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Refried Beans | The Committee Goes Prime Time (feat. Hugo Lowell) | May 24, 2022
00:33:58
Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 In the Hot Notes: the 1/6 committee has announced its hearing schedule for June; an ashamed Russian diplomat resigns his post in protest of Putin’s war; the House ethics committee launches an investigation into Madison Cawthorn for insider trading and sexual misconduct; and the Sussman Durham trial is well underway; plus Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Alison Gill
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. Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good.
- [00:27]
Hugo Lowell
And we're wasting time.
- [00:32]
Alison Gill
With swearing.
- [00:35]
Dana Goldberg
Jelly beans. Jelly beans. Jelly beans. Daily Beans.
- [00:46]
Alison Gill
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Today, the 16 Committee has announced its hearing schedule for June. An ashamed Russian diplomat resigns his post in protest of Putin's war. The House Ethics Committee has launched an investigation into Madison Cawthorn for insider trading and sexual misconduct. And the Sussman Durham trial is well underway. I'm Alison Gill.
- [01:07]
Dana Goldberg
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
- [01:12]
Alison Gill
Hi, Dana. Hello. Happy Tuesday.
- [01:13]
Dana Goldberg
Happy Tuesday, my friend. You sound a little better. You feeling any better?
- [01:17]
Alison Gill
I feel a little better. I'm still pretty tired. I've tested negative now twice, so I don't think it's Covid and maybe just allergies or something weird. But I am feeling a little bit better. My voice is a little bit better. So that's good news. Good little bit of good news. If you have any good news that you want to send to us, you can submit that by going to DailyBeansPod.com and clicking on Contact. And later in the show, I'm going to be talking with congressional reporter for the Guardian, Hugo Lowell, who's got the scoop on the early draft schedule for the 16 committee hearings. So we'll be talking about that and what we can expect coming up in June. We have a lot of news to get to today, so let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes, all right. Up first, from Hugo Lold, the Guardian. The House select committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol is expected to stage six public hearings in June on how Trump and some of his allies broke the law as they sought to overturn the 2020 election results. And that's according to sources familiar with the inquiry. The hearings are set to be a pivotal political movement for the country as the panel aims to publicly outline the potentially unlawful schemes, plural, that tried to keep the former president in office despite his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden. According to this draft schedule reviewed by the Guardian, the Select Committee intends to hold six hearings, with the first and last in primetime, where its lawyers will run through how Trump's schemes took shape before the election and culminated with the Capitol attack. According to the draft schedule, the June public hearings will explore Trump's efforts to overturn the election, starting and ending with PrimeTime hearings at 8pm Eastern Time on June 9th and June 23rd. In between, the panel will hold 10am hearings on the 13th, 15th, 16th and 21st. The Select Committee appears to be planning for the hearing to be an extensive affair, all these hearings. As a matter of fact, the primetime hearings are currently scheduled to last between one and a half and two hours and the morning hearings between two and two and a half hours. A select committee member will lead each of the hearings, according to the sources, but top investigative lawyers who are intimately familiar with the material will primarily conduct the questioning of witnesses to keep testimony tightly on track. Again, Hugo Lowell is going to join me a little bit later in the show to talk about what these hearings will look like and the tentative nature of this schedule. So look forward to that.
