Pope-Pourri (feat. Andi McNew)

Summary

The Daily Beans - Episode Summary: "Pope-Pourri (feat. Andi McNew)"

Release Date: April 23, 2025
Host: Allison Gill and Dana Goldberg
Guest: Andy McNew, Director of the East County Victory Pack, San Diego

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Top News Highlights

1. Classified Information Leak Involving Pete Hegseth
Allison Gill opens the episode discussing a significant intelligence breach involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. According to NBC News, "Minutes before US fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army General Michael Eric Kurilla... used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth" (06:45). The information included sensitive details that could jeopardize pilot safety if mishandled. Dana Goldberg comments on the gravity of the situation, stating, "He's putting our military in danger and our national security at risk" (08:16).

2. Resignation of Federal Prosecutors in the Eric Adams Case
The podcast reveals that three federal prosecutors—Celia V. Cohen, Andrew Roach, and Derek Wilstrom—have resigned from their positions due to pressure from Emil Bovey to drop charges in the Eric Adams bribery and fraud case. Allison Gill emphasizes their stand against wrongdoing: "The prosecutors said, 'We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none'" (11:30). Dana Goldberg applauds their decision, remarking, "I want to see more of that" (11:30).

3. Harvard Scientist Detained by ICE
Dana Goldberg reports on the detention of a Harvard scientist critical to cancer research advancements. Allison Gill highlights the urgency by stating, "She developed computer scripts to read those images, cancer breakthrough" (12:45). The scientist, a 30-year-old Russian national, fears persecution and imprisonment in Russia due to her anti-war protests, with her colleague describing her detention as being trapped in "a grinding machine" (12:52).

4. FDA Suspends Milk Quality Tests
Allison Gill informs listeners that the FDA has suspended quality control programs for milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety division (14:01). Dana Goldberg expresses concern over potential safety lapses: "I don't know why Trump wants to bring asbestos back. Does he want to add asbestos back to milk?" (14:05).

5. Student Loan Collections Resuming
The Education Department is set to resume collections on student loans in default starting May 5, 2025, including wage garnishments. Allison Gill denounces the move: "Fuck May 5th" (15:26). Dana Goldberg criticizes the administration, noting, "They are funding a scam called Trump University and now they're going to garnish your wages" (15:28).

6. Debunked Trump Administration Order on State Department Restructuring
A purported Trump executive order aiming to restructure the State Department was quickly debunked. Allison Gill mentions, "The U.S. State Department disputes the report, calling it entirely based on a fake document" (16:28). Dana Goldberg adds skepticism about the administration's intentions, saying, "Anything they call a hoax is an omission" (16:49).

7. Defunding of LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline
Mother Jones reports that Health and Human Services plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth on the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline, affecting over 2,100 daily contacts. Allison Gill underscores the dire impact: "Here we are cutting off the nation's lifeline to those in crisis" (18:03). Dana Goldberg condemns the action as intentional cruelty: "The cruelty is the point" (18:10).

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Interview with Andy McNew: Scaling Local Political Engagement

Allison Gill introduces Andy McNew, the Director of the East County Victory Pack in San Diego, who discusses strategies to bridge the urban-rural political divide.

Key Discussion Points:

• Importance of Local Engagement: Andy emphasizes the need for Democrats to run in local, often nonpartisan, races to effect meaningful change. "If Democrats do the work, we can win," she asserts (27:06).

• Challenges in Rural Campaigns: Highlighting logistical issues such as dispersed housing and limited canvassing opportunities, Andy explains, "Reaching these voters is a lot more difficult than when you live in a city with nice square blocks" (30:11).

• Success Story in Alpine, San Diego: Andy shares a case where her team successfully ran a Democratic candidate in a heavily Republican district by intensive door-knocking and targeted messaging. "We won by 10 points" she proudly notes (41:35).

• Empowering Local Candidates: She urges listeners to get involved locally through organizations like RunForSomething.net and to participate in local government to influence policies directly affecting their communities.

Notable Quotes:

• “Start going to school board meetings and listening in to see what's going on.” (44:48)
• “Every single local office should have a progressive or Democrat running for it. And right now it doesn't.” (44:48)

Andy underscores that local victories can lead to broader national impacts, as policies often require grassroots support to be implemented effectively.

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Good News & Community Highlights

The episode transitions to a segment dedicated to positive community stories and listener submissions.

Listener Highlights:

• Kathy from Kansas Praises Social Security: Kathy shares her positive experience with the Topeka Social Security office, highlighting the helpfulness and respect shown by the staff, which alleviated her concerns regarding benefit filings (50:29).

  "Everyone was patient and helpful treating everyone... with respect." (50:29) – Kathy B.

• Kim's Enthusiastic Message on Papal Processes: Kim humorously reflects on the movie "Conclave" and the traditional process of electing a new Pope, expressing hopes for a progressive leader.

  "The next pope will be pretty woke. I'm all for a woke pope." (53:23) – Kim

• Empowering Experiences Shared by a Quadriplegic Listener: A listener details her impactful participation in a town hall, which not only helped her advocate for Medicaid benefits but also inspired others in her community.

  "I spoke about how Medicaid pays for my caregivers so my husband can work... People came up to my husband during the next week to thank me for speaking out." (54:43) – Friendly Quadriplegic

Shout-Outs and Contest:

The hosts encourage listeners to submit their good news stories, whether personal achievements, community successes, or positive encounters with government programs. They highlight a collaboration with Signs of Justice, offering listeners a chance to win free postcards for activism purposes.

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Conclusion

Allison Gill and Dana Goldberg wrap up the episode by reiterating the importance of local political engagement and celebrating community successes. They remind listeners to participate in future giveaways and continue sharing positive stories to foster a sense of hope and solidarity.

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For more detailed information and to listen to the full episode, visit mswmedia.com.

Transcript

[Allison Gill]

MSW Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Today, turns out the intel that Pete Hegseth shared on at least two unsecure signal chats came from a classified system. Three prosecutors on the Eric Adams case have resigned after being pressured by Emil Bovey to lie about it. New images could change cancer research, but ICE has detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia have issued their first letter accusing the government of obstructing the court ordered discovery in this case. The FDA has suspended quality tests for milk. The Trump administration will be sending those in student loan default to collections. A Tennessee bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the rest of the year. A Trump draft order has called for dramatic restructuring of the State Department. A federal judge orders the government to give Venezuelan migrants in Colorado a 21 day deportation notice. Health and Human Services is going to scrap the national LGBTQ Youth Suicide hotline. And Sarah Palin loses her defamation suit against the New York Times. Again, I'm Allison Gill.

