Transcript
Alison Gill (0:00)
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.
John Fugelsang (0:23)
Refried beans.
Alison Gill (0:23)
I like refried beans.
John Fugelsang (0:24)
That's why I want to try fried.
Alison Gill (0:25)
Beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time with swearing. Jelly beans.
John Fugelsang (0:36)
Jelly beans. Jelly beans. Jelly beans.
Alison Gill (0:45)
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Friday, May 31, 2024. Today, Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 felony counts in the election interference trial. John Roberts rejects Senators Whitehouse and Durbin's request for a meeting over the Alito flags. A former Apprentice producer says Trump used the N word during production and it's on tape. The New Republic has gotten its hands on an Erik Prince group chat. A Republican has blocked the confirmation of the first Native American federal judge in Montana. Molly Cook has held onto her Houston based Texas Senate seat. The MLB has integrated the Negro League statistics into the record book. And Biden secretly gave permission to Ukraine to strike Inside Russia. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everyone. Happy Felony Friday. It is the best Friday ever. Guilty on all 34 counts. I am beside myself. I don't think it has sunk in yet. The news just came down. The jury handed down the verdict in the Manhattan D criminal trial against the former president for election interference in 2016. Sentencing is July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention. As you know, July 11 I will be live with Dana Goldberg and I think Andy McCabe in Seattle at the Triple Door Theater. And July 10th will be in Portland. And then of course we have a run later, a couple weeks later in St. Louis, Nashville and where else else? Oh, gosh, St. Louis, Nashville and oh, Milwaukee, where we can celebrate, hopefully the overturning of the ballot box issue by one judge, Janet Protosiewicz. So I'm looking forward so much to seeing everybody out on the road this Sunday. I'll be in Chicago with Renato Mariotti. So I just get tickets now. They're going to sell out. Alisongill.com Also, more shameless self promotion. Please follow me on Substack. I have just written a huge thank you to all of you. Muller she wrote.substack.com please subscribe. It's free to subscribe. Oh, you guys, I'm. I'm beside myself. I, I am speechless. I am literally speechless. I wish Dana were here Today she is traveling. She's about to go raise a shitload of money for Lambda Legal doing her amazing good work. And just thank you to everyone who has stuck with me or who is new and is continuing to listen to the daily beans. It's been a long time coming. The wheels of justice turn slow, but they grind fine, et cetera. I am very, very, very happy today and it's okay to be happy. I know some people are saying it's a dark day. I don't think so. I think that the rule of law has prevailed. No, no one is above it, not even a former president. Also, it's Friday, which means it's Fuglesang Friday. Of course. I recorded the interview with John Fugelsang earlier before the verdict came out. But we're going to have that interview later in the show. So I'm looking forward to that. Also, there's a really good op ed out today from a former producer of the Apprentice who is now out from under his non disclosure agreement and is telling us that Trump absolutely used racial epithets, including the N word, and it is on tape. We do not have the tape and we will not get the tape. We have long known this from folks who have worked with Trump for a long time, like Noel Castler comes to mind and many others. Mary Trump, we're not going to get those tapes, probably because Burnett is making it impossible if they're not already destroyed. You can read the piece by Bill Pruitt at Slate and John Fugelsang and I will also discuss that. But holy shit, you guys. Guilty. 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. So what it seems to me happened, and we'll talk about this on the next cleanup on aisle 45 is the jury basically had the verdict yesterday. They wanted to get that last bit of testimony they wanted to see, get the jury instructions again to confirm, just like I said on Twitter last night and today, they deliberated, they finished and they filled out their form. Took them 30 minutes, 35 minutes to fill out the form. Everybody came in and they announced the verdict. So shout out to Jaron number two, what's up? All right, we have other news to get to today. I get. I mean, we should cover it. I could talk about this all day. And we will. On the next cleanup on aisle 45 with Pete Strzok. My phone's been blowing up. My mom called me. It's just been an incredible day. But again, we do have other news to get to. So let's hit the hot notes, hot Notes. All right, first up, from Lawrence Hurley at NBC. Chief justice, and I'm putting justice in quotes. John Roberts on Thursday declined to meet with Democratic senators to discuss Supreme Court ethics issues in the wake of reports that controversial flags were flown. Seditious flags were flown at Justice. Again, justice in quotes. Sam Alito's houses, plural. In a letter to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Roberts said he, quote, must respectfully decline your request for a meeting, citing concerns about maintaining judicial independence. That