- [03:34]
Dana Goldberg
All right, thanks A.G. now a diplomat at Russia's mission to the United nations in Geneva has resigned over the war in Ukraine, writing that he has never been so ashamed of his country in a very rare public rebuke of the war from within the Russian government. Now, in a letter circulated to colleagues in Geneva and posted on a LinkedIn account in his name as well as on Facebook, Boris Bondarev, counselor for the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United nations, said he had left the civil service Monday and this is a quote, For 20 years of my diplomatic career, I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24th of this year, he wrote, referring to the date the invasion was launched. The aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine and in fact against the entire Western world is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also perhaps the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z, crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our future and is a powerful statement. The scathing letter is one of the most high profile critics of the war and its architects to come from within the Russian government. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a clear that dissent won't be tolerated, saying in March that Russian people can distinguish between, quote, true patriots from scum and traitors. So we know where that's going to go now. Reached by phone by the Associated Press on Monday, Bondarev confirmed that he had handed his resignation. In a letter addressed to Ambassador Geniti Gotlov, he told AP he had no plans to leave Geneva. However, now Bandarev took direct aim at Russia's ruling class. I mean, this is some ballsy stuff going on because we know what the consequences of this could be. And this is another quote, those who conceive this war want only one thing, to remain in power forever. Live in pompous, tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable to tonnage and cost to the entire Russian navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity. I mean, he's going in jugular here, ag. Like I said, there's consequences for his stuff. I hope this person is protected, but this is powerful. I mean, this is, this is. They're speaking out.
- [05:58]
Alison Gill
Yeah, I imagine they'll put out an Interpol Red notice and then they'll revoke it and then, I don't know. He's in Geneva. We'll see what happens. But that is very bold of him.
- [06:06]
Dana Goldberg
Yes.
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Alison Gill
From such a high up position from within the Kremlin. And next up, from Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney at Politico. An FBI agent involved in the investigation of links between Trump and Russia told a colleague weeks before the 2016 election that top FBI brass were fired up about a since discredited allegation of a secret communications channel between Trump and Alfa Bank. That's Alpha bank is a Russian bank with ties to Putin. Quote, people on the seventh floor, to include director, are fired up about this server. That's what FBI agent Joseph Pietka wrote in an internal instant message to another agent working on the issue, Curtis Hyde. And he wrote that on September 21, 2016, quote, reach out and put tools on. It's not an option. We must do it. There's a couple of misspellings in that weird message, but that's what it says. But Pinka's comment revealed in a courtroom testimony Monday, this is the Sussman Durham trial is part of a conflicting narrative presented to jurors about the secrecy and urgency with which the FBI treated allegations related to the Putin linked Alpha Bank. Those claims arrived at the bureau via Michael Sussman, cybersecurity attorney who represented the DNC and the Clinton campaign in the final weeks of the 2016 contest. Special counsel John Durham has charged Sussmann with falsely telling the bureau, one guy at the Bureau with no other witnesses to witness it, that he had brought the Alpha bank tip in his personal capacity, not on behalf of any of his clients, potentially, quote, unquote, affecting the FBI's handling of the tip. But Sussman's defense team has emphasized that the bureau was well aware of Sussman's ties to the DNC and the Democratic Party, and that the circumstances of the tip were irrelevant to the FBI's decision to pursue and ultimately deem it unsubstantiated. The ongoing trial is the first courtroom test of Durham's long running investigation into the oranges of the FBI's Trump Russia investigation, and he used the Sussman prosecution to publicly disclose a broad swath of his case. Sussmann's team, though, has cast doubt on the allegations, describing them as a desperate effort to shoehorn salacious and misleading evidence into the public record. So far, Sussman's trial has featured testimony from a series of high profile witnesses, including Democratic Party attorney Mark Elias, former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and former senior FBI officials. Despite Pinke's message, other witnesses described the bureau's reaction to the Alpha bank tip was relatively modest, a limited offshoot of a much broader and more urgent investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and any evidence of the Trump campaign's involvement. Indeed, current and former FBI witnesses seem to have hazy memories of aspects of the Alpha bank episode and indicated their recollections were heavily influenced by notes, emails and messages they exchanged at the time, which had been unearthed by Durham. Bill Priestap, who led the FBI's counterintelligence division in 2016, said he recalled