[Dana Goldberg]

And I'm Dana Goldberg.

[Allison Gill]

Hey, everybody. I should say with that again about Sarah Palin. She actually didn't lose the first time in 2022, and we'll get into that, but she's lost it now for good. So I just wanted to sort of automatically correct or make clear what I meant.

[Dana Goldberg]

Live in in lifetime corrections. I mean, who doesn't love that? Being like, you know, what lied to you all at the beginning of this show? That's the precedent I'm setting moving forward.

[Allison Gill]

Yes. And a further precedent being set that as soon as the lie escapes my lips, I correct it.

[Dana Goldberg]

Indeed, just a little bit.

[Allison Gill]

This has been going on for a very long time.

[Dana Goldberg]

In other words, we are an honest people. That's what we are.

[Allison Gill]

I think that the suit started in like, 2017 anyway. It's been a long time coming. But she lost. And so, yeah, too bad for her. Later in the show, I'm going to be talking to Andy McNew. She's the director of the East County Victory Pack here in San Diego. But she's going to talk about how to scale up her vision for how we tackle, like, rural politics to sort of close the rural urban divide.

[Dana Goldberg]

Nice.

[Allison Gill]

And so again, it all boils down to local, like, get involved at your local level. And so we're going to have a chat with her. And breaking news. This is just. This has just been handed to me on paper because that's how my cat's handed it to me. Tesla's NET Income slid 71% in the first quarter of 2025 as the company struggles to overcome competitive pressure overseas. And a reputational hit from Chief Executive Elon Musk's polarizing role in the Trump administration. That's from the Wall Street Journal. We've been waiting for this report all day. They released it, of course, after stock trading closed, so on Tuesday.

[Dana Goldberg]

It is bizarre to me that he did not expect this. You know what I mean? Unless this is all part of some weird larger plan, this was bound to happen.

[Allison Gill]

So, being that you're probably listening to this Wednesday morning, you want to feel good, go check out TSLA on the stock exchange, see how it's doing. I'm. I'm betting not real. Well, maybe we can get it down to $200 a share. Come on, we can do it. So, congrats to the Tesla takedown, folks. I know we have. We had Evan Sutton on here. We also have another patron, data diva, who's working coordinating the data to get out the Tesla takedown rallies. So well done, everybody, because 71 in the first quarter, it fell.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, boy.

[Allison Gill]

Yeesh. Not good. And what's really funny is, like, some people are still in denial. They're like, well, people are just waiting for the new Tesla Y model.

[Dana Goldberg]

Stop it.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah, yeah, we thought it would come out before this report. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. I'm sure people are just waiting for the new.

[Dana Goldberg]

We're waiting for the new Tesla SS model I hear was coming out in the coming months. They're only making it in white.

[Allison Gill]

Oh, that's good. Love it. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure that's what it is. Anyway, thanks. Thanks to everyone for help helping make this a reality. Every single Tesla I see. Now, Dana, I don't know about you, but they all have a sticker on it that says, we bought this before he was a Nazi or whatever.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yep, it is. It's hard to. Either some people are in leases they can't get out of. Some people bought them and they're like, listen, I'm undoing something good for the environment, and you know, I'm not. This was purchased before. Everyone has the reasons. There's obviously some people that bought it because they're fascists, but, you know, we're not going to go there. You can't tell them apart. Except maybe with some bumper stickers, but.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. Or if it's just a cybertruck. Because, I mean, exactly.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, my God, there's A cybertruck in my neighborhood.

[Allison Gill]

Me too.

[Dana Goldberg]

But I live in a neighborhood that's full of apartment buildings and so. Not that rich people can't live in one bedroom apartments. It's just sort of mind blowing to me that someone who owns a Tesla truck clearly lives in an apartment building around here. Otherwise they'd have a driveway to park it in.

[Allison Gill]

Right.

[Dana Goldberg]

I'm like, where are they charging it? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Do you have to charge a Tesla truck? I'm assuming you do.

[Allison Gill]

I assume you do as well. And like, I don't have a garage. We only have street parking because I was years ago gonna buy a Tesla or some other electric car.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

And. And can't because what, am I going to run a cord all the way out to the street? Like that's how I feel.

[Dana Goldberg]

Listen, I'm very proud of my little one bedroom apartment. So, you know, not. There's no, I'm not slamming that. I'm just trying to figure out where this person is charging their giant massive refrigerator that they park on the street.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. And I think it's interesting too that somebody who had that kind of money to purchase a cybertruck, you know, would. Would not have a place to charge it. It's just, it's, it's odd.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

But hey, you know, whatever. I'm not going to judge based on that. We're just going to. Buying a cyber truck.

[Dana Goldberg]

Exactly.

[Allison Gill]

Anyway, we have a lot of news to get to today, as you could tell as. As evidenced by the amount of headlines we had up there. So let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up, remember how we said that more tea was going to spill from those four kegseth aids?

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, yes, we did.

[Allison Gill]

And, and I said yesterday on the beans that maybe by today you probably would already hear some more tea. Well, here's some more tea from NBC. Minutes before US fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army General Michael Eric Kurilla, who leads U.S. cENTCOM, that's the United States Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send that detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The material Kurilla sent included the details about when US fighters would take off, when they would hit their targets. Details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. Provide the Secretary of Defense, his superior, with information he needed to know and used a system specifically designed to safely transmit classified information. So, looks like Kegseth copied and pasted because you remember, we were all in the first signal gate. Well, this looks like cups. Copy and pasted from somewhere. Had to be some sort of a classified system he copied and pasted this from. Turns out now that is confirmed by NBC News. It was sent from a general at CENTCOM using a classified system. And it. And then Kegseth copied it, pasted it, and sent it to. Well, they don't say copy and paste, but I mean, clearly it seems like it sent the information to both. Now, two signal chats.

