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The Daily Beans
A Message To You, AG
00:44:09
Wednesday, January 8th, 2025 Today, Judge Aileen Cannon has blocked the release of Jack Smith’s final report; the Republican controlled North Carolina Supreme Court has blocked the state from certifying the Democrat as the winner of the high court election; Senator Elizabeth Warren is sounding the alarm bells about Pete Hegseth; Zuckerburg says Meta will end fact checking in favor of community notes; an appeals court has denied Trump’s attempt to postpone his sentencing this Friday; Trump says he’s willing to use military force to obtain Greenland and the Panama Canal; the Pentagon agrees to settle a historic lawsuit with LGBTQ+ veterans over discharge status; and Allison and Dana delivers your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Allison Gill
MSW Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, January 8, 2025. Today, Judge Eileen Cannon has blocked release of the Jack Smith report. The Republican controlled North Carolina Supreme Court has blocked the state from certifying the Democrat as the winner of the high court election. Senator Elizabeth Warren is sounding alarm bells about Pete Hegseth Zuckerberg says Meadow will end fact checking in favor of community notes. An appeals court has denied Trump's attempt to postpone his sentencing this Friday. Trump says he's willing to use military force to obtain Greenland in the Panama Canal. And the Pentagon agrees to settle an historic lawsuit with LGBTQ plus veterans over discharge status. In my opinion, the most important story today. I'm Allison Gill.
- [01:10]
Dana Goldberg
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
- [01:15]
Allison Gill
You Judge Cannon.
- [01:17]
Dana Goldberg
I don't even think she deserves to have judge in front of her name at this point. Like, what a fraud. I, she's just so, I mean, obviously blackmailed. Something's she's compromised. But also. Yes, you just a chunch.
- [01:30]
Allison Gill
Do you remember that old state? Do you remember the state? The show? The state? Yeah, it was like a sketch comedy show and there was a sketch on there. So I'll dip my balls in it. Right? Like whenever anybody had like, oh, here's a beer, I'll dip my balls in it. Oh, you want some hummus? I'll dip my balls in. It was like, oh, here's some legal stuff. And she's just like, I'll dip my balls in it. That's just her. She teabags everything, fucks it all up. So she's actually filed an order blocking Merrick Garland from releasing the report. And she did this knowing when Jack Smith was going to hand the report over to Merrick Garland. Jack Smith last night was like, on Monday night was like, hey, I'm not going to turn the report over to Merrick Garland until 1pm Eastern on January 7th. And at 12:15pm Eastern on January the 7th, she fucking blocked it so that Merrick Garland couldn't get out before she just made some, you know, before she dipped her ball in it.
- [02:23]
Dana Goldberg
I listen, I love this word so I'm just going to spell it out, but she is, she is a See you next Tuesday. Like, I love the word cunty. Like this acting cunty, like in the in drag kind of way, in a, in an amazing kind of way. But this is a different kind of C u n T. And she's just awful. She's awful.
- [02:41]
Allison Gill
Yeah. Well, you and I spend a lot of time in communities where that's a very acceptable Word. Acceptable word. One of my very, very favorite people is Maryam T. And the T stands for Thistletwat. So, like, it's just, you know, I. But those are Terms of Endearment. Yeah. This woman is doing everything she can.
- [03:03]
Dana Goldberg
She's abhorrent. Yeah.
- [03:04]
Allison Gill
To block the release of this report because Donald Trump is freaking the out because Jack Smith gave some copies to him, which is part of protocol.
- [03:11]
Dana Goldberg
Yep.
- [03:12]
Allison Gill
And he didn't say, like, tell me what you think. He was like, here. You haven't. You have three days to review it. You have to come to D.C. to do it. And you can't bring any electronic devices in. And I'm handing the report in on this day. Just kind of like a. Go ahead, have a peek if you want.
- [03:26]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah. And then the fact that copies were made. Maybe. I don't know, maybe Jack Smith accidentally left it in the copier. Like someone leaked this fucking thing already.
- [03:35]
Allison Gill
I need Regina George to paper the hallways with it.
- [03:39]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [03:39]
Allison Gill
Like the burn book, because that's what it is.
- [03:41]
Dana Goldberg
Let's do it.
- [03:42]
Allison Gill
It's the legal burn book of Donald Trump and the Insurrection. That sounds like a children's book, but it's not. But, yeah, fuck her. Andy and I are going to talk about this, like, all of the things and where this could end up. I don't have a good feeling about this ever seeing the light of day. And I can explain all that on the Jack podcast this weekend, but, I mean, she is just. She's a judicial terrorist. Also, Trump said in a press conference today that he won't take military force off the table when it comes to Greenland and Panama. And that's all we're going to say about that, because I think he's trying to distract from the fact that this report is really, really damning. Yeah. And there are some pretty big differences between this and the Mueller report. For example, Jack Smith was not afraid in this report to accuse him of committing crimes. And so I really want to see this. And here's a little good news today. The first Appellate division of New York State Court quickly denied Trump's emergency motion to postpone his sentencing this Friday.
