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The Daily Beans
Refried Beans | Art Is Resistance (feat. Ben Folds) | 7/16/2025
00:51:02
Wednesday, July 16th, 2025 ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants are ineligible for bond hearings; Republicans move to block the release of the Epstein files; Mike Waltz faces Senate grilling over the Signal chat scandal; Trump pushes an unconstitutional mid-decade redistricting bid for Texas in an effort to keep the House; the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club issues a blistering cease and desist to the Trump regime over unlicensed use of their music; a federal appeals court blocks Trump from stripping Afghan nationals of their temporary protected status; and Republican Rep James Comer used autopen to sign the subpoenas in his investigation into Biden’s use of the autopen. Allison and Dana deliver the good news.
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A
MSW Media. Hey, everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago, so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
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B
Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time
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C
with swearing.
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A
Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Daily Beans. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Today, ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants are ineligible for bond hearings. Republicans move to block the release of the Epstein files. Mike Waltz faced Senate grilling over the signal chat scandal. Trump pushes an unconstitutional mid decade redistricting bid for Texas in an effort to keep the House. The Black Rebel motorcycle club has issued a blistering cease and desist to the Trump regime over unlicensed use of their music. A federal appeals court has blocked Donald Trump from stripping Afghan nationals of their temporary protected status. And Republican Rep. James Comer used auto Pennsylvania to sign the subpoenas in his investigation into Biden's use of the auto pen. I'm Allison Gill.
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C
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
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A
Yes, you heard that right.
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C
But her emails. I'm writing this on an unsecured server about her using an unsecured server.
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A
Yeah, that's just about how it goes these days, really. Honestly. We'll get to that story. It's just fascinating. Yeah, the whole Jim Comer thing. Remember when he was talking about Biden loaning money or selling property or something, and then it turns out he sold his farm to his brother for $9 or something?
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C
I mean, it's for $9 and three goats. Yeah.
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A
I swear, I swear to God. Every accusation is a fucking confession with these people. And it's just going to continue to get worse. And we will do our best to bring it to you without causing a menti b. That's like. That's the best we can do.
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C
Yep, Sounds good to me.
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A
All right. So later in the show, though, I'm very excited. I get to speak with my friend Ben Folds. We're going to talk about his resignation from the Kennedy center, the importance of the arts and how art is resistance. We're going to talk about funding of the arts and how the Trump regime's trying to take that away. They're putting the tiny desk concerts in jeopardy, which I'm very upset about. NPR and PRX in general But I love the tiny desk concerts.
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C
They're brilliant. Yes.
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A
And Ben, by the way, Ben has a new album out. He didn't announce it or anything. It was a surprise. It's out now. He did it with the Kennedy Center's National Symphony Orchestra.
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C
Wow.
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A
It debuted at number two without any press.
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C
That's incredible.
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A
For classical and crossover. And we'll have a link in the show notes to that new album, a link tree so you can support the arts and support the National Symphony Orchestra because as Ben will tell you, they're kind of stuck there at the Kennedy Center. Yep. You know. Yeah.
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C
Moving away from the Arch just a little. Inflation. Inflation picked up in June, a potential sign that companies are starting to pass tariff costs. Onto who? US customers. Customer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier. This is from the Labor Department, by the way. They said this on Tuesday. That's faster than May's increase of 2.4%. That was in line with the expectations of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was 2.9%, also in line with the forecasts. So it's going up. Don't you know the stock market's going to get wonky?
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A
Yeah. And they saw it coming. So when they say it's in line with forecast, it's not like the jobs report where we're like, yay, we're in line with forecasts. No, they were forecasting that it was going to get shitty and it's starting and they were correct. And what will Jerome Powell get for that? He'll probably get the boot because Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant told Bloomberg on Tuesday there's a formal process that's already starting. He said when he was asked about the efforts to find Jerome Powell's replacement. Now his term is over, like next year sometime. But you know, Trump keeps talking about firing the guy because he won't just lower interest rates for him. Oh, and by the way, something else that just popped up. Republicans in the House voted unanimously to block the release of the Epstein files. So if you're wondering how Republicans in the House feel about the Epstein files, they don't want anyone to see them. Nope, they all voted against it. That's gonna piss the MAGA base off. Unless, of course, the MAGA base cult out and forget about the files that they've been frothing at about for years. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, I've read like Jess Piper is saying they'll give up on It. Give it a month.
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C
I mean, if that's the case, I think we need to make sure they don't make sure that we keep it in the news cycle, because Trump's going to do something to change the news cycle. He's already done that. He attacked Rosie o', Donnell, you know, saying he's going to take away her citizenship. You think that was a coincidence? No. This happens every single time. You know, when he was in trouble with Elon Musk, that's when the National Guard went into Los Angeles and the ICE raid started. It happens every time when he's in the news cycle. He does something to try and distract it. So we have to keep reminding them what's going on, that they are protecting sexual predators. Yeah.
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A
And I will say that, you know, the. Our Democratic members of Congress are on it. They're loud about it.
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C
Yep.
