← The Daily Beans
The Daily Beans
DOGE From The Inside (feat. Merici Vinton)
00:48:09
Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 Today, the Supreme Court allows DHS to reinstate secretary Kristi Noem’s order ending temporary status for Venezuelans resulting in the single largest mass illegalization event in US history; Judge Beryl Howell stops Trump from dismantling the US Institute of Peace; a top CBS executive has resigned amid Trump’s political pressure; House Republicans manage to get the Billionaire Bailout Bill out of committee; the far right Romanian candidate for president has LOST his election; and Allison delivers your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Alison Gill
MSW Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Tuesday, May 20, 2025. Today, the Supreme Court is allowing DHS to reinstate Secretary Kristi Noem's order ending temporary status for Venezuelans, resulting in the single largest mass illegalization event in U.S. history. Judge Beryl Howell is going to stop Trump from dismantling the US Institute of Peace. A top CBS executive has resigned amid Trump's political pressure. House Republicans managed to get the billionaire bailout bill out of committee and and the far right Romanian candidate for president has lost his election. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Today, I'm going to be talking with senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientist and former DOGE or USDS employee Marici Vinton. And you do not want to miss that discussion. Dana's still out, but a little bird told me she's actually coming back early, that she'll be back tomorrow. So thank you for sticking with me solo while she does her incredible acting, activism and community work. Also, the top executive in charge of CBS News resigned Monday in protest amid Trump's intensifying political pressure against CBS News. And here's the thing. Her name is Wendy McMahon, and she alluded to a challenging past few months in a farewell memo to her employees, saying, it's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It's time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership. While McMahon didn't address Trump's legally dubious lawsuit against CBS in the memo, the suit has been top of mind in recent months. McMahon has publicly stood up for the news division while its parent company, Paramount Global has sought to settle with Trump while trying to win administration approval for its pending merger with Skydance Media. So you're avoiding all that drama by listening to the Daily beans. We will never capitulate to Trump. I will never step down, and I will remain forever independent. And the reason we can do that is because of our sustaining members. So thank you. This show is always free, but if you'd like to support us, you can do that by going to patreon.com mullershirote and if you join now, you can hop on our Mega Happy Hour Zoom Call cocktail mocktail extravaganza this Friday at 7pm Eastern, 4 Pacific. You can interact with not just me, but this Friday, Harry Dunn will be there from cleanup on aisle 45, and Andy McCabe from unjustified will be there and Dana Goldberg's gonna ju so they'll all be there this Friday, 7:00pm Eastern, 4 Pacific. Plus when you sign up for Patreon, you get these episodes ad free. You get them early, you get pre sale tickets and VIP access to live events. Again, it's just three bucks a month. You can join@patreon.com Mullershirerote so thanks to our thousands and thousands of sustaining members, we could not do this without you. All right, everybody, we have a lot of news to get to. Well, let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. First up from NBC, the Supreme Court on Monday gave the Trump administration the green light to revoke special legal protections for thousands, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants which could pave the way for them to be deported. The high court granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration, meaning officials can move forward with reversing a decision made at the tail end of the Biden administration to extend protections for almost 350,000 Venezuelans under the federal Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS. The brief order noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application and litigation will now continue in the lower courts. Quote, this is the largest single action stripping any group of noncitizens of immigration status in modern US History. That's a helon arulanthem. That's one of the lawyers representing the Venezuelan plaintiffs. It was, quote, truly shocking that the Supreme Court authorized the move without giving the case more consideration, he added. And Aaron Reichland Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said on blue sky that 350,000 people woke up this morning with legal status, living and working here. With official permission, they'll go to bed as undocumented immigrants facing deportation. Next up from the Times, the House Budget Committee late, late Sunday night reviewed President Trump's stalled bill to cut taxes for billionaires and Medicaid and SNAP and other earned benefits after a handful of FISC conservative Republicans relented to allow it to advance even as they continue to press deeper for reductions to health and environmental programs. The vote signaled a temporary resolution to a remarkable revolt from a group of hardliners on the panel who Friday joined Democrats in opposing the bill in committee, tanking it over concerns that it didn't do enough to rein in the nation's ballooning debt. On Sunday, after a weekend of intensive negotiations with House Republican leaders and White House officials, they switched their votes to present, allowing the measure to move forward without lending their support. It sent the bill past a crucial procedural hurdle, but indicated that there was still major trouble ahead for the package, which Speaker Mike Johnson said he wants the full House to consider before Memorial Day. And something you may not have known. This is from the Associated Press. Tucked deep in the thousand plus pages of the multi trillion dollar budget bill making its way through The Republican controlled U.S. house is a paragraph that curtails the court's greatest tool for forcing the government to obey its rulings, the power to enforce contempt findings. That's hidden in there. So among the cuts to our earned benefits and among the tax breaks for billionaires, we have this curtailing of contempt proceedings in