regular briefings about the broader Trump Russia investigation known as Crossfire Hurricane, but didn't really recall similar briefings on the Alpha bank thing. Quote, it was not something I was regularly briefed on and if I recall correctly, at the end of the day, it didn't amount to much. That's what Pre Stop said, who is now retired from the FBI. Asked about Pink his assessment that leadership was fired up, Priestap said he didn't recall that reaction from the FBI's leadership from FBI Director James Comey specifically. Perhaps more significantly, the description of the FBI's handling of the Alpha bank tip allowed Sussmann's attorneys to to remind the jury about how the significant alarm within the bureau about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, which were the subject of FBI and special counsel investigations for nearly three years. Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker testified last week that while he didn't widely share the details of Sussman's role with others at the FBI, he did tell Pre stap who wrote it down. Baker said he didn't recall refusing to disclose the name to others at the FBI as the trial entered its second week Monday. A dispute is Also brewing over potential testimony by former New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau. Witnesses have heard that the FBI sought to slow down a story Lichtbau was working on in the fall of 2016 about the Alfa bank server links. Sussmann's defense wants to call Lichtblau and has waived confidentiality on any discussion Sussmann had with that journalist. The defense has agreed not to delve into other matters, but Durham's prosecutors are not party to that agreement and are arguing that they should be permitted to question Licht Blau about a full range of his reporting on the issues, including his interactions with other sources or experts, such as a private investigation firm that looked into the subject for the Democrats called Fusion gps. If that rings a bell, quote, we think it's fair game to probe Mr. Lichtblau on the exact substance of that. And that's what Assistant special counsel Andrew DeFilippes told Judge Christopher Cooper before the jury was brought into the courtroom Monday. These communications, he said, are highly probative. Licht Blau's attorneys have argued that his testimony should be limited to his interactions with Sussman only. Cooper signaled doubts Monday about whether prosecutors had done all they could to obtain such information or testimony without getting it from the reporter.
- [11:11]
Dana Goldberg
Thank you so much, AG and to close out this segment, the House Committee on Ethics is launching an investigation into GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina to determine whether he was involved in financial improprieties or had an improper relationship with an individual on his staff. The committee voted unanimously on May 11 to establish an investigative subcommittee. And this is a quote, the investigative subcommittee shall have jurisdiction to determine whether Representative Madison Cawthorn may have improperly promoted a cryptocurrency in which he may have had an undisclosed financial interest and engaged in an improper relationship with an individual employed on his congressional staff. That's what the release reads. When asked to respond to investigations announcement, Cawthorn's chief of staff, Blake Harp, said the office welcomes, quote, the opportunity to prove that Congressman Cawthorn committed no wrongdoing and that he was falsely accused of partisan adversaries for political gain. Which is really interesting because I don't think this is actually from the Democrats. I mean, if I had to guess where this originated. Anyway, Cawthorn lost his reelection bid in North Carolina last week after sparking uproar in the Republican Party for claiming that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington and had personally seen leaders in the effort to curb drug addiction doing cocaine, which I truly believe happened.
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Alison Gill
Oh, for sure.
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Dana Goldberg
Yeah. It isn't clear how long the Ethics Committee panel's work will take. The subcommittee also said Monday it will not investigate the congressman for driving with a revoked license and speeding in North Carolina or apparently bringing a gun into the airport on more than one occasion. That's not in the article, but I have fucking added it now. Republican Rep. Michelle Michelle Feischbach and Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester will also work on the Investigative subcommittee. So Madison Cawthorn, his troubles are not over yet. They seem to be just getting started.
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Alison Gill
No. Yeah. And that, and that just goes to show that even if you lose and you're lame duck, they're still going to investigate you. And so that's good news, I think. All right. We'll be right back with Hugo Lowell. We're going to discuss these hearings that are coming up. I'm going to be in D.C. for a lot of these hearings in the second week of June. So maybe we'll get a little meetup going or something. I don't know yet. Don't know how busy I'll be, but would love to see some of our patrons, so stick around. We'll be right back with Hugo Lowell after these messages. We'll be right back, everybody. Welcome back. I'm joined today by Hugo Lowell, congressional reporter for the Guardian. We're going to talk about the upcoming January 6th committee hearings. Hi, Hugo, how are you?
- [13:53]
Hugo Lowell
Hi, I'm good.