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A
Every single one that I follow has said something about it or have been wanting to release or have written letters to Pam Bondi saying they need to be investigated. Donald Trump, I guess, just told reporters, reporters keep asking about this, too, which is nice, but reporter asked about it, and Trump just said, I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff, I think, really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going.
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B
Wow.
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A
So call me bad person, call me fake news. I want to keep it going. I really.
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C
Yep.
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A
Anyway, we have a lot of news to get to today, so let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up from the Washington Post. The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrive in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court. That's according to documents reviewed by the post. In a July 8 memo, Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, told officers that such immigrants should be detained, quote, for the duration of their removal proceedings. And, Dana, that can take months or years.
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C
Good Lord.
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A
Lawyers say the policy will apply. That's. I mean, think about how much money these private prison dick bags.
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C
Yep.
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A
Are going to make off of detaining these people for years without a bond hearing. That's what this is about.
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C
It's disgusting.
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A
That and the. I mean, just the blatant concentration camp cruelty and racism. Yeah, but they want to make money off of these people, off of their bodies. So lawyers say the policy will apply to millions of immigrants who crossed the US Mexico border over the past few decades, including under the Biden administration. Now, in the past, immigrants residing in the United States Interior generally have been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge. But Lyons, ICE guy said that the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security and Justice has revisited its legal position on detention and release authorities and determined that such immigrants, quote, may not be released from ICE custody. In rare exceptions, immigrants may be released on parole, but that decision will be up to an immigration officer and not a judge. He wrote the provision is based on a section of immigration law. I think it's like a 1996 law that says unauthorized immigrants shall be detained after their arrest. But that has historically applied to those who recently crossed the border, not people who've lived here for a long time. Now Lyons, who oversees the nation's 200 immigration detention facilities, wrote that the policy is expected to face legal challenges. Yeah, hope so. And the 200 immigration detention facility he oversees. Remember yesterday you delivered that story, Dana, about how the concentration camp in Florida sort of falls into a gray area. Right. Because it's state, but then it's also ICE rules, but not ice. So I think that's because they don't want to be subject to FOIA and they want to be able to keep lawmakers from touring.
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C
Absolutely. Absolutely. This next story, Allison's from the Guardian. Republican lawmakers have moved to block a Democratic effort to force the release of I don't know why they're saying so called Epstein files because the Republicans have all said they exist so called Epstein Files, a near mythological trove of undisclosed information about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. At the center of an internal political war among US Conservatives, Democrats had been pressing for an amendment to cryptocurrency legislation that would have forced the release of information and exhibits itemized in the list of evidence held by the Department of justice from the 2019 Child Sex Trafficking case against disgraced financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats had weighed in on the issue, hoping to force a release of the documents. And I quote, the question with Epstein is whose side are you on? That's California Democratic U.S. house member Ro Khanna, the author of the Epstein measure. That's what they told Axios. Are you on the side of the rich and powerful or are you on the side of the people? Khana promised to introduce the amendment again and again and again. Good.
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A
I love this. So he's wanted to tack this onto the cryptocurrency bill and now he's so smart he'll keep attaching it, trying to attach it to whatever bill that he can. But when they say so called Epstein files, just like exactly what you said, Dana, these are actual documents and in evidence that have numbers attached to them that show on evidence lists. So they exist.
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C
People testified. We know that it's real. Well, Republicans on the House U.S. rolls Committee, they voted down the amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on whether the evidence, which includes microcassettes, DVDs, CDs, including one labeled and I quote, girl pics, nude book, four computer hard drives, and ew, three massage tables in green, beige and brown. They're saying these should all be released. CDs, DVDs, cassettes. These aren't just lists and files. There is so much fucking evidence.
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A
Fake news. It's fake news. It's all fake. Why do you care? Why does anybody care?
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C
So boring. This stuff's boring.
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A
Only fake news. And who did he say? He said fake news. Bad people and bad people. Yeah, only really. Only pretty bad people. That's it. We want to see them because we want to see. Yeah, okay. Because we're bad people. Anyway, thanks for that story. And yeah. The House eventually voted unanimously. All Republicans, excuse me, unanimously voted to stop the release after the Rules Committee. This was a different resolution that was brought up on the House floor. And all Democrats voted to release. Interesting. Next up from cbs, Texas Governor Greg Abbott's expanded agenda for the upcoming special session. Congress includes the controversial topic of redistricting. The news last week confirmed rumors that have circled the US and Texas Capitals for weeks now. This is one of 18 items on the agenda during the special session that begins July 21st. In asking state lawmakers redraw the state's congressional districts, Abbott cited a letter he and Attorney General Ken Paxton received from the Department of Justice on July 7. The letter is signed by Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. Civil rights of white people.
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C
Exactly. That's no longer the Civil Rights division we know and love.