court. That's interesting. No wonder they had to do this at midnight on a Sunday night. That's sneaky. Republican President Trump raised the stakes again Friday when he attacked the US Supreme Court for its ruling barring his administration from quickly resuming deportations under the Alien Enemies act, saying the Supreme Court won't allow us to get criminals out of our country. That's untrue. The Supreme Court is not allowing you to disappear people without due process. You can still get people out of the country by giving them due process under multiple statutes. Just you can't just disappear them and kidnap them and render them to a foreign prison, at least temporarily. The Supreme Court still has yet to rule on the legality of the Alien Enemies act case. And if you listen to the latest episode of Unjustified with me and Andy McCabe, we talk all about that. The most intense skirmishes have come in the lower courts with the Trump administration. One federal judge has found that members of the administration may be liable for contempt after ignoring his order to turn the planes around on March 15. Trump's administration has scoffed at another judge's ruling that it facilitate the return of Abreco Garcia. That's judge senior court. In other cases, the administration has removed immigrants against court orders or had judges find that the administration is not complying with their directives. Dan Bongino, now Trump's deputy director of the FBI, called on the president to ignore a judge's order in one of Bongino's final appearances on his talk radio show in February. But we also have some good news from the courts today. From the Associated Press Federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with dismantling the United States Institute of Peace, an organization taken over in March by Elon Musk's so called Department of Government Efficiency. This is US District Court Judge Beryl Howell. She ruled that the think tank, which was created and funded by Congress to focus on resolving violent conflicts around the globe, was taken over illegally by Doge through blunt force, backed up by law enforcement officers from three separate local federal agencies. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the organization's former board members and president had maintained that the Institute of Peace was established by law as an independent, nonprofit organization. The plaintiffs also argue that the firing of the board members did not meet any of the steps required by the law that created the organization. The move also did not go before any of the four congressional committees that have oversight over the U.S. institute of Peace. In her ruling, Howell cited the uniqueness of the organization, saying, quote, the president second guessed the judgment of Congress and President Reagan in creating UCIP 40 years ago and the judgment of every Congress since then, including in 2020 in appropriating funds to USIP when he deemed the organization to be unnecessary three months ago in an executive order. In reaching her opinion, Hal concluded that usip, quote, ultimately exercises no executive branch power under the Constitution, but operates through research, education, teaching and scholarship in the sensitive area of global peace. In creating this organization, Congress struck a careful balance between political accountability on the one hand and partisan independence and stability on the other. As such, she says, the Constitution makes clear that the president's constitutional authority only extends as far as Article 2. But even Article 2 does not grant him absolute removal authority over his subordinates under current binding case law precedent. How had denied two requests by the same plaintiffs for restraining orders, one to halt the firing of the board and another to stop the administration from taking over the headquarters. And that ruling came after she held the status hearing and learned that Doge installed leadership had already initiated and completed the transfer of the headquarters before the plaintiffs could even get to court. Hal equated the quick action to a bull in a China shop. And we also have some more good news from CNN Romania's pro European Union centrist presidential candidate Nikosor Dan I hope I'm saying that right. Let me know if I'm not Won the country's election Sunday, defeating his ultra nationalist rival in a very shocking upset. With 100% of the votes counted, the centrist candidate won nearly 54% of the ballots cast, a clear win over hard right candidate George Simeon, who is a fan of President Donald Trump. Simeon, who opposes providing military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the eu, looked on track to win the election after he swept the first round on May 4th. But Dan gained ground after trouncing Simeon in a televised debate while addressing a crowd of his jubilant supporters on Sunday, Don said that the vote proved the incredible power of the Romanian society. That's according to Reuters, and also said elections are about community in today's elections, a community of Romanians who wanted a profound change in Romania won. That's what the 55 year old mayor said. He also encouraged his supporters to have patience, saying a difficult period lies ahead but necessary in order to balance the economy of this country to build the foundations of a healthy society. Dan, who is currently the mayor of the capital Bucharest, is a strong supporter of Romania's NATO membership and has pledged to continue to provide aid to Ukraine, which he sees as key to Romania's own security against the threat from Russia. He also campaigned on a promise to crack down on corruption. Simeon conceded defeat in a video posted on Twitter Sunday night, despite calling himself the new president earlier that day. But he also vowed to continue to fight alongside the sovereigntiest patriots and conservatives around the world. He still captured the support of Romania's diaspora, one of the largest of any country in the world. About 60% of the diaspora voted for Simeon on the first round, but since then he spent a lot of time outside Romania, traveling to Austria, Italy, Poland, Belgium, France and the UK in an effort to win voters abroad. Now this election comes five months after the result of the original vote, which saw former far right outsider Kalyn Giorgescu surge in popularity and it was annulled over allegations of Russian interference. Gorgescu was later banned from this month's rerun after being charged with various crimes, including founding a fascist group. More than 10 million Romanians cast their vote in Sunday's election, which was widely seen as a choice between east and west and a litmus test for the rise of Trump style nationalism in Europe. An array of European leaders congratulated Dan on his victory, including France's Emmanuel Macron, Poland's Donald Tusk and Moldova's Maya Sandu. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also applauded Dan's historic victory in Romania's role as a reliable partner to Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her eagerness to work with Dan as he becomes the country's new leader, saying the Romanian people have turned out massively to the polls. They have chosen the promise of an open, prosperous Romania in a strong Europe together. Let's deliver on that promise. On Sunday, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign affairs spokesperson Andriy Ternia said that the hallmarks of Russian interference were seen in this election. Quote a viral campaign of fake news on telegram and other social media platforms is aimed to influence the electoral process. This was expected and authorities debunked the fake news. Now Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded by questioning the integrity of the election. Quote, it's impossible to interfere in something like that only to get smeared in it. So don't smear anyone else with your electoral mess, she asserted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added on Monday that, quote, the elections were strange, to say the least, and criticized the earlier removal of the far right candidate, the one that got charged with crimes. So well done, Romania. I'm glad our loss in November can be a beacon for the world, and I hope that we take back our house in 2020. All right, everybody, it's time for some good trouble.
- [14:30]
Marisi Vinton
What are you guys doing?
- [14:34]
Alison Gill
Our good trouble comes from a video on Tick Tock from former Scadden Arps attorney Rachel Cohen.
- [14:39]
Rachel Cohen
Nine very large corporate law firms in the United States have entered into deals with the Trump administration where they basically promise him free legal work in exchange for him, like, not illegally coming after them. And they thought there would be no downside of this because it's a notoriously, like, esoteric industry. One of the things that was missing here was individual consequence. All of the negative attention was focused on the law firms themselves as opposed to the individual decision makers who made the decision. And so we got a hold of lists of the executive committees or like governing bodies of each of the law firms that had made deals with Donald Trump. And then we also pulled all of their board memberships at other boards or of, of like nonprofit institutions or law schools or wherever else. We put them all in a toolkit. We put them all in a spreadsheet. This is all available at Bitly Slash Bad decision makers, all lowercase. I'll make sure it's on the screen. The screen as well. We put together this spreadsheet and this toolkit that has letters that are pre filled. It's abundantly clear that law firm leaders did not think that anyone would ever go to the trouble of figuring out who each of them individually were. And some of the people who have been sending the emails have been getting back, like, truly unhinged responses, like about how upstanding these members of their board are, how lucky they are to have them. And honestly, I kind of thought that they would just auto file these straight to trash. But it turns out that partners are really, really pissed about this. So I really wouldn't want us to send a bunch more emails and I really wouldn't want you to share this video or share the toolkit with your friends because I feel so bad.
- [15:58]
Alison Gill
All right, everybody, we will have a link to that site in the show. Notes so feel free to click on that and send your feedback. All right, everybody, stick around after this break. I'll be speaking to a former Doge employee. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey everybody. For a long time, I didn't think food had anything to do with how I felt. But then I noticed patterns. Low energy after certain meals, mood dips, digestive issues that would pop up out of nowhere. So I finally decided to get some expert guidance. And that's where Faye came in. This podcast is sponsored by Faye, so go to feynutrition.com dailybeans to qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0. Faye matches you with a dedicated dietitian who helps you understand your body's needs and how food fits into the bigger picture of your health. My D we spent an hour together. She was amazing. She just gave me an incredible plan. She helped me connect the dots between my meals and my mood and it's been a game changer so far. Even better, all of Faye's dietitians take insurance and 95% of users pay nothing for your sessions. You can check out coverage before signing up too, so there's no surprises. So whether you're managing a chronic condition, trying to figure out food sensitivities, or just want to feel better in your body, Faye gives you access to science backed support that is actually personalized. And I'm proud to work with a brand that's making nutrition less overwhelming and more accessible for everyone. So if you're ready to stop guessing and start truly fueling your body for better health, take control with personalized nutrition support from a registered dietitian through fay because you deserve to feel energized, healthy and confident in your health choices. Having a personalized nutritionist used to cost big bucks, but not with fay. Listeners of the Daily Beans can qualify to see a registered dietitian for as little as $0 by visiting Faye. Feynutrition.com DailyBeans that's FayNutrition.com DailyBeans one last time. Feynutrition.comDailyBeans all lowercase and make sure to use our URL so they know I sent you. Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm really excited today to be joined by a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. She was formerly an advisor at the US Digital service, the US which became doge, the so called Department of Government Efficiency also worked with the IRS and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Been all over the place. She was also the original architect of the IRS's free tax filing service direct file. So if you've used that, you can thank her. Please welcome Marisi Venton. Hi, Marisi, how are you?