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Alison Gill
Good. So you got the scoop. You put out the tweet, the schedule for the 16 hearings. If you want to talk a little bit about that. I believe there are going to be six and they're going to bookend them with primetime hearings. Right?
- [14:09]
Hugo Lowell
That's the current plan. And as ever with this committee, there's always the caveat that things change. This is the draft schedule that is starting to be circulated around witnesses and the members on the committee. But basically the thrust of this is the thing you got to know that the committee is trying to achieve two goals with these public hearings. And number one is to show how they have reached the conclusion, which they have disclosed in court filings, that Trump broke the law in trying to overturn the election. And then their second aim is to walk through how these various schemes to keep Trump in office evolved over the 65 day period from election night to January 6th. And we don't know all the details yet about how these, how that narrative is going to be told, but, you know, we can at least expect for the committee to touch on things like, you know, the seemingly White House coordinated plan that was illegal to send, you know, fake lectures to Congress. Something like the plot to seize burning machines that Sidney Power wanted to do, and to have herself appointed special counsel to investigate Vodafone, or, you know, like the unlawful plan hatched just days later to get, you know, former Vice President Pence to throw the election, or kind of delay the certification that Eastman knew violated the Electoral Count act and was therefore unlawful, but went ahead and pressed for it anyway. So the idea is to connect all of these points together and then maybe even potentially link it to the political violence that took place at the Capitol to make the case that Trump oversaw some sort of conspiracy.
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Alison Gill
Yeah, that seemed to be a big part of what they were looking into is whether his lack of action during the riots, where he didn't call everyone off and, you know, combined with his calls for, you know, come to January 6th will be wild, et cetera, and the big lie might have perpetrated or provoked that violence. And so I imagine that would be a big part of the story, too, because I know they were looking into that pretty extensively. Now, lots of folks are upset that there are only six hearings on this tentative draft schedule, and then only two of them are going to be in primetime, and the other ones start very early in the morning on the West coast, for example, 10am for four of those hearings on the East Coast. And so do you have any sense of if this is a mal. You know, you said that this is a draft schedule. So do you have any sense, more sense of how malleable this schedule is or why they've decided to only go with six hearings? Do you know anything about the internal deliberations?
- [16:36]
Hugo Lowell
Not really, is the honest answer. And it's because they keep changing what they want to do. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, when they first confirmed they were, yes, going to do it in June, Chairman Thompson was talking about eight hearings. Now we're down to six. And it's not entirely clear why we're at six, as opposed to seven or eight or 10 or 15 or whatever. I think there is a sense that they want to get this done within three weeks in June. Also, someone else pointed out, quite interestingly, that they seem to be scheduling this around other events that may be going on, like NBA Finals, like there are sports. Sports fixtures and stuff. So they've obviously looked at the schedule broadly and tried to figure out if there are any days where things could clash. And they've settled on the schedule for now. You know, it may, like I said, it may Change. They may decide that they need more time to tell the story, or maybe a certain witness that they really want is only available on certain days, then they might make those accommodations, is what I've heard.
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Alison Gill
And so they might have live witness testimony. My understanding is they also might play video of some of the. Of the depositions that they've. They've held and that they're going to use pictures of text messages. I mean, it's going to be like a multimedia presentation, right?
- [17:50]
Hugo Lowell
Oh, they will have witnesses testifying. That's a given the way they want to do it. And the way I kind of put it in the story is, you know, there's this whole. Is this whole idea of giving this presentation to bring the testimony to life. What they saw at impeachment and what they saw with Robert Mueller when he testified to the House Intelligence Committee was that people got really bored. And so it's fine to have testimony, but you can have the most riveting testimony in the world and people will still get bored because it's someone talking and it's, you know, it's committee council leading the questioning. So it's inherently going to be very legal, very precise. So that could get boring. So what they're going to do is to flash through text messages, photos, videos, emails that illustrate the points that the witnesses are trying to make to support what the witnesses are trying to say and to really vividly bring to light the content of what the committee is trying to impress upon the American people.