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A
Right? Quote. This letter will serve as a formal notice by the DOJ to the State of Texas of serious concerns regarding the legality of four of Texas's congressional districts. That's what Dillon told the governor. As stated below, congressional districts 9, 18, 29 and 33 currently constitute unconstitutional coalition districts. And we urge the State of Texas to rectify these race based considerations for these specific districts. Congressional districts 9, 18 and 29 are Democratic held seats in the Houston area, while 33 is in North Texas and held by a Democrat, Mark Vesey, Fort Worth. In her letter, Dillon also cited Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, who noted in a case from 2023, Allen v. Milligan that, quote, even if Congress in 1982 could constitutionally authorize race based redistricting for some period of time, the authority to conduct race based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future. Governor Newsom has started to voice his frustration over what he says is a partisan power grab. Oh, yeah. Because these people are like, let's do a mid decade census in order to justify the redistricting.
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C
It's disgusting.
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A
But you can't. That's. The census is.
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C
It's against the Constitution.
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A
Yeah, it's in the fucking Constitution. So now they're saying these are illegal. The DOJ is saying it's illegal. So it's kind of like remember back during, you know, the 2020 election when Donald Trump wanted Jeffrey Clark to send a letter to Georgia saying, your election is under investigation. And everybody was like, we're going to resign if you send that letter and make him the attorney general. This is the same kind of thing. But nobody's resigning and nobody's fighting. That's what this is. So it's awful. Now, in an interview with a liberal news outlet, the Tennessee Holler, Gavin Newsom said Republicans are playing by totally different sets of rules, suggesting his state might need to rethink its own fair play approach.
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C
Interesting.
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A
I love this because we've been trying to be fair about our redistricting here in California. Yep. Let's not. If Supreme Court's going to let people redraw districts based on nothing, let's make
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C
Orange county blue as the ocean. Blue as the ocean.
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A
I mean, it's almost all blue now, but like, let's redraw the fuck out of stuff. Suggesting that California might need to rethink its fair play. On Thursday, the governor told liberal news outlet Tennessee Holler that we need to, you know, if they're going to not play fair, you know, why. Why are we. Yeah. And they said he suggested that the California legislature, which is, by the way, has a Democratic super majority in both chambers, could gerrymander like no other state. I say we do it.
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C
I love this.
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A
Literally.
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C
California could save the midterms if they go through with this in Texas, just usually. Yep, we could do it. I would love to see it. I would love to see it. All right, this one's from the Associated Press, Mike Walls. He told lawmakers Tuesday at his confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to the United nations that he plans to make the world body great again, echoing President Donald Trump's message of revamping America. Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Walz is facing lawmakers for the first time since he was ousted as national security adviser. This. Yeah.
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A
Feels like a decade ago.
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C
I know.
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A
It really does happen, right?
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C
Oh, God. Because there's been so much shit day after day. This is when it was mistakenly, quote, unquote, added a journalist to a private signal chat used to discuss sensitive, one might say very sensitive military plans. But it took more than an hour into the hearing for a lawmaker to bring it up. The hearing is providing senators with the first opportunity to grill him over revelations in March that he added the Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain on an unclassified messaging app that was used to discuss plans for striking on Houthi militants in Yemen, otherwise known as classified material. At the time, Walz took responsibility even as criticism mounted against Defense Secretary Pete Kegseth, who shared the sensitive plans in the chat that included several other high level national security officials. Now Hegseth shared the same information in another signal chat that included his wife, his family members. But Trump had made clear Kegseth had his support. Now Walz was removed as National Security Advisor in May. He replaced, by the way, by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and nominated now for the UN role first. Trump's first nominee, Rapidly Stefanik, had a confirmation hearing in January and was expected to be confirmed, but Trump abruptly withdrew her nomination because they were gonna lose the fucking seat in New York. Her nomination in March, citing risks to the GOP's historically slim House majority. Walls, whose Florida House seat was filled during a special election earlier this year, just barely has spent the last few months on the White House payroll, despite being removed as National Security Advisor. The latest list of White House salaries, current as of July 1st, includes Walls earning an annual salary of $195,200. Doing jack shit.
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A
Yep, yep. They tried to ask him about it and he's like, I just. Hey, I just work. I work. I just work, whatever. Anyway, next up from the Daily Beast, get this. This so fucking embarrassing. President Trump has revealed that the champions of the Club World cup will not be getting the original trophy because he's keeping it. English club Chelsea easily dispatched France's Paris Saint Germain in the final of the tournament in New Jersey's MetLife Stadium on Sunday, with Trump joining the players for the trophy lift on stage. Much to their confusion. Now, it has since been revealed that the intricate prize hoisted aloft by London's club captain, Rhys James, was a replica because the president of football governing body FIFA has let Trump use the original as an ornament in the Oval Office. The trophy, crafted in collaboration with Tiffany and company, features a central disc with three rotating outer rings. It has a 24 karat gold plated finish and is thought to have cost around $230,000 to make. If FIFA lets Trump keep the Orbital Award for good, it's likely to end up at the National Archives. Quote, FIFA said, could you hold this trophy for a little while so we put it in the Oval Office. And then I said, when are you going to pick up your trophy? And FIFA president said, we're never picking it up. You can have it forever in the Oval Office. That's what Trump said in a mid game chat with the broadcaster.
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C
Like that shit's gonna be switched out for that generic one in a heartbeat. I tell you what, that's going to disappear. It's just going to disappear. They're going to have a replica made. Trump's going to be like, I know what happened to it. The video of them getting him off the stage because he would not fucking move when they were trying to celebrate is a beautiful thing to watch, by the way.