- [04:38]
Dana Goldberg
Good.
- [04:39]
Allison Gill
We will have details on today's cleanup on aisle 45 podcast with Harry Dunn. Of course, Donald Trump can appeal to the highest court in New York, which is called the appeals court. They do it a little backwards in New York. The court where Judge Maran sits, which we would think of like as the district court or the lower court, is actually called the Supreme Court in New York.
- [04:58]
Dana Goldberg
Interesting.
- [04:58]
Allison Gill
Yeah. And then they appeal to the, in this case, the First Appellate Division or the Appellate Court. First Division. And then it goes up to the Court of Appeals. So it's, they're different. They're special, apparently to the bane of law students everywhere. I get a lot of emails about that, but that's a little good news. So so far, he's still going to be sentenced on Friday. We'll see what happens. He could go to the Second Circuit Federal Court. I don't know. Yeah.
- [05:22]
Dana Goldberg
I just want to interject. I hope this is okay. This, this windstorm that's happening in Southern California. If you're in the area, please don't fuck around with this, everyone. And I was suggest, do not park your car under trees if you can. Do not walk for a while if there's heavy, heavy winds. In fact, you shouldn't even be out in this under trees. I've just known people in, in, in past storms that have been, yeah. Seriously hurt by trees that have fallen. So please just be careful. Obviously, I'm hoping everyone still has power and heat and all of those things, but thank goodness it is Southern California. Just be careful and please take this, please take these winds seriously.
- [05:58]
Allison Gill
Yeah, and they're really impacting the fires. There's a huge one in Palisades right now.
- [06:02]
Dana Goldberg
I can see it. I can see it.
- [06:04]
Allison Gill
It's just, and you know, again, I worry with this administration coming in. California didn't vote for me. You can't have disaster relief or whatever. So anyway, let's get on to the hot notes so that we can get to the good news.
- [06:17]
Dana Goldberg
That sounds wonderful. Fast track.
- [06:19]
Allison Gill
So we're gonna leak the hot notes to you today. Let's hit them. Hot notes. First up from Adam Edelman at NBC News. The North Carolina Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday that blocks state officials from certifying the Democratic candidate as the winner of a razor thin race for the state's high court. In a five to one vote, all of the Republicans on the state Supreme Court ruled to prevent the North Carolina State Board of Elections from certifying the results of the race, where Democratic Justice Alison Riggs holds a 734 vote lead over Republican Jefferson Griffin. Riggs recused herself from Tuesday's order. The decision by the court that Griffin is seeking to join and that Riggs is seeking to remain on allows the justices to now hear a challenge from Griffin that seeks to throw out 60,000 votes cast in November. The order vowed to address the issue expeditiously and outlined a schedule that sets a deadline for all briefs in the case to be filed by January 24th. So that's 16 days from now. Riggs, who was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2023, emerged from election Day with a narrow advantage over Griffin, triggering a series of recount counts and lawsuits. A full machine recount and a partial hand recount showed Riggs led Griffin by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots.
- [07:38]
Dana Goldberg
Wow.
- [07:39]
Allison Gill
Griffin subsequently filed hundreds of legal challenges, hundreds across all of North Carolina's 100 counties, claiming that nearly 60,000 people voted illegally. Lawyers for Griffin and the North Carolina Republican Party alleged that many of those voters didn't have their driver's license numbers or Social Security number on file in their voter registration records. The allegations were also related to overseas voters who haven't lived in North Carolina and who failed to provide photo identification with their ballots. But the state Elections Board, where Democrats have a 3:2 majority, rejected all three categories of protests by Griffin last month that prompted Griffin to ask the state Supreme Court to take up his challenges. The case was initially heard in federal court, federal court because the North Carolina Democratic Party had preemptively filed a federal suit in December that sought to ensure that all ballots in the race were counted. But on Monday, the federal judge hearing the case, an appointee of Trump, sent it back to the state level, siding with a request from Griffin. North Carolina's Board of Elections has filed an appeal of that decision with the U.S. court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, but that court has not scheduled initial briefs until February. In its short Tuesday order, the state Supreme Court's five Republican justices wrote that because the federal court remanded the case back to the state level, it would grant Griffin's request for the election certification to be blocked so that it could evaluate the claims regarding the 60,000 votes. The lone Democrat on the court who voted wrote in a dissent, quote, the standard for a temporary stay has not been met here. There is no likelihood of success on the merits, and the public interest requires that the court not interfere with the ordinary course of the democratic processes as set by statute and the state constitution. North Carolina Democrats blasted Griffin and the Republicans on the Supreme Court over the latest development. Now, former Governor Roy Cooper wrote on Twitter that Republicans want to toss thousands of legal votes in the trash because they don't like the outcome. He went on to say, this shouldn't be about party politics. This should be about making sure every vote counts and that our elections still mean something so blah. This is basically just using false allegations of voter fraud in in a, in a judicial robe.