[Dana Goldberg]

You know, I don't. I know if Trump's not going to get rid of him, I sure hope the Pentagon starts putting a lot of pressure. He's putting our military in danger and our national security at risk.

[Allison Gill]

100%.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah. This one's from Reuters. A federal judge in Colorado directed Trump's administration on Tuesday to give Venezuelan migrants detained in that state notice 21 days in advance before any deportations under a law historically used only in wartime, and to inform them of their right to challenge their removal. Okay. Now, in a written ruling maintaining a temporary block within Colorado on deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, U.S. district Judge Charlotte Sweeney said the administration must tell the migrants in a language they understand, that they have the right to consult a lawyer. You have to give these people due process.

[Allison Gill]

That is part of the Supreme Court said. Right. You have to give them meaningful notice and meaningful due process.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

So good on that. And there was also another hearing, a scorcher of a hearing in the Southern District of New York with Hellerstein. Now, Hellerstein is another judge. Sweeney was in Colorado, Hellerstein's in New York, Southern District of New York. There's another judge considering this in Texas. Right. That issued a restraining order. Hellerstein issued a restraining order. And the hearing today was whether or not to extend that temporary restraining order order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. And it did not go well for the government. And we're going to cover that in more detail. He did extend the restraining order, but that was, you know, you remember, they tried to do it in Boberg's court for the five plaintiffs and then expanded the class nationwide. And the Supreme Court said, no, we're vacating Boseberg's orders, and it has to be habeas petitions from the jurisdiction that you're being detained in. And so then those original five plaintiffs, two of them were in New York, and they filed there, and the other three were in Texas and they filed there. This was the New York from the original jgg.

[Andy McNew]

Got it.

[Allison Gill]

The lawsuit that was initially before Judge Boasberg. So we're now seeing people following what I think is the wrong Supreme Court order. I think there should be able to be a nationwide injunction and not just district by district, but now we're seeing in the districts the judges issuing these same restraining orders that Boseberg tried to do nationwide. Got it? Yeah. So that's really good news. Next up from the Times, three Manhattan federal prosecutors who worked on the criminal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said Tuesday that they're resigning rather than admitting wrongdoing in refusing to abandon the case. That's according to an email obtained by the New York Times. The prosecutors were placed on administrative paid leave this year after Trump administration officials in Washington ordered them to to seek dismissal of the bribery and fraud charges. In the email, the prosecutors Celia V. Cohen, Andrew Roach and Derek Wilstrom said that Todd Blanch, the deputy attorney general, had placed a condition on reinstating them from administrative leave to their jobs. And that condition was that you must express regret and admit some wrongdoing by your office in connection with refusal to move to dismiss the case. The prosecutor said, we will not confess wrongdoing when there was none.

[Dana Goldberg]

Nice.

[Allison Gill]

So fuck yeah. They're like, nope, we quit. Fuck you.

[Dana Goldberg]

I love that. I want to see more of that. This one's from NBC. A groundbreaking microscope at Harvard Medical School. This could lead to the breakthroughs in cancer detection and research into longevity. But the scientists who developed computer scripts to read those images and unlock its full potential. Well, she has been in an immigration detention center for two months, putting crucial scientific advancements at risk. The scientist, the 30 year old Russian born. And I'm going to try this one. You'll correct me if I'm wrong. Worked at Harvard's renowned Kirchner Lab until her arrest at a Boston airport in mid February. She's now being held at ICE's Richwood Correctional center in Monroe, Louisiana and fighting possible deportation to Russia where she says she fears persecution and jail time over her protests against the war in Ukraine. And I quote, I would call it a grinding machine. Petrova, who spoke with the NBC News from Louisiana facility, said about being detained, quote, we are in this machine and it doesn't care if you have a visa, a green card or any particular story. It just keeps going.

[Allison Gill]

A scientist who developed the way to read these microscope images, cancer breakthrough.

[Dana Goldberg]

And they're holding her probably.

[Allison Gill]

I don't why? Because she's against the war in Ukraine.

[Dana Goldberg]

Like, yeah.

[Allison Gill]

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. All right, next up from Reuters, the Food and Drug Administration. We talked about them ending food inspection. They're suspending a quality control program for testing milk.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, boy.

[Allison Gill]

And other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division. According to an internal email seen by Reuters. The suspension is another disruption to the nation's food safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the fda, as part of Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce. Now, Dana, before FDA milk inspections, rich people would put like, chalk and plaster of Paris in milk to make it appear whiter.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, my God.

[Allison Gill]

They would add formaldehyde to cover the taste of rotten milk, for example.

[Dana Goldberg]

So again, people. Oh, my God.

[Allison Gill]

Who inspect for that are going away. Makes me wonder why Trump wants to bring asbestos back. Does he want to. Does he want to add asbestos back to milk? Is that. I don't know.

[Dana Goldberg]

I have no idea why they would do this. Absolutely nothing or not.

[Allison Gill]

I don't know if. Back to milk. I don't know if we used to put asbestos in milk, but, yeah, I wouldn't put it past them.

[Dana Goldberg]

No. This one's from the Associated Press. The Education Department will begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wages for potentially millions of borrowers. This is from officials Now. Currently, roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans. The Trump administration's announcement marks an end to a period of leniency that began during the COVID 19 pandemic. New federal student loans have been referred for collections since March of 2020, including those in default. Under President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness of student loans, only to be stopped by the courts.

[Allison Gill]

Republicans.

[Dana Goldberg]

Beginning May 5, a department will begin involuntary collection through the Treasury Department's offset program, which withholds government payments, including tax refunds, federal salaries and other benefits from people with past due debts to the government. After a 30 day notice, the department also will begin garnishing wages for borrowers in default.

[Allison Gill]

My God.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah. This coming from a guy who stole money from people with a scam called Trump University is now going to garnish your wages if you are in default on a student loan, which they stopped.

[Allison Gill]

To, but they prevented forgiveness on.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yep.