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A
Yeah, it is. They push him, push him, push him. It's just embarrassing though.
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C
It really is.
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A
Trump then revealed to reporter Emily Austin that the victor, Chelsea, actually received a replica of the original trophy for winning the tournament. So Chelsea has the replica, Trump has the real one. Palmer, who scored two goals and was named the tournament's best player, said after the game he was confused by Trump's continued presence on the platform. I knew he was going to be there, but I didn't know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy. So I was a bit confused. Yeah, that's what he said. Post game, Chelsea's captain also explained that Trump had ditched the protocol to stay in the spotlight. They told me he was going to present the trophy and then exit and I thought that he was going to exit the stage, but he just wanted to stay. That's what James added, according to PA Media. Just fucking embarrassing.
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C
Very much so. This One is from HuffPost. The Black Rebel motorcycle club issued a blistering condemnation of the Kristi Noem led Department of Homeland Security, alleging the unauthorized use of its recording of, and I quote, God's going to cut you down. In a government produced video, the rock band told DHS to go fuck yourselves. The track, which is a folk gospel song popularized by Johnny Cash. It was featured in what the San Francisco rock band slammed as a propaganda video. In a scathing public statement directed at dhs, the band wrote on social media and I quote, it has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland Security is improperly using our recording of God's going to cut you down. In the latest propaganda video. It's obvious that you don't respect copyright law and artist rights any more than you respect habeas corpus and due process rights, not to mention the separation of church and state per the US Constitution. Beautiful. The group continued. For the record, we hereby order@dhs.gov to cease and assist the use of our recording and demand that you immediately pull down the video and it witheringly concluded, oh, and go fuck yourself.
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A
I love it. They're like, you don't know. Apparently you treat do copyright law like you treat habeas corpus and due process.
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C
You just shit all over it. Yep.
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A
Fuck. So great. Thanks. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Next up. And this is kind of what we were laughing at earlier. This is from NBC. Jim Comer, Jamie James Comer, Republican from Kentucky, who's been leading the probe into Joe Biden's cognitive state during his presidency, with Republicans alleging that Biden's occasional use of an auto pen to sign documents, which is a practice all presidents use, demonstrates that he wasn't fully in control or aware of what his administration was doing. But documents show that some of the letters and subpoenas that Comer has sent out in connection to his investigation have been signed using an auto pen not written by the congressman himself. I can't. Yeah.
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C
I do have some better news for you all. This is from the Times. A federal appeals court on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration's move to terminate deportation protections for thousands of Afghans living in the United States. In a brief, unsigned order, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia stated the ending of a program known as Temporary Protected Status for afghan migrants until July 21 and gave the administration and an advocacy group suing the government a few extra days to submit arguments in the case. The Department of Homeland Security has announced in April that it intended to revoke the protections for nationals from Afghanistan and Cameroon. Many of the Afghans vulnerable to deportation without those protections were allowed into the United states after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Remember why that happened? Because Trump made it happen when he walked out the fucking door and Biden had to take responsibility for it. Now, back under the Taliban, the country reasserted sharp limits on civil rights, particularly those of women, and had suffered severe famine and drought. The court's administrative stay was a setback for the Trump administration's broad effort to revoke protections for migrants fleeing some of the world's most unstable and dangerous places. Rollbacks aimed at fulfilling a Trump campaign pledge to end temporary protected status. Now, hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who had been authorized to remain in the country through that program, including Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, they may also face deportation.
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A
All right, so a temporary reprieve for our Afghan friends. Thank you for that story. That is a little bit of a better news story. And we're going to get to all the good news stories submitted by our listeners, but not before I speak to Ben Foltz about the importance of the arts, his resignation from the Kennedy center, and what he's been working on. So everybody stick around for that interview. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by my good friend, musician, and former artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, Mr. Ben Folds. Hey, Ben.
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B
Hey, how's it going? Allison, good morning.
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A
It's going as well as can be expected, I think. How's everything for you? I know you're on tour. You're very busy, so I appreciate you taking some time to talk to me.
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B
Yeah, you know, just busy, which is pretty boring ass thing to say. And, like, that's. Everyone's busy. I've tried to stop saying that, but I keep saying it because I'm overwhelmed all the time.
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A
You know, I've tried to stop asking people how their day is. You know, the last time we talked. I think it's kismet here that we're talking again today, because Superman is out and it's killing it around the world. And of course, the MAGA heads think that it's woke. And the last time we talked, we talked about Superman because he's been woke for a while. We talked about the Clan of the Fiery Cross and Superman smashes the clan. How back in 1945 or 46, by infiltrating the Klan and showing how weird they were, Superman was able to basically end all recruitment for the KKK in the Northern states, which was a huge win.
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B
Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because they were coming home and the Klansmen were coming home after taking their sheets off and their kids were using all their secret handshakes and all their little K words and stuff.
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C
Yeah.
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B
That's so smart. It was humiliating for them.