sounds to me like maintaining your fucking supremacy and I don't want to hear it now. Robert's refusal to meet with the senators is not a surprise as last year he declined to attend a hearing on the ethics issues for similar reasons. Those were the Thomas issues with all of the reporting from ProPublica. He noted in the latest letter that meeting with representatives of one party who have expressed an interest in matters pending before the court is another reason that such a meeting would be inadvisable. White House said in a series of posts on Twitter that it was frustrating that Roberts failed to address that the meeting was sought in the Chief Justice's role as chair of the U.S. judicial Conference. That's the administrative and policy making body of the judiciary, not in his capacity as a member of the court. So nobody is having any oversight over the Supreme Court. Quote, all this means is that the work must continue until we have a Supreme Court that applies to itself. Basic tenets of rule of law, honest fact finding and neutral decision making. That's what White House said. Great. You know what? You know what you've got? You know what you have in your fucking pocket? The subpoena power. Last week, two senators asked Roberts to address what they called the Supreme Court's ethics crisis following the New York Times report that flags flown at the Capitol Building by some supporters of Donald Trump on January 6 were also displayed at Sam Alito's homes. In their letter, the senators asked to meet with Roberts as soon as possible and renewed their call for the SCOTUS to adopt an enforceable code of conduct for justices. That was before Alito himself sent letters to the Capitol this week declining to step aside and recuse himself from cases involving Trump or January 6th. Alito said the high standard for recusal was not met. That's why it's a low standard. And it was met, easily met. He noted that the flags were flown by his wife and that he had no involvement in the decisions. He apparently asked her to take him down and she wouldn't. And I guess he was incapable of doing so. As first reported by the Times, an upside down US Flag was spotted at an Alito home in Virginia, while a flag associated with conservative Christians Christo Fascists was seen at the family vacation home in New Jersey. Alito said in his letters to lawmakers that a, quote, reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that no recusal was required. Ultimate gaslighting that guy. The court subsequently adopted a new ethics code in November, which has itself attracted criticism in large part because it's toothless. Justices themselves get the final word on how to apply it. And if the court, the guy sitting over the Judicial Conference, which is who provides oversight aside from Congress, won't even meet with you to talk about it, it's I just feel completely helpless. So hopefully they'll use their subpoena power here. Why not? I mean, what are you afraid of? That Republicans will get the majority and start subpoenaing Supreme Court Justice? They're going to do that anyway. Holding them to some sort of honor code has not worked. So how about we stop? Next up from alternate quote Off Leash, unquote is not only the name of a podcast started by Eric Prince, former CEO of Blackwater, now part of the security firm Constellus holdings, and brother of the ex Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, it's also the name of a private far right group chat that Erik Prince hosts via the Internet messaging program WhatsApp. The New Republic's Ken Silverstein describes the group chat in an article published on May 30, noting that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, GOP activist organizer Kimberly Guilfoyle That's Don Trump Jr. S fiance Mike Flynn, former embattled national security advisor for the Trump administration, and House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee, are among the MAGA cranks who have been invited to participate in this group chat. Collectively, Silverstein explains, I don't know if it's Silverstein or Silverstein. Off Leash provides an informal virtual gathering place for current and former political officials, national security operatives, activists, journalists, soldiers of fortune, weapons brokers, black bag operators, grifters, convicted criminals and other elements in the US and global far right. Prominent figures in the Off Leash crew are well known for their paleo conservative political views, but the private opinions expressed in the group chat are even more extreme and jarring than we normally see voiced publicly, unquote. According to Silverstein, his investigation of off leash conversations via WhatsApp showed that some of the participants have, quote, sharply discussed the desirability of clamping down on democracy to deal with their enemies at home and regime change, bombings, assassinations and covert action to take care of those abroad. Silverstein reports, quote, the group's overall bloodlust periodically proved to be too much for a few more judicious individual members who in almost any other setting would be considered ultra conservatives but in the context of off leash sound like hippie peaceniks. Many other off leash participants have also stated they don't view the group chat as merely a forum to exchange ideas, but want it to become a vehicle to put their theories