I present my precious Ziggy. She was found by our complex management one February, frozen and starving. The manager told us if we would take her in they would waive the pet deposit suckers the moment she and I locked eyes. It was love. While fairly healthy for a cat who'd been starved to less than 3 pounds. She did test positive for FIV. The vet told us we would be lucky to have her for two years. And we were actually were her staff. We were her staff for four. I don't have a pic of her waking me up at 4 in the morning by shutting off my CPAP, but I do have these two of her getting as close to dressed for Halloween as I can can ever get her. Pre2016 I worked for peace. Now I keep peace in my social media handles to remind me to work for justice. Because getting along usually means most are being quiet. So the few will let them just live even knowing that we all equally belong in the sunlight.
- [49:10]
Dana Goldberg
So beautiful.
- [49:12]
Allison Gill
Look at this baby.
- [49:13]
Dana Goldberg
So beautiful.
- [49:16]
Allison Gill
Do they make that hat in my size?
- [49:18]
Dana Goldberg
I bet they could. I bet someone could make it for you in your size.
- [49:21]
Allison Gill
Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for that submission, Gigi. And thanks to everyone for sending your stuff in. Remy, Angie, and of course, Judy, we appreciate your submissions. If you have anything you want to send in to us, you can do so by going to DailyBeanspot.com and clicking on Contact. Dana, do you have any final thoughts before we close the chapter on this incredible news day?
- [49:43]
Dana Goldberg
I actually do. My final thoughts are to honor someone we lost. And I'm sorry if I get teary. Urvashi vet And a lot of people will know Urvashi as a trailblazer for the LGBTQ community. And if you're not familiar with her, I implore you to look her up, listen to her speeches. She literally would go to the Republican National Convention and show up and speak to reporters about what they were doing wrong there. And her speeches are powerful. And she spoke on the march in Washington. And she was also married to my dear friend Kate Clinton, which is why I get teary, because I know Kate and the rest of the world are hurting right now, but they were together since 1998, and so to honor her, please look her up. And as an extension of Urvashi, some of you may be familiar with her nephew, I believe, Alok a L O K who's one of the most incredible poets and wordsmiths that I've ever heard. And they are tremendous non binary humans. So I just want to honor Urvashi's memory. She changed this landscape for so many of us and led the way to so many rights that we have now. And she will be missed. She will be missed.
- [51:00]
Allison Gill
Yes. Let's honor her voice. Thank you for that, Dana. Oh. You okay? Yeah, I'm Okay.
- [51:08]
Dana Goldberg
I just, it's, you know, I think about couples. You know, Gigi's been married for 21 years to her wife and these, These relationships. And I just. My heart hurts for Kate knowing that she lost her person from cancer or if she was fighting cancer. And I think it came back very strongly recently. And so this came on quickly, but it just hurts my heart. You know, we're an empathic bunch the beans, and so I'm feeling it for the community for sure.
- [51:37]
Allison Gill
Well, we will have no problem with her memory and legacy living well beyond.
- [51:48]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, just, I mean, incredible speaker. Just look up some of her videos as I smile now just thinking about them. I mean, it's powerful shit. So I'm sure some of you are aware of her work and others of you are about to become quite aware of it. And it's worth it. It's worth a deep dive.
- [52:03]
Allison Gill
Awesome. Thank you for that.
- [52:04]
Dana Goldberg
And thank you for letting me have that moment.
- [52:06]
Allison Gill
No problem at all. Everybody, until tomorrow, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of your mental health, and take care of the planet. Also, vote blue over Q. I've been AG and I've been dg and them's the beans.
- [52:19]
Ellie Mustahl
Refried beans.
- [52:19]
Allison Gill
I like refried beans.
- [52:21]
Martin Sheen
Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news. Even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday. Season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah. 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world. But I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? You want to take back your Sundays? So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, season three, available now. Don't mess with my Sunday, and thank you for listening.