- [09:48]
Dana Goldberg
Absolutely, Absolutely. Thanks, ag. This one, this one's from Missy Ryan at the Post. The record of Pete Hegseth and that, that's President elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Pentagon should disqualify him from such a pivotal national security role, a Democratic senator told the former Fox News personality in a letter imploring him to address before his confirmation hearing next week the swirl of controversy that has marked his candidacy. Senator Elizabeth Warren Woo, the top Democrat.
- [10:17]
Allison Gill
On the Senate Armed she always gets a little yay.
- [10:21]
Dana Goldberg
On the Senate Armed Services Committee on personnel, outlined 10 areas of concern, including allegations of heavy drinking, sexual misconduct, remarks suggesting female troops should play a more limited role in the military, his past skepticism about the need for US Personnel to comply with laws of war, and accusations of mismanagement of veterans organizations he headed. Hegseth has vehemently denied denied claims of wrongdoing.
- [10:47]
Allison Gill
I vehemently deny all 10 claims of massive wrongdoing.
- [10:50]
Dana Goldberg
Seriously, quote, I am deeply concerned by the many ways in which your behavior and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defense. This is from Warren. She said this in a letter sent Monday to Hegseth himself and a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post. She went on to say, your confirmation as secretary of Defense would be detrimental to our national security and disrespect a diverse array of of service members who are willing to sacrifice for our country. The 33 page letter, which includes more than 70 specific questions for Hegseth and his team about statements and incidents reported by the news media, comes a week before Hegseth, a former Army National Guard member, Princeton University graduate and longtime I guess this is his biggest one Fox News host appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing on January 14. It follows weeks of high profile reports surrounding Hegseth's background, including revelations about his record of jurors, of comments about Muslims, current military leaders, about an incident in which he was investigated, by the way, but not charged in an alleged sexual assault. We cover that here on the podcast. Hegseth's confirmation hearing will provide an early test on how congressional Republicans in particular will size up their preferences against those of their president. While Hegseth's record has stirred doubts among some of the GOP op, Trump has lobbied forcefully for his confirmation. Of course he has. Birds of a feather. And while some Republicans have praised hag Seth, who wasn't widely seen as a contender for high office until Trump announced his pick just days after the election, others, including Senator Joni Ernst. He's the Republican from Iowa and I'd like to write a strong email and never send it. Susan Collins, Republican from Maine, have not publicly declared how they're going to vote.
- [12:38]
Allison Gill
Her draft folder must be just, just overflowing.
- [12:42]
Dana Goldberg
To proceed for a vote. Senate floor Hegseth must secure the support of the majority of the Armed Services Committee, whose Democratic members are widely expected to oppose him. In her letter, Warren told Hegseth to be ready to respond to questions and asked that he first reply in writing by January 10th. Separately, a group of Democratic senators, including Warren, Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth, Kirsten Gillibrand. They sent a letter to Trump's designated chief of staff last month focused on Hegseth's record on women specifically.
- [13:15]
Allison Gill
Man January 14th. That's less than a week from now. I will be tuning in on C Span. Next up from Kate Gibson and Anna Marie Lee at CBS News. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday said the social media company is ending its fact checking program and replacing it with a community driven system similar to that of Elon Musk's Twitter.
- [13:37]
Dana Goldberg
It's gonna be a shit show and actually already has backfired on Musk. I mean, I mean on, on Zuckerberg. I literally went on Facebook for five seconds and a post scrolled by that said convicted rapist Mark Zuckerberg. And then it went into the whole thing. They're, they're trolling him to all get out on his own on his own website right now.
- [13:58]
Allison Gill
Yeah. To see how to see how this goes. I saw, I saw something similar. I think it was on Instagram. It looks like a photo of a New York Times article but the headline was Mark Zuckerberg's dick fell off. And like it's like let's see how good your fact check works, my friend. Just. Okay, now you know what, we can, we can talk about Zuckerberg in a minute. I mean just the whole, the whole Facebook thing started and is incels in college raiding girls faces. That's Facebook. God, it's the start. So I'm not real surprised here. Zuckerberg cited the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election as the underlying decision, calling it a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video. We're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to Twitter starting in the United States. The changes will impact meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, which have billions of users as well as threads. The system put in place to moderate its platforms makes too many mistakes. Zuckerberg says Meta introduced its fact checking program in 2016 as part of an effort to curb misinformation. The initiative was launched in response to criticism over Facebook's role in spreading false claims during the 2016 US election. A 2023 statement from Meta said the fact checking program had, quote, expanded to include nearly 100 organizations working more in more than 60 languages globally. Meta does plan to continue to moderate content related to drugs, terrorism, child exploitation, frauds and scams, joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer and Clegg's successor, wrote in a statement on Meta. Facebook's Trust and Safety Content moderation team is also moving from California to Texas and other US LOC to the note. Kaplan also said entrusting users to effectively moderate Meta's social media platforms should benefit its content. Quote We've seen this approach work on Twitter. Have we? Have we? Where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see. We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of overthrowing elections and becoming oligarchs in no, he didn't say that. Original intention of providing people with information about what they're seeing. And one that's less prone to bias. Okay, right. Take out fact checkers. That'll clear the bias right up. Meta said it would roll out its community notes approach over the next two months and continue refining it over the rest of the year. That will include no longer demoting content that users have fact checked and including what Kaplan called a much less obtrusive label, pointing people to additional information. The announcement came a day after Meta said former Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White, a close ally of Donald Trump, will join its board. And shortly after, former UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced he was stepping down as president of global affairs. Since Trump's November victory at the polls over Kamala Harris, Meta and other major technology companies have also sought engender goodwill with the incoming administration. I call it bribing, but okay. In December, for example, Meta donated a million dollars to Trump's inaugural fund while Zuckerberg dined with him at Mar a Lago. I don't know if that's really a gift. Have you seen the food?