into action. Silverstein observes that it's not uncommon for off leash participants to advocate for violence. On the roster of off leash participants, there was one, a poster with the handle of S whom it took me weeks to identify who stood out as particularly dark. There were some in the group who expressed more unhinged views and others who more casually called for violence against their enemies. What made s distinctive was his dry, bloodless manner and businesslike espousal of a disciplined worldview that was unmistakably fascist. So you can read this full story. It's pretty long, but it's in the New Republic and it's by Silverstein, so check it out. Next up from the Associated Press. A Republican lawmaker in Montana has blocked a Biden administration judicial nominee who would have been the state's first Native American federal district court judge. Attorney Dana Jackson has been nominated last month by President Joe Biden. The post requires Senate confirmation and Senator Steve Daines blocked Jackson from consideration because the administration never sought his consent prior to her nomination. That's from Rachel Dunkey, a spokesperson for the lawmaker. Quote, senator Daines believes confirming federal judges with lifetime tenure is among the most important decisions he will make and that these individuals must be trusted to not legislate from the bench. Oh, oh really? A Republican is telling me that? Fantastic. A White House spokesperson refuted Dunkey's assertion and said members of Daines team had interviewed Jackson last year but that the senator refused to meet with her. Hmm. This claimed lack of consultation seems to be little more than pretext. And it's shameful that Senator Daines is depriving Montana of the talents of a principled, fair and impartial jurist like Dana Jackson. That's deputy press secretary Andrew Bates. Daines opposition was earlier reported by Bloomberg Law. The overwhelming majority of federal judges are white men. According to the American Bar association, out of more than 1,400 federal judges as of last year, only four were Native American and two others were identified partially Native. That's according to the association. That's less than 1% of federal judges, whereas Native Americans make up almost 3% of the U.S. population. Jackson didn't immediately respond to a voice message seeking comment. She previously served as an attorney in the U.S. department of the Interior and as chief legal counsel for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Her nomination was supported BY Montana's senior U.S. senator, Democrat John Tester, and representatives of the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund. Tester said Jackson was well qualified. Next up from Renzo Downey at the Texas Trib. State Senator Molly Cook appears to have narrowly defeated state Rep. Jarvis Johnson for The Senate District 15 primary runoff for the second time this month, setting the stage for her to hold on to Houston Mayor John Whitmire's longtime seat in the upper chamber. Cook led Johnson by 74 votes with all precincts reporting. That's according to unofficial results, well within the margin for a recount. Also a good lesson that every vote counts. The total also does not count late arriving mail in ballots now. Cook's victory marked the second time she's defeated Johnson this month. Cook beat Johnson 57 to 43 on May 4 in a special election triggered when Whitmire resigned to step into the mayor's office at the start of the year. She was sworn in on May 16 to serve out the term. And through the you know, that's through the end of the year and now Cook will appear on the November ballot for a chance to win a full term representing a diverse cut of Harris County. Cook declared victory Wednesday afternoon in a statement that called back to her road to the Senate. She first ran for the seat in 2022 when she attempted a primary challenge against Whitmire. Quote, winning a Texas Senate seat is a big deal and it tastes extra sweet because it's born of sheer grit, determination and teamwork. That's what she said. We have organized for years, stayed true to our values and built momentum that extends beyond this election. Now, Cook is the first person other than Whitmire to hold the seat since 1983. She's an emergency room nurse and a community organizer who will be the first openly LGBTQ member to serve in the Texas Senate. On the campaign trail, Cook and Johnson expressed a few ideological differences, with each promoting progressive platforms from supporting abortion access and LGBTQ rights to boosting public school funding. However, the two differed on how they would approach serving the minority party. Republicans currently hold 19 of 31 seats in the Senate, enough to control the chamber. And from Eric Bonko et al at Politico, the Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia solely near the area of Kharkiv using US Provided weapons. That's according to two US officials and two other people familiar with the move. There's a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second largest city. Quote, the president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them. That's a US Official adding that the policy of allowing long range strikes inside Russia has not changed. Ukraine asked the US to make this policy change only after Russia's offensive in Kharkiv began this month. Now all the