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A
It was. And I wish they would have kind of let Tim Walls continue, you know, on that. I'm not sure what happened there, but here we are, one of Many reasons we might possibly be where we're at. Talk about you and I speak offline a little bit. And we talked back a few months ago when you ended up resigning from the Kennedy Center. Can you talk about what happened there, why that happened?
- [25:53]
B
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, you're probably like me a little bit in that, you know, we're both sort of rock and rollers, but we've spent our time inside sort of the, you know, under the hood of government things, you know, like public sector things. And I guess when I was younger, I didn't think anything of that stuff. It seemed like that's the man. But over the last 20 years of my career, I've spent a lot of time doing things like advocating for the National Endowment for the Arts, spending time with the Americans for the Arts, my time at the Kennedy Center. I find that it's hard to explain to the uninitiated very simply what went on. But I'll try to make it sort of as simple as possible in that in a, quote, free country, in a democracy, the head of the government, the president, the king, whatever, is not supposed to delve and put their little hand on the scale of the arts. You know, we fund the arts to a degree and it's such a tiny, tiny degree, it's just almost not worth talking about. We don't do that very much. But for what we do, you know, it gives the government a challenge to create a firewall between there. So you don't have the President of the United States weighing in on what should be programmed, how people should act, anything when it comes to the arson, because that's self expression. That's that sacred freedom of speech that the right loved to talk about for so long. You're infringing on that. He crossed that line just immediately upon coming into office and basically made the Kennedy center an arm of his partisan political thing. And at that point I could not be upon in that I couldn't be a party to that. And I probably couldn't have even done my job anyway because as a curator down there, what if I put on something that offended the guy? Then suddenly it's like, am I going to get fired? Or is the person that I brought in going to get like, I hate Sara Bareilles or something, like what's coming next? So it was a dead end road. So that's what happened is no president's ever done that. No president's ever wanted to do that. They're supposed to be dealing with big stuff, not, not down there. Screwing with our arts.
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A
Yeah. And when you say you and I are kind of under the hood of rock and rollers, but also under the hood of politics, I mean, art and politics are kind of inextricably linked, whether they're working with each other or diametrically opposed to each other.
- [28:47]
B
But then there's that line where politics becomes. There's the politics of everyday life. And then there's also kind of wonky policy weed stuff, which you can be political and not really necessarily have to know about how all the think tanks apply their appropriations and stuff. That's something that some of us kind of got into. And it's good to know. But, yeah, yeah. Music is political. Life is political.
- [29:14]
A
Art is resistance, which I think I've heard you do a couple of interviews where you've talked about how what Donald Trump is doing, what he did to the Kennedy center is proof of how important art is to a resistance movement. And, you know, I've been going to your shows for a really long time, and whether, you know, you're solo or with a band or sometimes I see you with a. With an orchestra, you're always pitching for funding the arts. You're always like, we have to fund the arts. We've never been at a point, I think, in this country where the arts have been funded enough or properly. When I worked in the government at the Department of Veterans affairs, we never looked around and said, boy, we sure are overstaffed. We could use less funding. And so it's always been a struggle. It's always been this Sisyphean, like, trying to get the arts funded properly. And now it's like, almost gone. And some really incredible institutions are on the chopping block. Pbs, Sesame Street. You and I talked about tiny desk going away. And at my age, that's how I get new music, Ben, up to. Otherwise, I'd just be listening to the Cure all day. So, you know, I need to. That's how I reach out and branch out and hear new artists.
- [30:26]
B
And conversely, or on the other side of this is this is how up and coming artists get out there and make a living in the private sector. Right. You know, this is a good capitalistic shit here. This is like they go out, have a great platform for not a lot of money, tax money. And as a result, we're stimulating the arts. And the other thing is that a misunderstood thing is the extent to which we fund the arts and kind of how we got there. Because whether you and I like it or not, being probably more on the left side of things the right has had traditionally a really big effect on the hybrid way that we. That we support our arts. If it was up to us, probably all be funded by the government. If it was up to them, it'd all be let the market speak bullshit. But really where we've landed in the middle. I hate to say the bipartisan thing was really working. You know, it's like if you go to Europe and see how their arts are funded, mostly Australia is the same way, way more weighted towards the government. I actually think our way may have arrived at a better place. I'm okay with the capitalistic injection in here, and I've done a lot of arts advocacy with people like Mike Huckabee and shit. I mean, it's like I've done that alongside. We were bipartisan, not lefty organized stuff. We were bipartisan at the moment that Trump invaded and did a coup on the Kennedy Center.
- [32:06]
A
Yeah, previously they would. They would fund the arts. They would try to limit the amount of money that they used to fund the arts. But now it's, you know, they would just want zero. They want it all in their pockets. They want to privatize everything. And they. And like you said, it's such a small amount. Yeah. Compared to some of the other things they're finding. They're giving ICE $170 billion or something like that. And compared to arts funding, that's.