[Allison Gill]

Fuck May 5th. All right. Beginning May 5th, everybody. So that's horrible. I mean, it's going to. If you think the economy is bad now you're going to garnish people's wages. Millions of people. All right. From the Guardian. A draft Trump administration executive order reported to be circulating among US Diplomats proposes a radical restructuring of the State Department, including drastic reductions to Sub Saharan operations envoys and bureaus relating to climate refugees, human rights, democracy, and gender equality. The changes, if enacted, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the department since its founding in 1789, according to Bloomberg, which had seen a copy of the 16 page draft. The New York Times first reported on the draft. The U.S. state Department disputes the report, with a spokesperson telling Newsweek that the reporting is entirely based on a fake document. We got it from you.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh, my God.

[Allison Gill]

Earlier On Sunday, the US Secretary of State face McAsshole Marco Rubio called the reported overhaul fake news. In a post on Twitter, the New York Times falls victim to another hoax. Yeah, sure, Marco. Let's wait a couple of days and we'll start getting the report of this reorganization actually happening.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yes, we will. Because anything they call a hoax is an omission. This one's from Mother Jones. The federal government, it plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth who call 988, and that is the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline, according to a Health and Human Services budget draft leaked last week. The budget, first reported by the Washington Post, would go into effect in October if it's approved by Congress. Since the Hotline's launch in 2022, callers have been able to speak with counselors trained to work with specific at risk populations, including LGBTQ youth, who are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. The service for LGBTQ Youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since 2022. In February, the program received an average of 2,100 contacts per day. Per day. And I quote, here we are cutting off the nation's lifeline to those in crisis. This is from Paolo de Vecchio, former director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration's Office of Recovery. And I quote, due to the discriminatory practices of the Trump administration, they're putting that life preserver away from thousands and thousands of people. This is horrible.

[Allison Gill]

2100 a day. 2100 a day. Why?

[Dana Goldberg]

There's no cruelty. The cruelty is the point.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. So, you know, if you call the national crisis hotline 988, which was set up under the Biden administration, you would select like, one, if you were a veteran, two, lgbtq, three. You know, they had different experts for different groups and communities, and they're just Going to rip the LGBTQ youth one out of there, apparently. I don't know what else to say other than, like you said, the cruelty is the point. It's a feature, not a bug. All right, we need some good news. So here's some good News from Channel 5 Nashville. A bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the rest of the year. House Majority Leader and state Rep. William Lamberth says he was taking the bill out of the legislative picture for the rest of the year until the state gets confirmation from the Department of Education that their bill won't jeopardize federal funding for Tennessee. My goodness, imagine that we want our federal funding and, oh, if. If our citizenship question makes us ineligible for federal funding. Oh, we'll. Never mind. Will figure out another way to target these students. So it's not clear when state lawmakers will hear back from the Trump administration, but it'll likely be after the legislature adjourns in 2025. As written, the legislation would have gone against Plyler v. Doe, which is a Supreme Court ruling that said schools cannot deny any undocumented child access to the K through 12 education system because it violates the equal protection CL of the Constitution. That's a Supreme Court ruling. Maybe they'll overturn themselves.

[Dana Goldberg]

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

[Allison Gill]

I know, I know. Me neither. Nothing surprises me about this Supreme Court anymore.

[Dana Goldberg]

No. But I do have some good news. This is from Politico. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore Voice of America.

[Allison Gill]

Yay.

[Dana Goldberg]

Saying the effort to gut the 80 year old government funded news service likely violated the law and the constitution. Well done. U.S. district Judge Royce Lambert said the administration's rush to dismiss mantle the VOA and related news organizations funded by U.S. agency for Global Media resulted in the suspension of hundreds of journalists and employees. It put some overseas correspondents at risk of being deported to their home countries. This is also what the judge said. And Lambert said that the silencing of VOA for the first time in 80 years also deprived hundreds of millions of listeners of a reliable source of news in parts of the world that lack a free press, which is why they wanted to silence them.

[Allison Gill]

Wow, Lamberth, huh? Wow. All right.

[Dana Goldberg]

Now, the judge, by the way, Lamberth is a Reagan appointee. He ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore all employees and contractors to their news programs and unfreeze funding streams for other affiliated networks like Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He also ordered officials to restore VOA programming to fulfill the legal mandate that it, quote, serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.

[Allison Gill]

Wow. Go, Judge Lamberth. That's. That's outstanding. I'm very glad that they're reinstating Voice of America. I'm sure the Trump administration will appeal this, and we'll let you know how that goes. Finally, from msnbc, some more good news. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin lost her defamation retrial against the New York times over a 2017 editorial. 2025. A 2017 editorial, she said, damaged her reputation. Maverick. That's according to Reuters, who reported this on Tuesday. Damaged her reputation, huh? Sarah Palin didn't do that all by herself.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah, I don't know how much reputation was intact. Damage that.

[Allison Gill]

Okay. The federal jury found the media company not liable after deliberating for about two hours. It only took two hours. Palin, a former Republican vice presidential nominee, lost a previous trial in 2022. Oh, I was right.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yep. We correcting our correction.

[Allison Gill]

They had a correction and now a recorrection. She lost in 2022 against the media company. Oh. But one, a new one due to several major issues in the case. As a federal appellate panel put it last year. All right, so she lost and then won and then lost. Okay. All right. So lost again is correct. All right. Well done. Well done, jury.

[Dana Goldberg]

Well done indeed.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah, I think that the thing was about. Remember when she had crosshairs over Democratic. She, she posted a photo on social media of crosshairs on, like, Democratic districts, and one of them was in Tucson where the shooting happened. That. Oh, happened to Gabby Gifford. Got it. So that. Yeah, that was part of the thing. And they were comparing it to a different shooting in the New York Times. And she's like, that's Ma Maverick. I don't like that. And she lost, and then she won, and then she lost again. So that's an eight year ordeal. Is done. Although I'm sure she'll appeal this ruling as well. So. Anyway, thanks.

[Dana Goldberg]

I just, I, I can't. I can't with them.