- [17:25]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [17:27]
Allison Gill
Such gestures seemed aimed at repairing Meta's relationship with Trump. Yeah, that's one way to put it. Which soured after Facebook banned him from Facebook following the January 6 attack on the Capitol when the company ruled that his posts on the platform had helped foster the violence that day. So why all the ass kissing? My guess, you know, follow the money. It might have something to do with the giant antitrust FTC lawsuit against Meta that's coming up this year that I'm pretty sure Trump's going to drop.
- [17:59]
Dana Goldberg
I also heard something that all of these social media guys that own these, you know, billion dollar companies, they're actually worried about the ramifications and him taking revenge on their other companies that aren't social media companies. The other companies, how they sort of. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't really count because he built. He built his billions off of Facebook. But people like Musk and that Bezos. Yeah, exactly.
- [18:26]
Allison Gill
Yeah. Well, it's tough because not only are we up against Trump and a Republican House and Mike Johnson and a Republican Senate with John Thune as the leader, we're up against Time magazine and LA Times and the New York Times and Washington Post and Amazon and Disney and like, and Facebook threads. Instagram like it, of course, Twitter, but like it like it feels like Sisyphus some days.
- [18:55]
Dana Goldberg
That's why you support these podcasts, support public radio, support the podcast, all those things you can. All right, this is from Quill Lawrence at npr. Speaking of. Despite the ban on gay troops that it ended more than a decade ago, a surprisingly small fraction of the tens of thousands of vets affected have access benefits that they're due. The Pentagon has now agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that may change that for about 35,000 veterans. Quote, the settlement is not just about correcting records. It's about restoring the honor and the pride that the LGBTQ plus veterans have always deserved but were denied. That's from Lily Stefanides, and she's a US Navy veteran and plaintiff in this specific case. She said, I hope this brings justice to others who served with courage only to face exclusion and discrimination. Stefanides told NPR in 2023 that the stigma of being suddenly outed to their family in 1988 led to years of addiction and homelessness. Having a quote other than honorable discharge meant no automatic access to VA benefits or health care. It's a scarlet letter when employers ask about military service. Many veterans would deny that they ever served, rather than reveal paperwork that showed that they were kicked out for homosexual activity. In 2011, after a long campaign by LGBTQ veterans and activists, the Obama administration ended the ban. In the years since, the integration of gay and lesbian troops has been heralded as a huge success with no effects on unit cohesion or combat readiness. That's all, according to the Pentagon. But the plaintiffs in the suit in this lawsuit say the lingering stigma and a mountain of red tape kept many veterans from even applying to upgrade their military discharge status and get the benefits that they had earned. The Pentagon announced a proactive review of discharges under don't ask, don't tell. And that was the 1993 Clinton administration policy that banned troops from being open about their sexuality. And by the way, Clinton at the time thought he was doing something that was good so that this wasn't, like, made into the Constitution. Like it. He thought he was finding a middle ground, and it caused a lot of problems. But last October, this proposed settlement agreed to Monday. It's going to speed up that process considerably. If approved by California's Northern District Court, instead of individual applications, the settlement will allow veterans to have their records reviewed in large groups, delivering access to VA benefits and honorable discharge papers as early as the summer. And I quote, this proposed settlement delivers long overdue justice to LGBTQ veterans who served our country with honor, but were stripped of the dignity and recognition they rightfully earned due to discriminatory discharge policies. It marks a crucial step in addressing this deep seated injustice and ensuring those veterans receive the acknowledgment and respect that they have long been denied. And that's from Jocelyn Larkin. She's an attorney on the plaintiff's legal team. And Allison can attest to this just from being in a branch that even during Don't Ask, don't tell, they were sending OSI officers into gay bars undercover just to bus people and to basically turn men. It was a witch hunt. It was awful. Like an actual, actual witch hunt. It was. It was awful.
- [22:09]
Allison Gill
Yeah. I have to wonder. I know. This is a settlement. This Department of Justice Merrick Garland's signing off on this. I have to wonder how Donald Trump can fuck it up.
- [22:21]
Dana Goldberg
I know. I know. Or Hegseth, would he have anything to do with some bullshit like this?