- [32:30]
B
No, no, no, there's not. I mean, someone once told me, and we kind of fact checked it that year, and it balanced out roughly. If you're just paying for the arts year round evenly, like it's just going out of money funnels going out. 20 minutes pays for all our arts federally. And then the rest of the year, every single day ticks out, spending the same amount of money never comes back to the arts. 20 minutes on the year. That's what we pay in arts. It's nothing. It's just enough to keep the doors open in these places and more. The model that we've created in the United States to survive has been that the government finds the place to invest that $1, and then the private sector has to come up with the other seven, and they have to get $8 back for every dollar that goes into as an investment to even justify it. So we can't even call it spending. It's just a really great investment. And it's so stupid and so uncapitalistic and so anti business to take away that little pillar that is keeping it up. Because it's only what's 5% of something like NPR's funding might come from the government, maybe, I don't know. But that 5% is super important because that's what enables the rest of it to pile on.
- [33:47]
A
Yeah, well, you think if you make the money argument to them that maybe they'd listen, but they don't care about that anymore. The money argument isn't the point. It's the cruelty. It's taking away people's ability to speak out. It's taking away people's power. Yeah, it's taking away people's ability. Ability to cope with what's going on through the arts. Yeah, I mean, that's what causes a lot of people to create art in, in the first place. And so, you know, if they cared about the money, they wouldn't be having a mass deportation thing. We get $100 billion a year in tax revenue from, from our wonderful migrant neighbors. So it's not about the money, right?
- [34:22]
B
No. You know, I, I remember a chilling trip I took to Indonesia was actually a great trip. I had a great show in Jakarta, just kind of went in there. A bunch of kids were interested in my showing up and they created their own promotion company and they brought me into a place called Pizza Iberia and I played a show in Jakarta. And what I realized as soon as I got to the city limits of Jakarta was that that was going to be the Republicans wet dream one day. The idea that everyone would be living in shanty tents, that everyone would be on four lanes of, of highway, kind of treating it like it's 9, 10, 11, 12, and that you would have to like go through bomb sniffers in order to go to a golden mall. That was what they want, you know, And I didn't realize it fully and viscerally until I went there. And that sort of seems to be the idea here, isn't it? It's like, you know, the same amount of money, it's just all so at the top of things and everyone else is so at the bottom. And, and the only way you can communicate there at the bottom is through art and music. And that is the way that you resist and communicate ideas. Far better to have that shut down, isn't it?
- [35:42]
A
Yeah. So what do we do, like a lot with a lot of the resistance that we talk about on this show? It's getting local, it's getting niche. We're doing it in our communities. Is that what we do? Support the arts in our communities where we are and hope that trickles up until we can maybe find a way out of this mess that we're in, and also to make art where we can.
- [36:05]
B
I think, yeah, both of those things completely. I mean, one I think is you and I come from the shut up and sing generation. You know, like, too many artists of our generation decided they didn't want to lose, or we didn't want to lose half of our audience. And so we were a little more polite than we probably should have been. And I think the problem with that has been that unless you're fully expressive in art, it's not right. It's not legit. You have to take a stand, even a stand for who you are. It doesn't even have to be political. So I think the first step for everyone, especially the younger generation, is to learn from the older generation, like, actually take a stand, like, on everything emotionally, like, not fake vulnerability and not. Not like stuff that sells. Be absolutely expressive, because not being expressive, you lose the freedom to be expressive. And so I think that's at the root of it. And I think the second thing that you just said, absolutely, we have to make things work on a local level. Now, The Republicans knew 30 years ago that all politics was local, and that is where they started. And I think it's a stretch for some people when you say art is resistance, because I think it sounds like a bumper sticker, and I feel that that's true. But there is proof in that. You can find the proof for it. Expression, freedom of expression is not shutting up, is the resistance, and art is what does it. And. And as I said, they've been telling us for years it's not important. You don't need to support the arts. We don't need to put money into that. Put money into stuff that puts food on the table. Then Trump comes in and it's like three, four weeks, and he's taken over the Kennedy Center. Well, why was that so important?
- [38:03]
A
Yeah, I think that illustrates the point, my friend. It's always wonderful to talk to you. I know you're on tour now, everybody, if you get a chance. If Ben comes to your town, you need to go see a Ben Fuld show, if you haven't yet. I appreciate your time today.
- [38:16]
B
Oh, good to talk to you. And I would also say, as much as I'm talking about my exit from the Kennedy center, my good friends in the National Symphony Orchestra are rather trapped inside the building. Anything you can do to support your National Symphony Orchestra or orchestras in general, it's tough because they're in the bank now with the held hostage, but they do Play wolf trap. They do play other places and they make albums. I just made one with them. So just throw a bone to the NSO while they're suffocating in that building.
- [38:55]
A
Appreciate it, my friend. I will talk to you soon. I hope you take care. And again, everybody, if you have a chance to support the arts or create art, do it. Take the time. It's. It's important. Thanks, Ben.
- [39:07]
B
Thanks for what you do, Allison. See you.
- [39:09]
A
Everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news? Everyone.
- [39:19]
B
Then, good news, everyone.
- [39:26]
C
Good news.