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Alison Gill
Yeah, I'm wondering if that, too, has something to do with the decision to go with six hearings as opposed to more. Because if people get bored, they drop out, you know. Right.
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Hugo Lowell
And they may not have that much, you know, they may not have enough content, for instance, to sustain hearings, you know, more than six hearings. Right. Like, if they're going to really commit to this thing about having a slideshow while people are talking and sharing video and stuff. Like, there's only so much they have, even if they have thousands of documents. Like, a lot of these documents are, you know, text messages. They're kind of notes. There's only so many text messages you can show on a screen. There's so many photos you can show on a screen. So many photos of. Of kind of planning and, you know, what was happening around the West Wing that you can show, I think, before people are like, okay, you know, we've seen it. Now let's move on.
- [19:30]
Alison Gill
Yeah, yeah, agreed. And then a question for you. Do you. Have you heard anything about Rudy Giuliani? Potentially being one of these witnesses. We know he recently spent more than between seven and nine hours talking to the committee. And that kind of length of time indicates that he didn't just, you know, plead the Fifth or exertion privileged the whole time. Do you have any sense of or you talk to anybody regarding what his role might be?
- [19:55]
Hugo Lowell
Rudy is not testifying, almost certainly not testifying. He wrapped up his deposition on Friday. It was not everything that the committee had hoped for. I can't say more than that at the moment. I do have some more details, but I can't say more than that. But the committee has certainly not even they've not approached Giuliani to testify in public is the idea. And the sense I got talking to his lawyer and his friends is that if they did ask him to come, even if they subpoenaed him, he would be a very uncooperative witness. And so I don't think the committee has any intention of calling him at this point.
- [20:28]
Alison Gill
Yeah, that makes sense. All right, thanks for your time, everybody. Follow Hugo Lowell, read the Guardian. And we will be keeping a watch on your feed for more information as we get it about these committee hearings starting June 9th. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks so much, everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news after these messages. We'll be right back, everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
- [20:59]
Dana Goldberg
Everyone?
- [21:00]
Alison Gill
Then, good news, everyone. Good news. Good news. And if you have any good news or corrections or feedback or anything you want to send in, you can do that by going to somebody's feeling a little better. I watched it like 10 times this weekend.
- [21:21]
Dana Goldberg
It was so good.
- [21:22]
Alison Gill
You can send everything in to us@dailybeanspod.com just click on contact. That's how you submit it. A little housekeeping again. I'm going to mention this every week. If you remember the Great Apple debacle of April, Apple listeners stopped getting updated episodes and we figured out the issue. And thanks to the folks over at Apple for helping us out. Long story short, there's two versions of the Beans on Apple and they look identical. You can't tell them apart. One of them is going to disappear soon. So if you follow the beans on Apple, by the way, this doesn't apply to patrons or super cast subscribers. You have your own premium feed. You don't have to worry about this at all. So ignore anything I'm saying if you're a patron or supercast subscriber. But if you're not, make sure you're following the one linked in the show notes and you can go and make sure you're following the right one by going to Apple co beans, all lowercase case sensitive and that link will take you to the correct one that won't be archived here in a couple weeks. That's apple co beans, all lowercase cool.
- [22:21]
Dana Goldberg
Sounds good to me.
- [22:22]
Alison Gill
All right, first up from Donna Pronoun, she and her dear beans queens. I would like to share with you the very good news from our election here in Australia this last weekend. Our right leaning party, which has been leaning increasingly right for the last few years years was ousted in a total landslide and a huge part of that was a slew of amazing women independents around six who won their heartland electorates from them over and over again. It was largely about climate change and the appalling record of the last government on their treatment and representation of women within their party. Still other of their electorates were won by the Greens party where there were no independents standing. It was an outstanding demonstration of democracy actually working to break the age old two party system when the people are no longer being listened to and represented. Also women vote. Ignore them at your peril. My faith is fully and deeply restored. I offer as pet tax this photo of our new Prime Minister's little fur baby, Toto.
- [23:21]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, I love this.