- [22:27]
Allison Gill
Yeah, because, I mean, he thinks that people like me, who I'm, you know, I'm 100% disabled for PTSD because of military sexual trauma. He wants to take my benefits away because rape isn't part of my job.
- [22:38]
Dana Goldberg
Right.
- [22:39]
Allison Gill
As if I had some sort of a say in it. So he wants to take away a lot of veterans benefits, and I could see. I could see this being a target. So I really hope that whatever settlement gets signed is. Is really hard to. You'd have to like, yeah, sue to undo it or something.
- [22:58]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [22:59]
Allison Gill
I don't think you can just do a undo a settlement from a previous Department of Justice with an executive order or Merrick Garland would have charged Donald Trump with obstruction of justice from the.
- [23:08]
Dana Goldberg
No kidding.
- [23:10]
Allison Gill
Anyway, something else I could talk about for days. All right, finally we did it. We made it through the news today. But that is, that was a great news story and I'm very happy to hear that it was going one at a time was just taking far too long. And so now they're going to see if they can do it in large groups. I think the Northern District of California is going to say okay to this settlement agreement. They usually do. And now we're going to have, we're going to have some more good news. This is going to be listener submitted good news. But we have to take a quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
- [23:40]
Dana Goldberg
We'll be right back.
- [23:42]
Allison Gill
Hey everybody, it's ag. Before switching to my amazing Helix mattress, my sleep was a complete disaster. I'd wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. I would toss and turn for hours and somehow wake up even more tired than I was when I went to bed. My Apple Watch data told the same story. Restless cycles, minimal deep sleep and recovery scores that left a lot to be desired. I thought it was because the orange man was in the White House, but it turns out I was sleeping on a mattress made for someone else and I'm glad I have it for the next four years. Here came Helix Mattress. A friend recommended them. I decided it was time for a change. I made the switch, and since then, my sleep has completely transformed. My Apple Watch tracks. Consistent uninterrupted sleep now, longer deep sleep phases, higher recovery scores. I wake up feeling rested and energized. I'm ready to take on the day instead of dragging myself through it. My back pain has disappeared entirely. And thanks to Helix's mattresses cooling technology, there's no more waking up overheated in the middle of the night. It's just better sleep. And like a better life, I'm more focused, more productive, happier sleep is so important to me. It's like my favorite thing. Years later, my Helix mattress is still as supportive and comfortable as the first night. So if you're dealing with bad sleep, whether it's overheating, back pain, stress, or just never feeling rested, Helix is the solution you've been waiting for. Go to helixsleep.comdailybeans for 25% off site wide plus two free dream pillows with the mattress purchase, that's helixsleep.com dailybeans for 25% off sitewide plus two free dream pillows with your mat mattress purchase. Again, that's helixleep.com daily beans. All right, welcome back. It's time for some Good Trouble. All right everybody. I put out a, a question on our private Facebook group for patrons and also on Blue sky and asked would you like some homework assignments? But you know, I wanted to come up with a different name than homework assignment because that sounds miserable. So I figured we would talk, call it Good Trouble. And so today what I love it if you did is to go to the Department of Justice's website. There is a contact form there and in the drop down menu you can select messages to the Attorney General and if you would just let Merrick Garland know, hey, could you please get creative and find a way to release this Jack Smith report? I'd really appreciate it.
- [26:00]
Dana Goldberg
Yep.
- [26:00]
Allison Gill
I think the more emails we can get into him, they do read them. I want to tell you, I worked in the government for over a decade. We read every single one even at the highest levels. So again, that's the Department of Justice website contact drop down menu messages to the Attorney General and try to be nice. I know a lot of you are really mad at him right now.
- [26:22]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah. Don't get yourself put on a list, please.
- [26:24]
Allison Gill
Yeah, we're trying to get more flies with honey, but that's your good trouble today. So thank you very much for listening and we will continue this. And if you have any ideas for Good Trouble, you can send them to us by going to DailyBeansPod.com and click on Contact. Anything at all. We would love to hear from you.
- [26:42]
Dana Goldberg
I would tell you one of the stories in the last month was for instance, trans women doing a sit in in a bathroom at the Capitol and getting arrested for it. That is good trouble.
- [26:52]
Allison Gill
Yep. But they ended up just getting tickets, which I appreciate.
- [26:55]
Dana Goldberg
Yep.
