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It's no surprise that newsmakers try to manipulate the audience. They want you to believe that they are the one holding the line, and they'll use any trick they can to get you there. But don't let them fool you. Get Unspun. I'm Amanda Sturgel. I've been a reporter, and today I teach future reporters to cut the spin and think critically about what newsmakers say. My podcast, Unspun, shows you how to know when you're being manipulated by the news, learn to spot the tricks, and how to make up your own mind about what's true. So if you're tired of being fooled by the news, subscribe to unspun today. Unspun. Because you deserve the truth.
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Hey, everybody, it's Monday, May 11, 2026. I'm Alison Gill, and this is Beans Talk. All right. Hey, hey, hey. Since last we spoke, we have gone back to Jim Crow times. We are now in Jim Crow two point, what with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. But then we had the Virginia Supreme Court shoot down the voters, the Commonwealth voting on changing the Constitution to allow for redistricting before the census. And that map got shot down. And some other things was other stuff going on in Alabama and Tennessee. So Tennessee voted to carve up Memphis, which is 63% black, into three districts in an effort to stomp out their sole Democratic district in the state in order to disenfranchise black voters. And for those who might argue this isn't about race, this isn't about the black voters in Memphis, like the state House speaker who claimed that he didn't know that Memphis is majority black, ask people who question the racism of it why white Democratic strongholds in the state were left alone. Right. But I want to point something out because I believe that this move diluting the black vote because you're racist in Memphis by carving it up, could actually backfire on Republicans. And I'm not saying that this information that I'm about to give you should make you not want to fight this tooth and nail. It should be fought. It's absolutely horrific. And like I said, It's Jim Crow 2.0. But see, the Republicans drew this new map, I think, based on election results in 2020 and 2024. But those are presidential election years, not midterm elections. And as we know, midterm elections, especially the first one after a new president, a new party takes office in the White House, are a lot different than election years or off year midterms. Now, the only real comparison we have to. This year's elections are the 2018 midterm elections, right? It's two years after Trump was elected. And I don't think Republicans took that into consideration when they drew these new racist maps in Tennessee. Right now, even though Democrats as a party are polling very low, we still have a 14 point advantage on the generic ballot, which is about the same, a little bit more, a little bit bigger lead than we had in 2018. So data analyst David Manasco took a look at how these new racist maps, Republican maps that carve up Memphis, would have performed in 2024, 2020, but also how they would have done in 2018. And look at this. Let's put these numbers up. I'm going to have this up on the screen. And I want to go over this with you. If you look in that left column, Those are the nine Tennessee districts based on 2024 presidential election results. Look at that. R 28 16, 17, 11, 10, 12, 10, 9, 9. Right? Very high, very high Republican districts. This is the new map, right? The new racist map based on 2024 turnout and 2024 votes. If you go back to 2020, the middle column, it's a little less red. You get 26, 13, R plus 14. There's a couple there, 4 and 5, that are only plus 6 to 9 or 5 to 8. Then there's a 9 and there's an 8 to 11, a 7 to 9 and a 4 to 6 in the 9th district. But let's look at the third column on the right there, because this is what is most like this current election year is the 2018 midterms, right, from eight years ago. And the biggest lead you have is in district one with a 20 to 22 point lead. Everything else, six, eight even in the fourth and the fifth, and then the sixth, seventh and eighth are one to three, one to three, four to six, and then the ninth district is even. It runs even in 2018, this new district, this new map. So you got three even seats. You got a couple that are one to three and four to six. I mean, that right there, it doesn't, it doesn't look good considering the margins by which Democrats have been winning elections, right? So in their racist haste to dilute the black vote, they also diluted the white vote. And as you know, Democrats are currently, like I said, winning every special election 31 to nothing, 32 to nothing by an average of 12 points. And if those 2018 numbers show only one Republican district out of nine performing above 12, there's a good chance we could win three to five seats at least. Now again, that does not erase the fact that this map and all the gerrymandering happening in the south pursuant to the Supreme Court's death knell to the Voting Rights act are purposeful actions to erase black districts and that every Democrat should be fighting tooth and nail against it, which they are. But David Menesko is just sharing these data that go along with what Dana, who's out today, she'll be back tomorrow, has been saying for months here on Beanstalk, particularly about Texas, that Republicans should be careful what they wish for because carving up these districts could backfire spectacularly. Now also this past week we learned that the Virginia Supreme Court has thrown out the voter approved constitutional amendment to redraw their maps. And here are how some Democrats are fighting back and how others not so much. Hakeem Jeffries said over 3 million Virginia citizens cast their votes in a free and fair election. Yet the state Supreme Court has chosen to invalidate their voice, disenfranchise them and violate their due process rights. The decision to overturn an entire election is an unprecedented and undemocratic action that cannot stand. MAGA Republicans have adopted voter suppression as a strategy as also evidenced by far right extremists on the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights act to open the door to a Jim Crow like attack on black representation across the American South. We are exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision. No matter what it takes. House Democrats will win in November so we can help rescue this nation from the extremism being unleashed by Trump and Republicans. Our fight is not over. We are just getting started. So check out that link. We are exploring all options doesn't even say legal options, it just says