- [39:27]
A
And if you have any good news corrections, especially pronunciation corrections, you can send them to us. If you have a shout out you want to give to yourself or a loved one or a family member friend, some great activism that's happening in your community, maybe just you want to shout out your community in general. We would love to hear about that. Also, government programs that have helped you or a loved one. We would love to hear shout outs about those, whether it's federal, like Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care act, snap, wic, or it could be local, you know, could be section 8, could be something provided by the county. There's a lot of great county veterans organizations. If you've gotten great VA healthcare, we'd love to hear about that. Student debt relief, whatever it is. Even if something just nice happened, you had a great encounter with a stranger at the supermarket. Anything small, we need to microdose the hope, so send it into us. And to get your stuff right on the air, you just have to pay your POD pet tariff, which means attach a photo of your pet. We're happy to try to guess whatever breeds are in your shelter pup, but we're terrible at it. But it's still fun to guess. Yes, it is. I think we've got it right twice in our whole lives. If you don't have a pet, you can send an adoptable pet in your area. We'll see if we can find a shelter pet home. If you don't have that, just really just grab a photo of an animal off the Internet. Any photo really off the Internet works. If you have family photos that you want to share, Awkward family photos, baby pictures, holiday pictures, pictures of you at rallies, maybe some of your favorite protest signs that you've seen out there. Maybe you've got a fun meme that made you laugh and you would like us to all laugh along with you. Send it to us dailybeanspod.com click on contact and Our first good news submission today also doubles as our good trouble.
- [41:06]
B
Hey, we want to get into trouble. Yes.
- [41:09]
A
So let's kick this off. It's from Katie Pronoun. She and her thank you for all you do to keep us safe and sane. One of this administration's bass ackwards executive orders is called Defending Women from Gender Ideology, Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, which is pretty anti trans. Yesterday, OPM issued guidance to agencies and gave them nine things to do to implement this order, including emailing everyone at the agency that they intend to implement the eo, turning off any systems that prompt a pronoun and quote, canceled any employee trainings that incalculated or promoted gender ideology or have in the past. Now, these are all needlessly wasteful and hurtful things that make the workforce weaker, not stronger. But you already knew that. Luckily for the Leguminati, the last item instructs agencies to report to OPM on these steps via an email@defendingwomenopm.gov no later than August 11th. It would be a shame if they were flooded with emails from folks at fake agencies talking about their difficulties in implementing the executive order. Or flooded with emails about historical trans folks. Or really anything. Obviously, this administration has a very thin skin and a lot of power, so I'd urge everyone to take steps to keep themselves super safe. Right. So I would recommend setting up a ProtonMail account. It's pretty anonymous there for podpet tax. Oh, here are photos of my 7 month puppy I met on the train. A 7 month old puppy I met on the train after working late. He was so friendly and cute. I spent the ride on the ground playing with him. Ended up making a tug toy out of an extra pair of socks I had with me since he clearly wanted to play. I hope these pics brighten your day.
- [42:53]
C
Oh, look at that tattoo. What beautiful artwork.
- [42:58]
A
Amazing.
- [42:59]
C
Yep.
- [43:00]
A
Thanks, Katie.
- [43:01]
C
Thank you so much. This is from Jenny. No pronouns given. Good morning beans. Jenny here from rural Missouri. I just wanted to share the story about a local nonprofit established by a group of activists after finding out our county jail was being used to hold ICE detainees. They're providing care packages and financial support that detainees can purchase commissary goods and importantly, make phone calls to family and attorneys. I think it would be great to support this organization or replicate it near every detention center. I'm sharing a photo of an interesting bird with a mustache seen at the Lincoln Park Zoo on our recent visit to Chicago. My God. And the organization is called Abideinlove if you want to go support that. And this bird with its little handlebar mustache is fucking hilarious. By the way. There's going to be a link to the story in this show notes from NPR for the show. So we'll make sure that you have that.
- [43:58]
A
Okay. The bird is very distinguished with the mustache.
- [44:00]
C
It really is.
- [44:01]
A
But what a great idea if you are living near a detention facility or you want to organize a group to go and make care packages for folks for migrants who are being detained by ICE at and they're using our county and state and city detention facilities.
- [44:20]
C
Yep.
- [44:21]
A
What a great thing to do. Thanks, Jenny for that idea. And again, that's abideinlove.org abide in love. It sounds like Abide in love. Like who I love. I love Joe Biden. Next up, AP pronouns he and him Hi AG and dg I'm writing to report some good times. My partner and I spent this past weekend at the McKinney Farmers Market in North Texas. It was great to see so much of the community out and about, socializing and getting to see a lot of very cute pups. I'd also love a shout out to my partner. She's currently working two jobs, one of which is as a medical sonographer at an ob GYN clinic. She cares so deeply about her patients and gives so much to her work and I tell her constantly how proud I am of her for it. My bot Pet Tariff I'm submitting some pictures of our cat, Marty. We only adopted him a couple months ago, but we already love this little guy and all his antics. Apa did he come with the name Marty or did you name him Marty? Oh my God, he's cool.
- [45:15]
C
Yeah.
- [45:16]
A
Look at that goofy guy.
- [45:17]
C
Cute.
- [45:19]
A
Amazing. Thank you and thank you for the shout out to your wonderful, amazing spouse.