- [26:56]
Allison Gill
But that's the kind of stuff we're looking for. Letters you can write. We've got some real important elections coming up and I'll be, I'll be doling out some good trouble with those. We got some Virginia state House races to replace some, some great Democrats who won seats in the US Congress. We've got a really important Supreme Court race coming up in Wisconsin. So we're going to be doing that. And if you have any ideas at all that you would like for us to bring to people's attention, something simple that takes a couple minutes that people can do to just you know, get in a little good trouble and feel better. I would love to hear from you. So thank you for listening to our new segment. I know it was a little bit wonky and we'll work out the details as time goes on. We will perfect it. So anyway, we'll be right back with the good news, everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news, everyone. Then, good news, everyone. Good news. And if you have any good news confessions corrections, especially pronunciation corrections and particularly for names of people and towns, we really, really appreciate those. Or if you have a shout out, whether it's to a loved one, a spouse, a kid, a parent, a self shout out, we love those very much. A small business in your area, somebody doing some great community activism that you want to shout out. Or maybe it's your small business. We would love to hear about what you're making and what you're creating. We have so many amazing entrepreneurs that listen to this program. We would love to hear from you. And then of course, shout outs to government programs that have helped you or a loved one. It could be any government program that you can think of, from the Affordable Care act to Social Security down to SNAP and WIC and Head Start or maybe something local. We've gotten a lot of really great local community government programs that have really helped a lot of families and a lot of people. So send that to us. And the only thing you need to do to be able to submit your good news is pay your bod pet tax, which is really just means attach a photo of your pet. If you want us to guess the breeds of your shelter pup, we can try to do that very poorly, but it's still fun. If you don't have a pet in your home, you can send us an adoptable pet in your area and we can try to find them a home. If you don't have that, any animal photo will do. Really, any animal photo that you want to send to us is good. And if you don't have that, your baby photos. Because we love baby photos. And right now we're doing a special edition of POD Pet Tax. We're calling it Bird Watching, where you send us photos of you and your loved ones flipping the bird to Trump properties or Trump on TV or driving by the Trump plane or whatever, just bird watching. Send those to us. You can do it@dailybeanspot.com and click on contact. That was fun. I like the new Good Trouble segment. Yeah, kind of like, like I appreciate it when somebody was like, when I'm like, what can I do. And they're like, here, do this. And I'm like, oh great. Cool. I can do stuff.
- [30:02]
Dana Goldberg
I think we're gonna get some fantastic submissions too.
- [30:05]
Allison Gill
Oh, there are so many good troublers that.
- [30:08]
Dana Goldberg
Oh yeah, good troublers.
- [30:11]
Allison Gill
All right, first up from Jim's sister, Pronoun. She and her dear beans queens. Thank you so much for all you do for your listeners. I'm a single gal trying to beat my obsession with national politics. Very tough at this time, but I am bolstered by your podcast and especially the swearing I'd like to shout out FEMA. Sadly, my brother passed from COVID in January of 2021. FEMA has a program to reimburse funeral expenses for loved ones who passed from COVID My brother was a self described bleeding heart liberal who would have loved you too. I miss him daily. And for my pod pet tax, and especially for ag, here is my cat, Deuce, enjoying the absurdly small sink in my mom's guest bathroom. I'm also sharing a baby pic of me and my brother. Apparently I was a particularly messy eater, hence the bandana covering my head. Okay, so you had to protect your head from food. Jim's sister. Thank you so, so very much. I'm so sorry for your loss. Look at this beautiful photo.
- [31:15]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, my goodness.
- [31:17]
Allison Gill
Oh, great kitty. And look, one of those mid century bathrooms with the pink tile.
- [31:21]
Dana Goldberg
So good.
- [31:22]
Allison Gill
Thank you so much.
- [31:23]
Dana Goldberg
All right, this is from JB in Arizona. Pronouns, he, him. Five minutes ago our friends FaceTimed us to show us their new puppy, Beans. That is all. I just wanted to let you know. Love you too, Bo.
- [31:34]
Allison Gill
Look at that side eye on Beans Cutie. That's very appropriate to have his name be Beans and have him give that kind of side eye. I like it. You want to take the next one too?
- [31:43]
Dana Goldberg
You bet. This is from Amy Pronoun. She and her leguma ladies. Love, love, love everything. The other day when you were talking about great racks, I started laughing and I thought you could do with the shit. People say I'm a chesty girl. I have been since ninth grade. I'm also short, so it's a lot. I've heard of a lot of rack jokes, but my favorite was when our neighbor came over after we had done some home renovations. We lived in an old farmhouse and the kitchen was designed to be functional. Not fabulous. As a space saving measure, we installed a pots and pans holder along the one wall as overhead wouldn' with our low ceiling. It's simple, but an elegant solution. Our neighbor was over and Talking with my husband about the work. I caught him as he was leaving and the significantly older gentleman said goodbye and then turned around and said, that's a really nice rack. And then immediately turned about ten shades of red. It was great. We both still laugh about it. Sorry, no pic of the kitchen. But I've included my pod pet tags of my sweet rescue boys who we adopted from above and beyond. English Setter Rescue. Both of these sweet boys landed with us in Ohio after being found abandoned in Greece. We are both Ohio State lums, so we named our dogs after OSU stuff.
- [33:02]
Allison Gill
Oh.
- [33:03]
Dana Goldberg
Yep. Oh, I. Oh. So our black and white is Woody for Woody Hayes. And our orange and white is Hitch for Hitchcock Hall. My husband is an engineer and spent a lot of time there. Keep up the important work, ladies. We need you. I know it thought it sounded like I said I O, I, but I was in the middle of a sentence. We can try it again.