- [23:24]
Alison Gill
Oh my God, that's my human. He's Prime Minister now. Go Toto. That's so cute.
- [23:29]
Dana Goldberg
All right, and this next one, Sandy V. Pronoun. She and her hey AG and Dana, loved your inclusion of the settlement in Favor of the U.S. women's National Team for equal pay. My daughter just graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and retired player Abby Wambach gave the most stirring inspirational commencement speech. The link is below. And she was given in an honorary doctorate degree and Chancellor noted after the event that she actually stayed for the entire ceremony, which never happens. She also met with students and parents taking pictures and signing autographs. She's a true national treasure, Sandy. She is. And for those of you we'll have the link. Hopefully we'll find it and put it in. We don't have it right now, but this commencement speech is fantastic. Abby is a phenomenal speaker. Her story is amazing and the words she has to say now to communities that she didn't necessarily feel were represented before, especially when she went to the university. She's just really present in her life and it's beautiful. I watched part of it on Glennon Doyle's Instagram, which is her wife and it's awesome. So, Sandy, thank you for bringing this to light. And I love that your daughter had this experience and that she got to hear Abby speak because what a treat. What an awesome treat.
- [24:46]
Alison Gill
That's amazing. Yeah, I had like, Danny Glover and Suzanne Somers. Yeah. I got an honorary Thigh Master, so that's.
- [24:55]
Dana Goldberg
I don't think that's true. Did you know my senior song when I graduated high school was imagined by John Lennon? Can you think of like, and that was when? 1994. And we're still living this shit. I'm like, oh, my God.
- [25:09]
Alison Gill
Well, I don't know what our senior song was. I can't remember. It was probably like Pump up the Jam or something. Jockey. We were pretty basic school.
- [25:17]
Dana Goldberg
Apparently we were a very feeling class.
- [25:21]
Alison Gill
Next up from dysgraphic programmer pronouns, he and him. My confession is that I only recently realized that the Beans host Alison Gill and the American Atheist Vice President, Alison Gill are in fact different people. Furthermore, American Atheist VP Ag is in fact trans. That extra bit of information caused a strange conversation to make a lot more sense to the random Internet person. I will probably never find again, I promise. I was just confused. Not a lunatic or a bigot.
- [25:51]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, bless your heart.
- [25:53]
Alison Gill
Oh.
- [25:54]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my goodness.
- [25:55]
Alison Gill
Like lost connections on Craigslist. Seriously didn't mean it.
- [25:59]
Dana Goldberg
All right, this next one is from Dana, not me. But pronouns are he and him. I'm a Dana, too, and I jump every time Allison suddenly says Dana or something like, hey, Dana, it triggers some kind of fright response in my introverted brain, like I'm expected to say something intelligent. I get so immeshed in the show, I comfort myself thinking that maybe when Dana hears, she does a spit take or maybe knocks something down as she jumps to her mic. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Other Dana. Oftentimes, I don't even realize Allison's talking to me.
- [26:33]
Alison Gill
She thinks I'm talking to you, and.
- [26:35]
Dana Goldberg
I don't even know it's my turn. Yes, she thinks of talking to you. My pet tax is adorable, by the way. My pet tax is a calm tableau of my three kitties, a chipmunk, and a glass door. This is such a fantastic picture, Dana. I love this. This should be one of those things that someone makes into an inspirational meme or something. You know what I mean? There's a quote at the top, like.
- [27:03]
Alison Gill
Never take your eyes off the prize or something.
- [27:06]
Dana Goldberg
Something like that. Yep, teamwork makes the dream work.
- [27:12]
Alison Gill
Next up from JV Jelaine Pronoun. She and her hello again, ladies of the Beans. Thank you so much for your love on my crochet. It put a huge bright spot on my year, not just the day. I've included my name and location this time. Sorry about that. Don't worry about pronunciation of my name. I'm old enough that as long as you start with a J sound and include two syllables, I'll likely mostly answer to it. I've added two more picks of my crochet. I hope you enjoy them. The big spiral belongs to my son and he helped me design it. The Beginning if you ladies would like to have a few pieces of your very own, just contact me with your favorite colors and if you'd like five or six points in your stars. My email is in the form submission. Love your podcast. Please keep up the good work. Love and hugs, P S. I will send pet tax photos in a future submission. Three cats. Lots of pics to sort through.