[Allison Gill]

I know, I know. And, and it's, it's depressing that these kinds of things take so long to finally, you know, for, for, for somebody like Sarah Palin to finally lose again. Yeah.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

All right, everybody. It's time for some good trouble. What are you guys doing? All right, everybody. This is, this one hits home for me. You know, I worked at the VA for over a decade. Doug Collins, the new secretary of the VA is just a giant piece of shit. He shared a snitch email address oh my God. To all VA employees on Tuesday and the email read in part. On February 6, 2025, President Trump enacted Executive Order 142 02, Eradicating Anti Christian bias, establishing a task force to review the last administration's Biden administration's treatment. Accordingly, the Department of Veterans affairs is establishing its own task force, not a task force to help veterans or to get better health care or to help adjudicate claims at the VA of which there are a bad There's a backlog. No, this is a task force to better effectuate the Department's internal review of anti Christian bias. The VA task force now requests all instances of anti Christian discrimination send them to Anti Hyphen Christian bias reporting a.gov Again, anti hyphen Christian bias [e-mail] submission should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates and locations.

[Dana Goldberg]

I think someone should write in about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, where it was when it happened.

[Andy McNew]

Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

Or, you know, J.D. vance and the Pope.

[Dana Goldberg]

Oh my God.

[Allison Gill]

So you got that, everyone? Anti Hyphen Christian bias reporting a.gov, we'll put the email address in the show notes, make sure to let them know about any anti Christian stuff that's happening in the Trump administration, which is pretty much all of it. Let's render that inbox unusable. So that's your good trouble. That's your mission today, should you choose to accept it. All right, everybody, we'll be back with Andy McNew. We're going to talk about how to get involved locally to close that urban, rural divide that we see in our politics. So stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.

[Dana Goldberg]

We'll be right back.

[Allison Gill]

Hey everybody, it's ag And I spent most of my adult life struggling with sleep. I would spend hours tossing and turning, trying every position imaginable. I would still wake up stiff, groggy, covered in sweat, frustrated. And then the next day was just shot. I tried everything I could to fix it. Different pillows, sleep supplements, even blackout curtains. Nothing really worked the way I needed it to. And then a friend told me about Helix. The change was obvious right away. I wasn't waking up in pain. I actually started sleeping through the night, which felt like a miracle because I love sleep and I hated not getting sleep. And now I'm very happy about this. I tracked my sleep with my Apple watch. I saw more deep sleep right from the first night. But even without the data, I felt the difference in my body and my brain. I woke up more alert, more refreshed. My brain didn't feel foggy and I wasn't reaching for a second cup of coffee before 10am like I used to. And I also wasn't waking up drenched in sweat. I had more energy during the day, more patience when life gets hectic, way fewer headaches. My moods lifted. I started getting back into hobbies I'd abandoned because I just would be too tired. So I started looking forward to bedtime instead of dreading another frustrating night of restlessness. So if you're struggling with sleep and nothing else is working, go get yourself a Helix mattress. It's made a huge difference in my life. You won't regret it. Go to helixsleep.comdailybeans for 20% off site wide that's helixsleep.com dailybeans for 20% off site wide helixsleep.com dailybeans with Helix Better sleep starts now. Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by somebody doing something. Remember Michelle Obama's speech? Do something. She's the chair of the East County Victory Pack here in San Diego, but her efforts are scalable nationwide to help close the urban, rural political divide, among other things. So please welcome community organizer and campaign specialist Andy McNew. Hi, Andy. How are you? Good.

[Andy McNew]

I'm great. Hi, Alison, how you doing?

[Allison Gill]

I'm great. It's really good to talk to you. So talk a little bit about, first of all, talk a little bit about East County Victory Pack and what y'all do.

[Andy McNew]

Sure. So we started last year, sort of halfway through the election cycle we realized that I know that a lot of people have a lot of problems with the Democratic Party right now. I am a tried and true Democrat. I'm a party loyalist. So I'll disclaim that right now. But we do have problems in the party and one of our problems is our priorities. And we saw that our local candidates here in East County, San Diego, which by the way, I think a lot of folks across the country think San Diego, they think blue California. East County, San Diego is one of the reddest districts in California. There is about a 15 point gap in registration between Republicans and Democrats. It's very red. But we're still trying to run Democrats in our local races and we realized that we weren't going to get help in the party other than volunteers. Well, when you're running in a rural area, a lot of times you can't go out and canvas because the houses are half a mile apart and behind fences and there's dogs. And it's dangerous. And a lot of times the only way to contact those voters is through things that cost money. And so we wanted to start raising money that we knew would go to good progressive candidates in these areas. Because one thing about the Republicans in these areas, they're so entrenched, and I'm sure across the country, if you live in a red area, you see Republicans running for City council or for Farm Bureau or whatever you have that don't have any competition ever. No one runs against them. They've been there for 30 years, so they don't do the work anymore. And we're operating under the assumption that if Democrats do the work, we can win. And the work in these cases requires money, which is sending mailers, which is sending texts. Reaching these voters is a lot more difficult than when you live in a city with nice square blocks and flat, you know, flat, flat places where it's easy to walk and knock on doors.

[Allison Gill]

So, so what are some of the issues that some of the candidates have been having, other than there just aren't any usually running against the Republicans. But, you know, you had, you were briefly mentioning that there were issues with, you know, a lot of saying a lot of people have some issues with some Democrats. And, and I'm with you. I feel like, though, we, we can reshape the party rather than throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, because we've been building grassroots outreach for years and years and years and years, and we don't want to throw that by the wayside, but we can be more selective about our candidates. So what were some of the things that you were saying that you were going to talk about with regard to the issue with some of the candidates previously?

[Andy McNew]

So I think one thing we're seeing right now is, and, you know, we've been talking. I know we've been talking about some of the issues in the DNC and our priorities and where we're going to spend money. I think it's really, really tempting when you say you want to run for office, right? And you've been thinking about running for office and you get really passionate about issues like immigration or education or infrastructure, anything like that. Anything that gets you going. And what you see on the news is Congress and the president. So as an organizer here in east county, our, our congressman is Darrell Issa, which I know you know, you know.

[Allison Gill]

You know, I know everybody knows Darrell.

[Andy McNew]

Issa is the richest man in Congress and Republican, really going to be tough to beat. And I have people approach me all the Time be like, who's going to run against isa? Or I want to run, I want to run against Isaac. And my first advice is don't. My second advice is have you considered running for school board or in California we have water district or fire protection board or whatever you have in your local jurisdiction. Because yes, we want to see more young people in Congress, but the way to get there is you have to build a name for yourself locally first. And I think you mentioned it. We oftentimes have no candidates for these positions. And yet these are the positions that affect your day to day life. They affect your water bill, your electric bill, if there's a pothole in your street. These are all handled by local officials. And if your local officials are all feckless Republicans who don't do any work, well, that makes it a lot harder to get those issues fixed. I have 100 examples just from San Diego county that prove that if we just have Democrats in office in some of these, and these are nonpartisan races, let me just say we don't have, the party isn't on the ballot. So Republicans will vote for Democrats if they show up and they do the work.