- [33:26]
Allison Gill
I interrupted you. Oh, hang on, Sloopy. Amy, thank you so much for this submission. What a great submission. And, you know, I gotta tell you, when I was in high school, I. Me too. A little bit. Right? And there was a. We had a. We went to a toga party. Do you ever do this? Oh, my God. We went to a toga party. And there's always that one guy in high school who supplies everyone with their weed. And he's got long straight hair, kind of a toe head, you know? The guy I'm talking about plays guitar, makes you watch. The first time you watch the wall, it's because of him. The first time you watch Monty Python, it's because of him. He had a pool table in his basement. Everyone hung out at his house. He had a farm and an orchard with emus on it.
- [34:13]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, wow.
- [34:14]
Allison Gill
So people would get high and go run around with the emus. It was fantastic. A great have. But he's at this toga party, he's wearing a tie dye sheet, okay. Instead of a white sheet, and is being held up with a fanny pack that is presumably full of weed. And he's just standing there stoned as. I'm talking to him and he's stoned as. And he's just looking at my tits and he's like. And I was like, yeah. And I just kept talking and I was kind of trying to get him to look up my face. And I was like, well, why don't we just wait and see? And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah. And he actually said, I think that would be the best thing to do.
- [34:48]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my God.
- [34:50]
Allison Gill
We all lost our shit, I'm sure. And it was a very fun night. He was the guy who would come up to you and be like, I bet you go, I bet you a dollar I can unhook your bra without touching you or your bra. And you'd be like, all right, deal. And then he would just grab your boobs and then say, guess I lost, and give you a dollar and walk away.
- [35:10]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, wow, this guy sounds like a peach.
- [35:12]
Allison Gill
Oh, total peach. Yeah, that was that fun guy. Today he's Mark Zuckerberg. Okay, so let's go.
- [35:20]
Dana Goldberg
Today he's up for the Department of Defense job in the Trump administration.
- [35:25]
Allison Gill
Elizabeth Warren has some questions for you.
- [35:27]
Dana Goldberg
Pete Hegseth, everyone.
- [35:30]
Allison Gill
This next one is from Bruce. You know, maybe it was him. Anyway, it was decades after I heard Elton John's Rocket man that I learned the true lyrics to the Tricky Bit. Burning out my fuse up here alone. The best I could ever come up with and stuck with was Bernie wears some shoes of herringbone. Bernie, of course, refers to Bernie Taupin, Elton's lyricist. Yes, of course.
- [35:54]
Dana Goldberg
Why wouldn't it?
- [35:55]
Allison Gill
Bernie wears some shoes of herringbone. Dude, I love it. Thanks, Bruce. You go ahead. I told that big long boob story.
- [36:02]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, come on. All right, this is from Anonymous. Not that anonymous. Sorry. Now all I heard was long boob story. And I'm like, when did you tell a story about long boobs?
- [36:12]
Allison Gill
Well, those are the stories I tell now.
- [36:14]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, then we're all getting there. All right, Anonymous. But not that anonymous. Hi, AG and DG in the Daily Beans community. Back in early December, one of your listeners wrote in with a question about collected knowledge and resources heading into the next administration. I thought the same thing myself. Shortly after the disastrous results of the last election were known and started collecting links. It's taken me a minute longer to complete than I had originally hoped, but I have a rough version, one side up and it's running. It's called kindness2025.org Nice.
- [36:47]
Allison Gill
I love that you got that URL.
- [36:49]
Dana Goldberg
I know. Listeners, two suggestions. The Americans of Conscious Checklist, Conscience Checklist, and Resist Bot are on there. Thank you. I haven't published the email address to the site yet, but the Daily Beans crowd gets first crack at a constructive criticism and suggestions for version two. So please hit me up at hello, kindness2025.org that's the email. So if you go to kindness2025.org would like to give some love to this person and then maybe a constructive criticism or feedback. Do it. Thanks to some feedback from your Discord community. I'm planning a printer friendly list entitled organization of the content categories plus ways each resource offers to get involved, ranked by effort. Okay, this la. I love that someone's like, I want to save democracy, but I don't have a lot of energy to do it. So what's the least energetic thing?
- [37:41]
Allison Gill
Well, you know, sometimes we just have to.
- [37:44]
Dana Goldberg
I'm kidding.
- [37:44]
Allison Gill
Rest. I love that effort. Like green. Yeah.
- [37:47]
Dana Goldberg
You don't think I'm gonna go to the green one?
- [37:49]
Allison Gill
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. Some people like. Some people go to the hard stuff. Some people do it. Bless them.
- [37:55]
Dana Goldberg
All. Right, my pod pet tax is our adoptable foster. Oh, adoptable foster. Cat biscuits. Biscuits bias. Like if you've seen Fortune Feamster's comedy special that sounded like biscuits. A four year old gal who is smart, playful and a little mischievous. Mischievous or mischievous depending on which team you're on. And quite snuggly. Here you can see her helping me with my work, helping me with the ironing and selecting her next story from one of her favorite YouTube channels. She would love a playmate and lots of attention. So if Anyone in the D.C. metro Northern Virginia area is interested, please reach out. You know my email address now. So cheers.