people were granted anonymity to discuss internal decisions that have not yet been announced. In the last few days, the US Made the decision to allow Ukraine flexibility to defend itself from attacks on the border near Kharkiv. Now in effect, Ukraine can now use American provided weapons such as rockets and rocket launchers to shoot down launched Russian missiles headed toward Kharkiv at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long range missiles such as the army tactile missile systems to hit military targets deep inside Russia. It's a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the US in the fight. But worsening conditions for the Ukraine people and the military on the battlefield, namely Russia's advances and improved position in Kharkiv led the president to change change his mind. National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And finally from Melissa Alonso at all at cnn. Major League Baseball has incorporated the statistics of former Negro league players into its historical records on its website, meaning legendary leaders in some categories like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb have now been replaced in the record books by players who were not allowed to play on the same fields as them during segregation. Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, is now listed as MLB's new all time career leader in batting averages at.372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb who was at.367. Sorry, getting a little choked up. The MLB website shows Gibson also overtaking Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage. Quote. We're proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues. This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible. That's MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement. Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led Jackie Robinson's 1947 Dodger debut. Quote we're excited. That's what Sean Gibson, the slugger's great grandson, told cnn. This is a long time coming. Not just for Josh Gibson, but all other great Negro League family members as well. The Power Hitting Catchers Baseball hall of fame plaque he's one of 35 Negro League stars enshrined in Cooperstown. Says he hit almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball during his 17 year career. However, the majority of those homers came not in league sanctioned games, about 50 to 75 per season, but in exhibitions played against former big leaguers and white semi pro teams. Quote this is indeed an exciting day. It was a long time coming. That's Negro League's baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick. At a Wednesday news conference, he said it's an absolute watershed moment for both Black baseball and Negro League history. Kendrick continued, you cannot reduce the story of the Negro Leagues to statistics. You just can't. This story is far more grandiose than mere stats. This story in many ways is bigger than than the game of baseball itself. Kendrick also addressed baseball fans who may be upset that their favorite players have moved down in some of the rankings. Quote that does not diminish them, he said. It's just now providing some names that perhaps you should have known about before now, and you're getting the opportunity to learn about them. More than 2,300 Negro Leagues players from 1920 to 1948 were added to the MLB database as more stats are still being discovered. Also, Major League Baseball career statistics for hall of Famers like Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Minnie Minoso now reflect their Negro League's accomplishments. For example, Robinson's 49 hits with Kansas City in the Monarchs in 1945 increased his career total from 1518 to 1567. Page's career wins total goes from 28 to 125, and Miyoso's 150 hits with the New York Cubans raised his career total by over 2,000 hits to 2,113. This comes about three and a half years after MLB recognized the Negro Leagues as its equivalent and counted the statistics and records of thousands of Black players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to the late 40s. Even though that recognition happened in December 2020, MLB at the time said it needed time to review how that recognition would affect MLB record books. That was in part because some statistics were still being compiled and because MLB needed to sort of league sanctioned games from exhibitions, quote shorten Negro League schedules interspersed with revenue raising exhibition games were born of MLB's exclusionary practices. That's what John Thorne, an MLB historian who chaired the Review Negro League Statistical Review Committee, said in a statement. To deny the best black players of the era their rightful place among these all time leaders would be a double penalty. Baseball historian Larry Lester, who also served on the committee, added Stories, folklore and embellished truths have long been a staple of the Negro League's narrative. Those storylines will always be entertaining, but now our dialogues can be quantified and qualified to support the authentic greatest of these athletes. Every fan should welcome this statistical restitution towards social reparation. And with that, everybody, we're going to take a quick break. Be back with John Fugelsang. And that's going to be followed by by the good news. Stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