- [18:31]
Marisi Vinton
I'm doing great, thanks. Thanks so much for having me.
- [18:34]
Alison Gill
I am really excited to talk to you about this because you know my friend Anna Bauer from Lawfare and I go back and forth a lot on social media about Witoed, who is the administrator of DOGE and whomst is it, because we had these conflicting reports about it being Amy Gleason. But meanwhile, everybody, including Elon Musk, says he's in charge and in several lawsuit filings, they're trying to dance their way around it because, you know, what they want to do is put it up under the executive office of the President, avoid FOIA and, and also not be considered an executive agency so that they don't have to answer to the rules and statutes that govern executive agencies. So talk a little bit about the transition from USDS, where you worked and what you did there to Doge. Let's start there.
- [19:22]
Marisi Vinton
Yeah, absolutely. So U.S. digital Service was founded, you know, out of a crisis, out of healthcare.gov's collapse. And what they wanted to do was to bring in the best technical talent into government to help not just fix and restore healthcare.gov but then also apply that approach to other products and services across government. In its infancy, it was a little team that was really mostly focused on firefighting. And over the years it really grew to more, you know, a bigger team focused across different agencies across the federal government. I think what's, what's so important about the US Digital Service is that everything that that team did was put users at the heart. So if we were launching a new form or a new thing, you would always want to check with your users, often early and often, always actually to make sure that it made sense. It was something that you liked and something that, you know, because government lingo is confusing, especially taxes. And so we really designed things in a way that tried to simplify and make government more efficient. I was at the US Digital Service when we were effectively converted into doge, the US DOGE service. And we had absolutely no idea it was coming that night. So the executive order dropped. And then that night we all received invitations to meet with our new DOGE teammates. And then the next day we were brought in for interviews. All 162 U.S. digital Service. We had 15 minute interviews with Doge.
- [20:59]
Alison Gill
And what, what were the, what were those interviews? Like, did they feel like loyalty tests? What was the gist?
- [21:05]
Marisi Vinton
They did. So one of the questions was, how do you feel about doge? What, you know, what's your impression at that point? We knew nothing. You know, we, we knew absolutely nothing other than like the name of Elon Musk and Steve Davis, and we didn't know about their intent. So it was. The other questions, you know, were about, like, who's your favorite teammate? What makes you exceptional? U.S. digital Service. You mentioned, you know, kind of where it was sat. It used to be sat within the Office of Management, Management and Budget. When you sign up for a job in government, there's typically, you typically expect, like when you're going to go in for an interview with strangers, that council knows or that ethics has been informed. Like, typically you expect a process. There was no process here. You know, people were wearing temporary badges. They only provided their first names. It was very out of sorts from what you would expect joining government. And that's, you know, when it kind of became clear that they were just going to container themselves in a different bit of the White House within omb, you know, to. That's when it kind of all became clear the broader plan of not having the OMB lawyers check in on us and doing what they're doing.
- [22:14]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And it's kind of frightening what they ended up doing. Exfiltrating data, you know, from the Social Security Administration, you know, putting like DOGE members at every agency. But then they worked for the agency, but they didn't. It was all very, just like every move they made was to kind of escape accountability. And what was your impression about who was in charge of the new Doge service?
- [22:39]
Marisi Vinton
In the early days, there was, we, the U.S. doge service had no leadership. So after those interviews, there was no direction. We just told ourselves kind of where to show up and we work with our agency partners. On Valentine's Day, 43 of my teammates were fired. And that's when Doge took a stronger hand in our day to day, you know, our day to day existence inside USDs. And Amy Gleason a couple weeks later stepped in as the acting administrator. But Amy always made it pretty clear that she wasn't calling those shots. You know, we would ask at staff meetings to kind of explain. So at this point, you know, we're almost a month in and DOGE has tried to take down USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Amy Gleason, is that what we're a part of? And we were always told that it was actually kind of a separate, a separate effort that wasn't a part of what we were up to from day to day.