- [38:35]
Allison Gill
So it's biscuits. She's four years old. Is that too late to change the name to Port Cochere Bias skit Biscuits? She's beautiful color. She's part gray tabby, part orange kitty. So she's got that cool color mix. Very adorable. Oh, there she is watching her favorite television YouTube programs.
- [38:57]
Dana Goldberg
Nice.
- [38:57]
Allison Gill
I'm watching my programs. I'm biscuits. Okay, now I have a new character. Next up, Katie Pronoun. She and her hello there. I find it difficult these days to laugh at things but ag saying contributor weirdly and riffing off of it made me giggle and smile. I have a self shout. You have to listen to the show yesterday if you didn't. I have a self shout out partly in hopes that we'll bring in new friends. I am a small live streamer on Twitch. I'm also old for a streamer at 52 so it can be a struggle. I work my in real life job from home so I do a co working stream during my workday to have people to chat with that are also sometimes busy and working on stuff. There's a task list that you can add to with chat commands to track things that you're working on. A community jigsaw puzzle, a cat cam. If my cats are on the cat tree K pop Music playlist, Love it and song request commands, among other things. If anyone wants to hang out on Twitch while working, check me out on Twitch at katiedubu. Twitch. That's K A T Y D U B as in boy U Twitch, Podpet, Tax, Liara and Varrick laying on the cat tree in my office. That is sometimes on cam. We got cam cats. I love it. Thanks for all you do. Hi. Beautiful babies.
- [40:22]
Dana Goldberg
Sweet ones. Okay, this is from Jen C. Pronouns she and her hello Beans. Queens. I heard you talking about how hard fireworks are for dogs and wanted to share this personal good news. My dog Chase has always been nervous around storms and fireworks, but it's gotten worse despite our best efforts. Last fall we had a bad storm. I had a stroke of inspiration and showed him the bathroom off the hall. No windows, dark, quieter. I even showed him the tube, but he was too freaked out. Fast forward to New Year's Eve and lo and behold, after just a little pacing and panting, this dog took himself to the bathroom to hide and calm down. He did it again a few days later in the neighborhood. Happy fourth of January fireworks. Okay, may we all develop healthy coping strategies and find some comfort this year for Pod Pet. Pod Pet Tax. Here's a pic of the good boy. He's just a few years old and he's still very handsome.
- [41:15]
Allison Gill
Him?
- [41:15]
Dana Goldberg
It's hard to tell this from this picture, but he's an 85 pound Catahoula mix.
- [41:20]
Allison Gill
Oh my.
- [41:20]
Dana Goldberg
It's a big boy.
- [41:22]
Allison Gill
Big baby.
- [41:23]
Dana Goldberg
And everyone, if you can't find me over the next four years, I need you to check the bathroom because I might be sitting in the dark by myself in the quiet.
- [41:31]
Allison Gill
I was just gonna say I do this so especially during Trump administrations. Can't believe we're having another one. All right, thank you so much everybody for your good news. We're gonna need as much as we can get. Head to DailyBeansPod dot and click on Contact. For your good trouble this this week, please email Mer Garland and tell him to be creative. Find a way. He's the smarty. He's got all the smartest lawyers around him. There's got to be a creative way to figure out how to release that report besides having to go to the 11 Circuit Court of Appeals. And even if they say it's okay to release, then guess what? If Trump applies for an emergency stay from the Supreme Court, guess who is the justice that gets to decide that on his own that administers the 11th Circuit?
- [42:18]
Dana Goldberg
Tell me.
- [42:19]
Allison Gill
Tell me. Clarence Thomas. So we don't want that. We need a creative boy. We need a creative. We need. I want that report, damn it. Just give me the report. It's all I have. No, it's not true. I have very many loved ones and all of you fantastic people in Luminati and of course you, my darling friend, Dana Goldberg. I appreciate you so much. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here?
- [42:43]
Dana Goldberg
No, I just. I want to say positive about all this but I think if you've seen the that's already going on and the nonsense that's coming out of his mouth, we're. We're in for a ride. So make sure you have developed and will lean towards some self care practices that maybe you need to put in place before January 20th so you can get some practice in them. But yeah, shit's about to get wild. So make sure you lean on people and stay in safe places when you need too.
- [43:09]
Allison Gill
Yes, please do get into that bathtub with the catahoula.
- [43:13]
Dana Goldberg
Yep.
- [43:13]
Allison Gill
And chill. We will be back in your ears tomorrow. You can also check out the latest episode of cleanup on aisle 45 with myself and hero Capitol Police officer Harry Dun. I still can't believe I get to do a podcast with him every week. Check that out free. Wherever you get your pods, clean up on aisle 45. Thank you so much. Until tomorrow, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health and take care of your family. Family.
- [43:36]
Dana Goldberg
I've been AG and I've been DG.
- [43:37]
Allison Gill
And them's the beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information Please visit msw media.com com msw media.