[Allison Gill]

Right. Because the Republicans aren't doing the work because they haven't had to for so long on these more local level races. I do, I will interject and say I do think that somebody should run against Steriliza. That dude's been whack a mole ing around districts for a while and he's like the last red guy left in this area. And I think that we have a good chance of beating him. But your point being, we also, if you're gonna run for something, need to start at the very local level in the nonpartisan races and do the groundwork that the Republicans refuse to do, which as you said, is not easy as easy to go door to door because the houses are so far apart and, and things like that. But we do need to do things like postcarding and phone banking and text banking and, and other ways to, to reach out to the, to the more rural communities. And I know dirt road Dems does a lot of work along the same lines. So talk a little bit about nationally speaking. Close. That's the one that's like step one in closing the urban rural divide, right?

[Andy McNew]

Sure. So I think for so long we've talked about national versus local, but it's all the same, like all of these big policies that they do that they implement at the national level or that they talk about at the national level and they pass in Congress or whatever. When it comes time to actually get things done, it requires local government. For example, the Biden administration passed the inflation Reduction Act. And the thing is, all of that money that you saw in transportation, in infrastructure, all of that money, it doesn't just magically go to your district, your local politicians have to ask for it. And I have a perfect example right here in East County, San Diego. They had been planning a water purification plant for a long time, but all of the water districts out here in east county, their boards were all Republicans. And then we got two Democrats elected to one of the boards and one Democrat elected to the other board in 2020. And all of a sudden these boards were no longer afraid to request money from the Democrats at the state and national level. And they received $935 million to build this plant. And it's building and it's going to go online in 2026. And that is directly because we got Democrats elected to local water board.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. And that's big, right? Because it's huge. Water is a huge issue in rural areas. We can also talk about, tell me about some of the other issues that you find kind of transcend the political divide, especially in these non political or non partisan races. I'm thinking along the lines of, you know, we have a lot of farmers and these tariffs are hurting the farmers. They can't sell their soybeans, for example, to China anymore because of the huge massive tariffs. We can talk about taxing the rich. I did an empty chair town hall for Darrell Issa and very red district, as you know. And everybody we there were tax the rich chants coming out of this group of people for a very, you know, for a long time, like uncomfortably long time chance of tax the rich. We could talk about, you know, farm workers being deported. So what are some of the main issues you're seeing on the ground in these nonpartisan races where Democrat backed candidates can focus their energy?

[Andy McNew]

Sure. I think a big one right now is education. You know, we're seeing at the national level, the administration is trying to get rid of the Department of Education, cut a bunch of funding and things like that. And it, it, I hate to use this terminology, but it does trickle down to local school boards. And you know, and you're seeing it across the country, especially in rural and small town school boards that are run by Republicans, the right wing.

[Allison Gill]

And these folks can't bus their kids to charter schools, you know.

[Andy McNew]

Right, right. And they're, you know, they're trying to support charter schools right here in San Diego. County, one of our very Republican school boards is trying to fire all of their librarians because they think they need a cutback.

[Allison Gill]

Well, it's because they don't like libraries.

[Andy McNew]

And they don't like libraries. So if you're passionate about say LGBTQ issues and you know, today, just today, right now in Supreme Court, they're arguing a case about giving school boards more local control to allow religious exemptions for LGBTQ materials, that sort of thing. And all of that comes down to your local. That case would never have gotten to the Supreme Court unless a local school board started it. So the more Democrats and like minded people we have on our local school boards, the less of a chance of that happening. It's so important to run for these races. And you know, that's why, you know, I'm trying to recruit candidates for all of these races because it is so vital.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of coming together right now between people who generally back Republican ish candidates versus those who generally back Democratic ish candidates because like, like you said, these are nonpartisan races. But there's a lot of agreement of keep your hands off our stuff. And I think if that's, if that's the way to go about it, because toward the end of the Biden administration we were seeing a rural renaissance and now that is going to go by the wayside. And there are signs that it is already because of things like tariffs and water and things that impact us hyper locally, which like you said, are controlled by these very local multi member boards, water boards, school boards, superintendents and things like that. So I totally get the idea of once we take advantage of the fact that Republicans have stopped the ground game and we swoop in and take over the ground game, whatever that looks like. I think that that's such an important point that you're making.

[Andy McNew]

So I have one brief story right here in San Diego county, in even a redder district than the overall. We have a little town called Alpine and it is an R + 18 area and we ran a demographic.

[Allison Gill]

May I paint a picture of Alpine real quick for everybody? Sure. So I used to be in a band and we practiced at a house in Alpine. And there was this place called the Alpine Springs Inn, which was a bar and pub. And there was a guy who was the self proclaimed mayor of Alpine, now that Alpine does not have a mayor, but he called himself the mayor. Everybody called him the mayor for decades. He would come in every day to Alpine Springs Inn and bring his own 12 pack of PBR he would wear overalls with no shirt, and he would have a piece of straw in his mouth. And he would just sit there and drink his PBR and talk about his tractors and talk about. I think he had at one point, a story about how he had. He apparently restored old classic cars and said that, you know, the night before, he had rolled over into a ditch trying to get home from the Alpine Springs Inn. And everybody was like, oh, my gosh, what car were you driving? Because they were all concerned about his collection of classic cars. And he said, driving hell. I was walking. And so this is Alpine. Okay. So I just want to give you sort of a. Paint a picture of what Alpine is like.

[Andy McNew]

Alpine is very rural and very red. And we decided to run a Democrat for the water district, the division that covers Alpine. And all we did was we knocked on, you know, there is a central part of Alpine. So we knocked on about 1800 doors.

[Allison Gill]

Wow.

[Andy McNew]

And sent about 8,000 texts. There are 15,000 voters in this district. And we won by 10 points.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah.