- [23:40]
Alison Gill
Hmm. So did you have any contact or know anybody who had any contact with whoever DOGE leadership was and who you understood it to be? Because from, from what we know from public reporting, I don't even think Amy Gleason knew she was in charge of.
- [23:56]
Marisi Vinton
DOGE during the transition. I had a call, so several teams within USDS had calls with Steve Davis. And so that seemed to be kind of some of that touch point, touch bases continued afterwards, not with me, but with other teams. The way I would think about this, Austin, is there are three different, almost teams or approaches. There's the US DOGE service, so people who still are there doing mission driven work, like working on passports and visas for the World cup or kind of what you'd expect from the old U.S. digital Service. And then there's agency teams. So somebody like Sam Corcos at Treasury and IRS had a lot of interaction with Sam. And then there's also this roaming pack and they just go from agency to agency and, you know, do fire people, you know, kind of almost raid that agency. And that's kind of my perspective and how I view these three different teams, or I wouldn't even say teams, just these three different approaches to helping DOGE achieve whatever their objectives are from day to day. And they, they try out different ones. You know, if one agency, if the one character got a different set of skills, then that person will do the riffs and the other one, the roaming one, will do the it. It seems to be just based on whatever approach is working within that agency.
- [25:30]
Alison Gill
Yeah, and let's talk about the IT because, you know, we've had reports, I, I had spoken to someone early on about, you know, DOGE kind of taking over the Office of Personnel Management and, you know, how their, their servers were available to the public for a minute and people were logging in as DOGE from other countries. And there were reports of boxes being installed maybe to exfiltrate our data from certain agencies up into the cloud, Azure or using Starlink. What do you know about the compartmentalization of our private data as citizens and what DOGE was attempting to do to get at it.
- [26:14]
Marisi Vinton
So I can only answer from my experience, which was at the irs. And so taking a step back at the US Digital Service, our operating models, we would be sent out to different agencies, you know, almost like deployed or assigned to fix a specific problem or in my case, to help launch Direct File, the free tax filing product. And so that, so that was already embedded within the irs, even though I wore this other hat at the digital service. And so my interactions were through the irs and the IRS was in a situation actually, which I'm really grateful for, which is we were under a temporary restraining order, which meant that DOGE could not access individual data within the irs. And that was due to temporary restraining order after they tried to. Well, once they were stopping the USAID payments and courts stepped in to say, this is enough, we need to sort this out. And so that temporary restraining order effectively covered the individual data, like taxpayers individual data. The way that it works inside the IRS is that data is the most special thing. The IRS holds taxpayer data, federal taxpayer information, fti. It's protected by money, multiple laws and policies, a countless number of policies inside the irs. And so it was really a relief because what they were asking for when they arrived was access to individual level data. And that would mean that you could. The systems that they were asking access to meant that I could go in and delete, delete my own tax liabilities or increase your tax liabilities. This was access that no one could has access to. Unless you're actually. It's your job to do that, right. A customer service agent, if you're giving them a call, they're allowed to do that because that is part of their job. But no one else had that level of access. So we were really lucky that, that those TROs kind of put everything in on hold. And that remains, I believe, today.
- [28:22]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I'm also very glad about that as a taxpayer. Yeah, um, it's, you know, kind of frightening. And then of course we have all the stories about DHS using the IRS to, after taking decades of payments from immigrants, using that to find them and deport them, betraying that trust, that promise that the IRS made to, to those migrants who generate so much revenue for us.
- [28:49]
Marisi Vinton
Again, this, this kind of betrayal of trust has been one of the more devastating, if not the most devastating thing that we've seen happen at the irs. Yeah, when people file their taxes, it's like the first step towards becoming a legal citizen.
- [29:07]
Alison Gill
What was your red line when you left?
- [29:09]
Marisi Vinton
So I actually left. I was, I left with my own volition. My term was running out and I found a new job. So I'm pretty lucky. I stayed for a number of reasons, mostly to make a case about direct file and try to convince DOGE that it's something that should exist. And, you know, it was just really devastating to watch the series of interactions around the dhs immigration data. Because that is, you know, that process is something that people are really proud of. When you talk to taxpayers, they're really proud that they get to participate and they get to do what they think they need to do to become a citizen. It's. It's legal migration. That's what we want. That's. That's what we've been saying we want. It is legal migration. And to. To give that data over for. For purposes for which it was not intended. That's the whole protecting taxpayer information. That's a huge betrayal. When you submit your tax return, it's a social and probably legal contract between yourself and the IRS that that's going to be used for tax purposes and, you know, not to be deported, not to, you know, so it's a total can of worms, and it's just devastating.