- [45:23]
C
Yes, this is from Julie. No pronouns given. Thank you both so very much for all you do. You are amazing and inspirational. Please know how all your hard work is helping so many of us stay sane and focused. When I was between cats, I read the wonderful Senator Mazie Hirono's memoirs, Heart of An Immigrant Daughter Story. I highly recommend. I decided if a female cat came into my life, she would be Maisie. My Maisie, like her namesake, had a voice that commanded attention. I'm grateful Senator Hirono continues her good work. My Maisie has moved on to her eternal reward. Yalls good news makes my every morning more hopeful. Aw.
- [46:01]
A
Eternal reward. That makes it sound awesome, right? I know I'll call it that from now on. Except for certain other people. Yeah, seriously, look at how beautiful. Oh amazing. What a great name and what a great namesake. Sandra Hirona is a badass. Thank you so much for that submission. Next up from Tricia. Hello AG and dg. You really do help keep things sane. I think we've heard the word sane. Like seriously so far I became a member around election time. I've been listening for a few years and sometimes it is hard to listen to the good news because a lot of the time I'm driving and crying. Not a good combo but I love all the stories. I work at a community college in Oregon and I remember every day why I'm here to help students. I am the Admin secretary but in reality I do operations and finance so I am in the process of doing reclassification for my job. It is about my job description and title matching what I do. Due to the orange ass hat, we couldn't get all of our funding for this year and we have had two different layoffs. We have an amazing admin assistant in our DEI department that may lose her job as well, so working to keep her. We share a birthday. I think I'm about 25 years older though I was recently in South Korea. Our college choir went to sing. Oh wow. With a few choirs that are all world renowned. I learned from our tour guide the new President is not that much different from Trump. They actually like Trump. I got to see a very different culture and even went to the DMZ to look over the fence at North Korea. It was a little overwhelming. I'm sharing a few photos from my trip as my tariff. I found something that I will be sending to you via snail mail but wanted to show you the picture. It's a crochet taco. There is a positive saying on it for both you, not the for you. For both of you not the orange blob and I couldn't resist purchasing it. I thought it would bring a good laugh. I'm also sharing a pic of the shit stained tower as well. We were traveling in a bus. I couldn't get to flipping the bird photo quick enough. I hate that everywhere we go that name is there. My last photo is a pic that was on bathroom stalls. It was an easy guess as to who the stall was for. Loved the cane. Appreciate all you do and love that you help us connect with other like minded passionate people. I had not gone to any protests or did anything online because I was going out of the country and I didn't want to hassle trying to come back. But now I'm looking forward to doing some good. Trouble. Okay. Love that. The cane.
- [48:25]
C
Oh, my God. So cute.
- [48:27]
A
It's okay to fall apart sometimes. Tacos fall apart and we still love them.
- [48:31]
C
True.
- [48:32]
A
And then there we go. The bird.
- [48:36]
C
The bird. Okay. This is from Deneen C. Pronoun. She and her. My mom died in 2022. This is Us bird watching at the Trump building in Chicago in 2019. She leaves a legacy of three very liberal children. And this photo is magic.
- [48:53]
A
Wonderful.
- [48:54]
C
So, so good.
- [48:56]
A
Thanks. Deneen, I'm so sorry for your loss.
- [48:58]
B
Yeah.
- [48:59]
A
All right. Do you want to take the next one? Sure.
- [49:02]
C
This one's some Korean pronoun. She and her. Good day to the fabulous Dr. Gill and the incomparable Ms. Goldberg. After listening to the story on the Stonewall website's edits today, I had to engage in a little bit trouble using my very own personal email. I sent a contact through the website with this message, and I quote. It has come to my attention that your website has erased references to bi and trans members of the lgbtq, each group of which is pivotal in the Stonewall history. As a CIS straight female American citizen, I am appalled. Why has this been done? This is a sad perversion of American history. Please explain. I request a response via email. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I could not resist using DJT's latest affection about attention.
- [49:45]
A
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
- [49:46]
C
Thank you for your attention to this matter. For Pot Pet tariff, I'm sharing a photo of my son's dog, who sadly passed from cancer in 2018. After I moved from increasingly red Missouri to a red dot in a blue state, the California Delta, I had to foster her with dear friends because she was too ill to make the journey. My son and I made the difficult decision to send her over the rainbow bridge just a few months later. We still miss her. The photo was taken in 2015 and shows my son with little girl, the greatest rescue dog ever. Keep up the great work. I listen every day and could not survive without you.
- [50:19]
A
Look at that sweet baby. Is that a little beagle baby?
- [50:22]
C
Oh, my God. It's cute.
- [50:24]
A
Adorable. Whatever that dog is, is adorable. Thank you so much, Corrine. Thanks for that. And thanks to everybody for your good News. Thanks to Mr. Ben Folds for coming on and speaking to us. And, I mean, I just. I appreciate you all so much like this podcast. This community really means a lot to me. So thank you very much for being here. Dana, do you have any final thoughts today?
- [50:47]
C
Not today. All right.
- [50:49]
A
Well, we'll be back in your ears tomorrow. Until then, please, everyone, 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.
- [50:57]
C
I've been dg.
- [50:59]
A
And them's the beans.
- [51:00]
B
Refried beans.
- [51:00]
A
I like refried beans.