[Andy McNew]

And it's because all the Republican did was put up some signs, didn't knock on doors, didn't make calls, didn't talk to anyone. No one knew who he was. And our message was, hey, he's a member of the good old boys club. And even you have to find the right message. But in a lot of these places, that message hits because it's the drain, the swamp message.

[Allison Gill]

Right.

[Andy McNew]

And that message hits, and it's like, it's time to get someone in there that's going to really listen to you about your water bill and about what's going on. Going on. And, you know, nobody wants to pay higher water bills. And, you know. And we won by 10 points. Yeah.

[Allison Gill]

Let's make a change is the best message, right?

[Andy McNew]

Yeah. It is possible and probable because the Republicans sit on their laurels and, you know, that's. They think they've got it in the bag.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. They just sit back and they think they're entitled to the seat because they've had it for so long.

[Andy McNew]

Right.

[Allison Gill]

Well, Andy, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. I really encourage everyone, particularly in rural areas, sign up for your local indivisible team and talk about these kinds of strategies where you are locally. And do you have any messages, Andy, before I let you go, for how to do this, where you live?

[Andy McNew]

Sure, sure. So there's a great. If you want to get involved and you want to feel hope, the way to do it is locally because, you know, it's easy to doom scroll and see everything going on in Washington and feel like you have no power. But when you're talking to and trying to win a district with 15,000 voters, think how much more of an impact you as one person could have. And if you're interested in running for one of these offices, you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be an education expert or a water expert or, you know, whatever. You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be someone who cares about your community. Start going to school board meetings and listening in to see what's going on. Start going to city council meetings, listen to what's going on in your city or your town. And then if you're interested in running, I gotta give a plug here. Go to runforsomething.net, it's in a fantastic organization. They provide so much great support for people running for local office. There are hundreds of thousands of local offices up for election every cycle and every single one should have a progressive or Democrat running for it. And right now it doesn't. So go to runforsomething.net and if you're curious to see what you can run for, there's a website called wherecanirun.org just all one word, wherecanirun.org and you can put in your address and it'll list all of your local offices. And that is something it's so important to get involved. And once you realize what's going on in your town, you might become passionate about something besides immigration that you can't change and you feel helpless. But you could change housing policy in your town, you know, and where immigrants could live if they come to your town. So that, that's just a like a couple of shout outs that I wanted to give. They do great work. Run for something is, you know, fantastic.

[Allison Gill]

So yeah, they are. And thank you so much. Now give a shout out to yourself if anyone in San Diego area wants to support the east county victory pack. How do they do that? Andy?

[Andy McNew]

Okay, you can visit ecvictory.com the website's sort of in transition right now. I'm going to be putting up some profiles of the candidates we helped win in 2024. And we are always looking for folks who are interested in running in east county in north inland San Diego. It's a local pack but if this is something that if you're good at fundraising and that's your strength, maybe look around your local area and maybe you could start one for yourself.

[Allison Gill]

Ecvictory.com well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. Chair of the East county victory pack, Andy McNew. It was great to talk to you.

[Andy McNew]

Thank you. Great to talk.

[Allison Gill]

Everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news, everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news. Good news everyone. Then good news, everyone. Good news. And if you have any good news confessions corrections, you want to play any of the guessing games for animals that we like to play? Like what the mutt? Find the cat opine on the bovine. What the hecwine? What's the model of your axolotl? What the hell's in that shell? For some reason I can guess turtle breeds. That's what we do when you attach a photo of your pod pet to get your submission read on the air. Also, if you have a good news submission, that is a shout out, whether it's to a loved one or a small business in your community or some great activism you're seeing around town, or a shout out to yourself or your small business or a shout out to a government program that's helped you or a loved one. Whether it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care act, student debt forgiveness, anything like that, you can send it to us, attach your pod pet, pay your pod pet tariffs, and if you don't have a pet or any of those other animals, you can just send an adoptable pet in your area. We also take bird watching photos, which can be an actual bird, or you and your family and friends flipping off Trump and Musk properties. If you don't have that, baby pictures are also acceptable. Anything really. And we just will just flood us with your good news. Any simple happy thing. We have to microdose hope, right? That's what we're banking on. So send it to [e-mail] and click on contact. And today we want to give a special shout out to Signs of Justice when they heard that a beans listener shouted them out on the show. Thank you, Sarah and thank you, Beth. They reached out to the show to coordinate a little good trouble giveaway. So follow Signsofjustice on Instagram. Three winners will receive 100 free postcards. Okay. To spread the word. So number one, follow Signs of Justice and MSW Media Pods on Instagram. In the comments, tag someone who inspires you to take action. Three community leaders will be selected to receive 100 themjority project postcards and mobilize your networks. Winners will be announced Monday, April 28 on an Instagram story and if you can't wait, you can print free postcards or order [e-mail] tmp that's T as in what? I can never remember the phonetic Alphabet. T as in tango. Emma's in Mike, P as in papa. And join us in the next wave. So thank you so much to Signs of Justice. This is going to be fun and we appreciate them very, very much.

[Dana Goldberg]

Much love it. This next one's short. We got a couple of them. This is Cindy B. She said Chrissy Gnomes bag sounds like a lot like an escape bag. Where is she escaping and from whom?

[Allison Gill]

A go bag. Right. I always think of a Breakfast Club where they dump out Ali Sheedy's purse. Yeah, like why do you carry so much? And she goes, you never know when you might have to jam.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah. Love that movie. This oh my God. I saw on Instagram was AI and it was all the Breakfast Club actors as babies. And as much as I hate AI, they were the cutest things I've ever seen. This one's from Simon and Andrea. Perhaps Kristy Noam's handbag was imported and the masked man rendered it to an El Salvadorian handbag prison.