- [30:23]
Alison Gill
Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it's horrific to tell immigrants, first of all, they're being taxed without a representation because they can't vote but say, please pay your taxes, and they do. And then we use that against them. And it's gotta be devastating betrayal, you know, that, that DOGE participated in. So before I let you go, is there, is there anything you want the public to know that you saw while you were still there? Because I think, you know, we have a chance to get the word out about what's going on at Doge for that, you know, brief overlap where you, you know, were still there, but then, you know, before you left.
- [31:03]
Marisi Vinton
So what I saw was a group of people who, DOGE employees who really had no interest in understanding what they were getting into. They. There was absolutely no listening. There was no kind of understanding what a strategic priority was or what an outcome we were driving to, you know, should be. And it was just cutting for cut's sake. And you. There was no rationalizing or having a conversation. It was really hard to make an argument because the mindset was just about line items and it wasn't about outcomes, which is what happened. I think what happened to Direct File. This Direct File just became a line item on an Excel spreadsheet. And we would make the case, look at, look taxpayers, it is rated higher than. Than Apple, you know, and then that promoter score. And I mean, what the heck, right? And, you know, people love it. And this is what government should be doing and also making a case for how that team can help modernize the irs. All this great technical talent, and there was just no conversation or interest. And that's the concerning part, because when we're in this situation, these people have maybe a couple of years of experience at a small size. Not about age. It's, you know, but it's about understanding, like, what you're getting yourself into and that these are systems that people rely on their tax refund for lots of families. It is their biggest paycheck a year. People rely on their Social Security benefits. The federal government operates at a scale that is unmanageable for most technologists. And you need to have a backup plan. And there was no interest in understanding what the backup plans were. And there's one more point, Allison, because you brought up data. There's so much talk about the individual data, which is really important. But I also think the way I think about is all these different buckets. There's the regulatory data, so the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau data that they hold about banks. There's the Department of Transportation holds data about car safety. And sec, all these government regulatory agencies hold this proprietary information as part of the regulatory work. And now it could be that that access, that information is being viewed by people who are being regulated by those entities. So cars, you know, X wants to become a payments platform. And so there's, there's a whole lot going in there in data that I think is also really important and making, you know, a site in addition to the individual data, which is that all that, you know, effectively, that all of the regulatory information can also be accessed by DOGE employees who've not completed their background checks, who might have conflicts we're not aware of, and many conflicts that we are aware of. And so that's another thing that I'm just watching out for.
- [33:59]
Alison Gill
Yeah, that was pretty frightening, too, to think about that. Like, all the information about businesses, all of the evidence that anything the SEC was investigating and discovery against, perhaps something like Tesla or Twitter or SpaceX, all available to Doge at that point.
- [34:17]
Marisi Vinton
And the competition, it's like you can go learn about their business practices. Right. Like, it's, it's, it's a lot of information.
- [34:24]
Alison Gill
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's the level, like when you, once you start thinking about it, it's. The deeper and deeper it goes, the more frightening it gets. One last thing. What can people do to protect their data? Like, I have locked down all three of my credit, you know, accounts on the three reporting agencies, and, you know, I use like, delete me to keep my private information off the Internet. But, like, what can consumers do to protect their data, do you think?
- [34:49]
Marisi Vinton
I mean, what you just said are great steps and Those are advanced steps, I think, even for a lot of people, starting with two factor authentication, you know, for the past, for email, for social media, that a lot of people still aren't doing that. So taking there's this kind of a spectrum of engagement here to protect yourself. And I would start with two factor on, you know, just about everything, if not everything, and then using those services that you mentioned, actually those are all the right things. And then just being smart, you know, about, about situational awareness and your own physical security, thinking about, am I? So for example, I'm selling some stuff on Facebook, Marketplace, making sure that I don't, you know, put my address out there, things like that. And, and I know that that seems like common sense, but I've caught myself saying, oh, that's, you know, a bit too obvious. And so just making sure that anything we're putting out there and what is on our, you know, our passwords and that whole spectrum is secure.
- [35:50]
Alison Gill
Yeah, good idea to two factor auth. Use strong passwords. Be mindful of what data you put out on the Internet. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for creating Direct File. We don't know the fate of Direct File at this point, but what an incredible service that that is to the taxpayers. I know Elizabeth Warren, who I love and cherish, was a big proponent of Direct Files. So thanks for all the work you did and best of luck in the future and hopefully we can maybe have you back on in a few months when we find out some more information on the programs that you worked on.