we're exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision. Strong language. I give it a baby. Next, State Speaker Don Scott who says this, we respect the decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia. You know what, I don't have to read past that. I don't have to read anywhere past that. We do not respect this decision. It's a lawless decision. It ignores the will of the people and it's also wrong on the law. So I don't want to read the rest of his statement. F Governor Spamberger says I am disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia's ruling, but my focus as Governor will be on ensuring that all voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard this November in the midterm elections. Because in those elections we the voters will have the final Say I don't like. I'm disappointed by the Supreme Court of Virginia's ruling as much as I like Hakeem Jeffries statement about the decision is an unprecedented undemocratic action that cannot stand and that we're exploring all options to overturn this shocking decision. I'm going to give Spamberger a C minus on this, but State Attorney General Jay Jones has this to say. My team is carefully reviewing this unprecedented order and we're evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia's elections. I give that an A, A minus. I like it. He threw in the legal there where Hakeem Jeffries left it out. I personally prefer the legal route because I don't want to legitimize unlawfulness. But also like statistics, legality can be mushy. So come up with a legal theory, any legal theory. We're going to talk about a couple, but Dem should be looking at every option to keep and use the Virginia maps. You can find some, like I said, novel legal theory to base it on. Base it on what they did in Ohio and in Florida whose state constitutions banned mid decade gerrymandering and redistricting, but they ignored what their Supreme Court said, just like do whatever it takes. Now Jamelle Bouie wrote in an op ed for the New York Times and says responses like Abigail Spamberger's and Don Scott's are a mistake. He writes this to start the ruling is absurd. As the dissent notes, quote, the majority has broadened the meaning of the word election as used in the Virginia Constitution to include the early voting period. This is in direct conflict with how both Virginia and federal law define an election. The statute, the dissent says, distinguishes early voting from the election itself, defining it as a period prior to and immediately preceding the election. Now he goes on to say there is also the fact that the court had a chance to halt the process earlier this year. It didn't. To then invalidate the referendum when it won is to suggest that the law here was less important than the politics. Right? Like why'd you wait till after the election? Did you want to see if it would lose so you wouldn't have to do this? It goes on here to say, but more than the absurdity of the ruling is the basic principle. The referendum wasn't just an election. It was the people of Virginia exercising their right to amend their Constitution as they see fit. On what basis can the state Supreme Court, a creature of that Constitution, invalidate a sovereign decision of the whole people. The court may have the right to say what the law is, but this doesn't extend to a veto over the people's right to change the fundamental rules of their political system. I tend to agree. And the New York Times, by the way, is reporting that there was a private phone call between Virginia Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries. And during that call another idea was floated. I've posted about this on Bluesky as well, and here's what it says in the Times. Quote, the first step in this process, as discussed on the delegation's call, would be to invoke a January ruling by a circuit court judge in Tazewell County, Virginia that said the 2026 constitutional amendment effort to redraw the maps was invalid because county officials did not post notice of it at courthouses and other public locations three months before a general election. So Democrats would aim to use that ruling to seek to invalidate the earlier constitutional amendment that created the state's independent redistricting commission in the first place by arguing that particular referendum, courthouses across the state did not post the notice of it at the time that would give the legislature the authority to enact the map of its choosing. It goes on to say, ensuring the plan proceeds would involve the General assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, lowering the mandatory retirement age for Virginia's Supreme Court from 75 to 54, age of the youngest current justice or less. Virginia judges are appointed by the General Assembly. That's the legislature where Democrats hold majorities in both chambers and could then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic, sympathetic Democratic lawyers. I like it. Go for it. Do whatever it takes. What are they going to do? What are they going to do? If you've got a legal theory and you're basing it on a legal theory, you're not just being lawless about it. Those sound like two perfectly good legal theories to me. So let's see what can be done. But I'm heartened to hear that Virginia Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries are discussing these as options and not just saying, oh, we gotta respect what the courts do. Let's just move forward and hope that the rake stepping, racist Republicans fuck themselves by diluting their own votes as well. So I'm glad they're discussing these options. But I'll say it again, those four seats aren't going to make up for the 40 plus seats I'm hoping will flip this cycle. Now when you go to the entire south and sweep through all of them, Republicans could get 22, 23 more seats which would severe, like half would cut in half the lead I'm anticipating that we'll have in the House races. And as Dana says, this doesn't impact these maps, don't impact the Senate races. And you just pissed off a bunch of voters and a lot of states where Senate seats are up for grabs. And like I said, no one's accounting for the rake stepping racists diluting their own Republican districts and bringing them within striking distance for Democrats, at least from what we've seen in all the special elections that we've won, which is every single one that we've had. All right, everybody, Dana will be back tomorrow. Thank you for watching. I'm Allison Gill and this is Beans talking.
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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 story, 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.