[Allison Gill]

Oh, perhaps, perhaps. Yeah, very good point. Thank you for that. If you have any idea what was in Christy Gnome's purse, you can send it to us dailybeanspot.com click on contact. Next up from Kathy from Kansas. First, I want to say how much I enjoy starting my day with both of you. I would like to give a shout out to the staff of the Topeka, Kansas Social Security office. I'm retiring this year and was having a hard time figuring out when to file for my benefits. And who's to file for since I am a divorced wife. It depends on when your fra. Your full retirement age is and the date you were born. My birth date is the fourth, which falls on in an area not clearly stated. That's weird since there are certain limited numbers. Like it's finite. Like how? How is it not clear? Anyway, when I called the Social Security office, they were able to answer my questions and look at widow's benefits. Since my ex is deceased by the end of the call, I had appointments to bring in documents and complete my application by phone. I also learned that I could start my widow's benefits now and switch to my own at age 70 for max benefits. Everyone was patient and helpful treating everyone in the office the day I was there with respect. So for pod pet tax, here's my dog Ash with his favorite carrot. Oh, this Reminds me of that Kara Swisher photo of her holding that giant carrot. That's totally. This is so great. Kathy, I love this so much for you. Thank you for giving a shout out to a great government program like Social Security.

[Dana Goldberg]

I love it, too. This one's from Kim. Hi, Lady Legumes. I'm a member, but I still wait until the next day to start my day with YouTube. The snort laughing cracks me up all the time. All day. A Pope is elected in a conclave. And I'm realizing that now because I actually watched the movie last time I was in an airplane conclave. It was fantastic. You should watch it anyway. The Pope is elected in a conclave, a gathering of all the cardinals in Rome. It can take weeks while any cardinal who wants to be pope throws his hat in the ring. After that, it's what we called ranked choice voting. Until there's a winner.

[Allison Gill]

Wait, does the Pope actually. Do they actually throw their hats into the ring?

[Dana Goldberg]

I think they should. I wish. They're big. That'd be fun. And their dresses. The Vatican emits black smoke. El fumo nero until a choice is made, announced by the emission of white smoke. The winner picks a new name, changes to a white robe, and greets his people. In the interim, there's a kind of substitute Pope called a Kamerlingo who handles papal duties. People. Yeah, Papal duties. People it is people. Hey, listen, I'm a Jewish person. It's papal duties until the new second paper. I think that's Papa. How come it's Papo? But Papa, Papa, Papa.

[Allison Gill]

I don't know.

[Dana Goldberg]

Okay, until the second papa is that we're going with.

[Allison Gill]

I don't know that one. I don't know.

[Dana Goldberg]

Can we get a lot of corrections on these stories, please? Thank you. The whole thing is rumored to be pretty cutthroat. And if you watch Conclave, I'd agree. My pet tariff is my beloved granddog's Debo, who's the pittie in the older one, and River Heinz, 57 variety, age seven. Oh, got it. This is not the aged one. The age is one. The pig is one years old. River is seven years old. Both rescued by my younger son from bad situations. Like all good dogs, they've never looked back. In every daze, his glorious new adventure. They're sure cute. And I'm sorry if that got very confusing about the papal and the papal and the Papa. But watch Conclave. I think we have another submission about it. It's actually a really good, informative movie, and it's actually a really great movie.

[Allison Gill]

Yeah. And, Kim, I'm going to ask about the buried lead here. What's going on with. Are those Hot Wheels on the wall on the pegboard behind these dogs? Is this a. Is this a. A, A mighty and, like, incredible collection of Hot Wheels? I want to know about the Hot Wheels collection now. Do you have a popemobile hot wheel? Do they have a popemobile hot wheel? Anyway, that's fascinating. Yeah. Black smoke, white smoke, lots of pomp and circumstance. And I think it is interesting that I. I believe that Pope Francis actually put 21 new card, installed 21 new cardinals in there. So maybe. Maybe the next pope will be pretty woke. I'm all for a woke pope.

[Dana Goldberg]

What Pope?

[Allison Gill]

These dogs are adorable. All right, next up, Allison with one L. Fine. If you want to be one. L'd about it. Regarding electing a new pope, I can't recommend enough to watch the film Conclave see. It details what happens behind the scenes in such a scenario as we're about to witness from afar. Covers the politics that play out between hardline and more liberal factions within the cardinal ranks. Whether we like it or not, the church has a long reach. And a very conservative pontiff can affect geopolitics. Yes, it can. And that's why I liked Pope Francis so much. I mean, as far as popes go. Yeah, he was a pretty woke pope.

[Dana Goldberg]

Yeah. And I also hope that Pope Francis put enough liberal ish cardinals in and 21. Maybe we won't get a super conservative pope. You know, that would be my hope.

[Allison Gill]

We're gonna keep priming.

[Dana Goldberg]

That's my pope hope.

[Allison Gill]

Is it a Pope hope?

[Dana Goldberg]

That's my pope hope.

[Allison Gill]

Should we call this episode Pope Paris?

[Dana Goldberg]

I mean, maybe. I think it's pretty good. All right, this last submission, and I love this name, is from friendly quadriplegic pronouns, she and her. Hello, lovely ladies. I simply hope to provide some inspiration for hesitant introverts such as myself. I attended my congressman town hall on March 30. When he spoke about Medicaid, a program my family relies on. I made my husband raise my hand.

[Allison Gill]

Oh, my gosh. Love that.

[Dana Goldberg]

I spoke to put a face to Medicaid. I spoke about how Medicaid pays for my caregivers so my husband can work, which puts us in a position to pay taxes on my Social Security. My congressman's wife thanked me for speaking up and told me that they have a disabled son. I was featured on the local news, and people came up to my husband during the next week to thank me for speaking out and educating them. For my POD pet tariff, I have included a picture of Tammy, our daughter's cat, and one of me from April 19's rally. This is so fucking cool and I could not be more proud of you.

[Allison Gill]

Okay? I love the cat. I love the rainbow comforter. I want it.

[Dana Goldberg]

The sign is fantastic.

[Allison Gill]

It's so bad. Introverts are here. You know what? I've seen this. This has made the rounds on the Internet. I've seen this sign and I've seen you. That's incredible. Well done. I love that so much. So thank you for doing that and thank you all for your good news. I really appreciate it. Also, don't forget Kim, I need to know about the Hot Wheels collection. And everybody else, please send your good news to us dailybeanspod.com, click on Contact. Thanks for listening today. Thanks to Andy McNew for all the work she's doing for the East County Victory Pack. And you can do that wherever you are. Remember, runforsomething.net, is how you can go about it. So appreciate all the taking the time to come and talk to us today. Do you have any final thoughts, my friend?

[Dana Goldberg]

I do not.

[Allison Gill]

All right, everybody, we'll be back in your ears 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've been DG and them's the 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.