- [36:26]
Marisi Vinton
I'd love to come back. Thank you so much for having me.
- [36:28]
Alison Gill
All right, thanks, Maurice Eventon. Appreciate your time. Everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news, everyone. Then, good news, everyone. Oh, I'm so excited for the good news today. I need the good news. If you have good news, please send it to us@dailybeanspot.com and click on contact. Whether it's a confession or a pronunciation correction, we get a lot of those and we deserve them. So send those in. But mostly just good news stories or great things that are happening in your life, no matter how small. Right? Because we have to microdose Hope. We also love shout outs, whether it's to a loved one or yourself or a small business in your area or some great community activism or a government program that's helped you or a loved one like the Affordable Care act subsidies or the PACT act for veterans or snap, WIC Medicaid especially since that's on the chopping block. Among other earned benefits, Social Security, any, any any government program at all, including great VA health care you've received and of course, student debt relief. We love to hear about that. And all you got to do to get your good news read on the air is pay your POD pet tariff, which means attach a photo of your pet. And if you don't have a pet, you can send an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have that bird watching. We're doing bird watching right now. Which means a photo of an actual bird or you and your family and friends flipping the bird to Trump Properties and Musk Properties. And if you don't have any of that, you can send any animal photo you find on the Internet. Anything's fine. Of course, baby photos also work. Again, send your good news and your POD pet tariffs to dailybeanspod.com just click on contact. All right, first up from LA. Thought I'd share a link to the substack Hopium Chronicles Simon Rosenberg that pulled me out of a very deep, dark hole of despair. After news today that Timothy Snyder and other notable academics are leaving the United States due to unmistakable echoes of the 1930s Germany and the beginnings of fascism, Simon is focused on what we can do today to move the ball forward and take our power back. He'd be a great interview and all can benefit from his Hopium. So we'll have a link to that substack in our show. Notes. Love all you do. P.S. pics of our dog Saga who left us in 2013. We found her starving on a street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on a night in 2001 during the marathon. The vet said she was 9 months old then. Bless her, she was a skeleton at 65 pounds. That's a big dog, even a starving 65 pound weight. It's a very long story, but her top weight was 145 pounds. Let's just say she lived up to her name and will miss her every day. Can you guess her breed? Just as a point of clarification, Tim Snyder said that he moved to Toronto, Canada primarily for family reasons. He moved before the election, but yes, this looks like part mastiff and maybe like a Bridgeback or something. Absolutely beautiful, beautiful dog. Oh what a sweetie Saga is. Moleser is a category of solidly built large dog breeds that all descend from the same common ancestor. The name derives from Molossia, an area of ancient Epirus where the large shepherd dog was known as a Molossus, including mastiff Cane, Corso and Tosa. Oh and There's a little YouTube video link too. Thank you very much for that and I really appreciate your submission. La. Thank you so much for this. Next up from Jo she her Saturday night I went to hear a musician I've loved since I first heard her in 1979. Among many great songs she shared was this protest and we're going to have a link to that in the show notes. Podpet Tariff is my beautiful Portia, 16 years old and loud. Oh my gosh. I love this so so very much. And it looks like now that I'm looking at this video Claudia Schmidt singing Enough already. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Thank you very much. Next up from Carrie Pronoun. She and her hi beans Queens. I found this little sanctuary of sweary like minded people after the election and I listen every damn day. Ah Carrie, welcome. I was so distraught and bereft after the flaccid Tangerine was elected that I couldn't handle any news. But news was swearing that was unapologetically pro queer trans and it was delivered by powerful, proud, fucking awesome women. Yes, that. Thank you. I want to give a shout out to my beloved group of friends. We've been walking each other through life for 40 years and now that we're in our late 50s, we've decided to call our little quad the Queenagers. I love it Gary. We're the caftan compound over here. So I love Queenagers. The stages of a woman's life can be called maiden, mother, crone, but there's a stage between childbearing age and being a wise crone where you just know who the hell you are and what the hell you want and you're not putting up with any bullshit that gets in the way. The Queen stage. Queenagers. They are my heart and my soul and remind me who I am when I forget. Oh, what a great group of friends. Carrie. For my Podpet tariff I'm sharing a pic I took today saluting our dear leader. It felt so good to go bird watching. And right by Central park in New York City. Thanks for all you both do and the works and big love to all the Leguminati. Love this bird watching photo. Trump International Hotel. Fuck them. What a wonderful photo. Thank you so much Carrie. And a big shout out to the Queenagers. Love it, love it so much. Next up from Anonymous. I'm a 50 plus granny from Kentucky and honestly I'm just loud and angry. But I have good News to share from our county. Much to the frustration of the blue dots here. Our local party leaders have been quiet, not answering emails, not participating in public functions, not sharing information, etc. So a local business leader got involved to organize us. We beat the bushes and dragged everyone we could along for the ride. We quietly grew to almost 300 people on a Facebook page. The good news is that yesterday our group showed up to the local convention and swept the entire executive committee out with the old and with the totally new, diverse and fired up local party. The final words of advice from the former chair were watch out. With all that protesting at the courthouse, people around here will shoot you. I cannot tell you how hard it was not to say fuck that shit right back. It's time for all Democratic chicken shits to go home and let the mouthy ones take over. Thanks for listening for me. It proves there's hope that we can turn the tide. My attached pod tax is a photo of Bob the cat with no tail and May the hound dog with those ears just in case there's some weird new tariff. I'm also attaching a pic of my, let's see, of my family, of my Y. I get it. My why. And Andy says, always talk about your why. I love it. Beautiful dog. Hello basset hound. Beautiful tuxedo kitty chasing ducks on a television screen, not in real life. And look at the Y. What a gorgeous photo on the beach. Oh, I love this so much. Oh so cute. Thank you so much Anonymous. Really appreciate you. And finally, our last submission for the day is from Brian. Pronouns he and him. Hello. I wanted to send a follow up to my local Good news I sent a few weeks ago regarding the petulant blockhead that tried to bring book banning to our town of Holden, Massachusetts. Not only did he fail miserably in the recorded and distributed school committee meeting, we just had our own town election on May 12 and he was voted out by a huge margin. Yes, this is the way Brian. To make things even better, there were two select board seats up to be filled. One seat was an incumbent up for reelection who is an uber trumpy trad mom in your face religious zealot super wiener who went on Fox News to moan about immigration last year. Well, she and her campaign partner running for the other seat lost miserably to the two progressive candidates. She then went on to whine about it on her own Facebook group, posting screenshots of one of the winners LinkedIn page, claiming he was calling himself the CEO of Holden. Well, it was actually CEO of Bos Bucking Owl Society, an org he runs that helps adults with professional development, physical fitness and mental health. Even the Super Wieners supporters commented she was being petty and disappointing. It was, yeah, something to behold. Anyway, that was another big win out here and a sigh of relief and I truly wish her well and hope she can move past this. For my Bodbet tariff. I'm sharing some pics of our two rescue pups, Pepper and Ruby. Pepper is the black and white lover boy. He is such a sweet, emotional boy with big feelings. He joined our family in late 2022 after he was found under a fried chicken shack with his siblings in Texas. Ruby is a beautiful brown sweetheart with moxie for days and an unbeatable smoky eye. She joined our family in early 2024 when her mom, pregnant with her litter, wandered onto someone's porch. Who took her in? She's from Memphis. These two have changed the lives of my wife and me so much and in ways we didn't expect. If you want to guess their breeds. Oh, it's already in the answers here. Pepper is mostly Australian cattle dog, Border collie, Chow Chow, Pyrenees and a dozen other tidbits. Ruby is mostly Pitty Staffy and a small handful of others Ag dg, please never stop doing what you're doing. As long as it still brings you fulfillment and is good for your mental health. I promise you it is and we won't stop. The world needs to hear what you have to say now more than ever. As long as you're talking, we'll be listening. Okay? These puppies are amazingly adorable and I can see the breeds that you mentioned in there. The ears on both of them. So adorable. Thank you so much, Brian. What good news? That's where it starts. Our little local elections, right? Kick these fuckers out of their seats, take over. That's where the rubber meets the road is our local elections. And like I said, just like money and economics, politics has to trickle up too. Bottom up, middle out, right? We don't start with electing the president and hope that that trickles down. So, wonderful job and thank you everyone so much for your good news. If you have any great local election information. Good news. You want to share any good news at all, please send it to us@dailybeanspod.com click on contact. Dana will be back in your ears tomorrow with me. Don't forget to sign up to be a patron if you're not already, because we're having that mega happy hour zoom call cocktail mocktail extravaganza again. Everyone's going to be there. Me, Dana Goldberg, Andy McCabe, Harry Dunn will all answer your questions and you can sign up. Like I said, patreon.com Mueller she wrote, We really appreciate you. See you tomorrow. Until then, 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. I've been AG and I'm za Beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison 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 msw media.