- [28:00]
Dana Goldberg
How funny.
- [28:01]
Alison Gill
Oh that's beautiful.
- [28:02]
Dana Goldberg
It is beautiful.
- [28:04]
Alison Gill
I love these.
- [28:05]
Dana Goldberg
I know. Thank you for that submission. All right, this is from Susan. Pronouns she and her wanted to share my Roe v. Wade life experiences that were that caused me to lose sleep. All right, I graduated and started college away from my home. At 16 years old, being young, stupid and easily influenced by the mostly 18 year olds I hung with, I began to be sexually active and found myself, after turning 17, pregnant. I saw all my hopes for the future potentially derailed and opted for a very early abortion care procedure. Being raised Catholic and reformed Jewish, I had grown up with mixed messages on the subject. While the decision was difficult, it is one I do not regret making. After I was married and in my late 20s, I became pregnant and was thrilled until the morning I began experiencing cramping and loss of blood and that actually caused me to pass out. My husband called my OB GYN and we raced to the hospital, a Catholic hospital. There the doctors informed us that the placenta had separated from the uterine wall and that I would eventually miscarry. But they were not allowed to intervene until it became very clear that my life was in danger and that they would keep an eye on me until they basically would just watch while I bled out. Now my doctor, a very good man, pulled my husband aside and told me he had already called another hospital in the DMC and that they were waiting for me to get there so they could perform a D and C right away so that my life wasn't put on the line. I checked myself out and we raced to that hospital where a team quickly helped me, gave me a transfusion and performed an Involuntary abortion, the cause of all this, was attributed to fibroid tumors that would never allow me to carry a pregnancy unless I had surgery to remove them. I did have that surgery and was later to become pregnant and give birth to my wonderful child, who is now an adult. They are in a committed relationship with their partner. These are happy tears, everyone. Just so you know, sometimes these stories get me, but I'm just. Yeah, they're in a committed relationship with their partner, and I'm now talking about marriage. They're now confronting the problems of what to do if Roe is overturned. Both are in their 20s and able to have children together, but my child has three serious genetic disorders they could pass along to a child. So they don't want to have children. They're terrified that birth control won't be available to them if Roe is overturned, since this has threatened the next step. Terrified they won't be able to marry. Frightened of the escalation of violence against the LGBTQ community. Sorry for the length of this, but this is why I march and circulating petitions in Michigan to add a constitutional amendment to protect the right to choose. Thank you for always forcefully, comically keeping the focus on this fight. We need to do our part. For pet pics, I've added a pic of 1. Feral kitties of one of the feral kitties we set up shelter and feeding stations in the backyard for. We're slowly getting them to the vets for exams, tests, T N R that money and time allow. We currently have five coming to the backyard, as well as the occasional possum. Susan, thank you for your vulnerability in sharing this story. It is really powerful and important to understand. Like one, I'm glad you got the hell out of that hospital, and I'm glad your husband advocated for not just you, but himself and that child that you were hoping to save and couldn't. And this story. And I'm so glad you were able to have a child and now you get to experience this with her and through her. And also this is really hopeful for me that this younger generation, you know, of people are fired up. They're fired up because they know how scary this is and other rights that could be taken away. It's just a really powerful story, and you're doing so much right in the world, and obviously you can tell this by the fight that your daughter has in her. So it's incredible. Actually, you just said wonderful child and their partner, so they may be them. They. Them pronouns, I don't know. But however they identify, you're doing a Wonderful. Wonderful job.
- [32:05]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And this just, you know, drives home the point that these sorts of taking, blanket taking away of our rights impacts different people in different ways. And that's why we all, for so long had that right to make the decision for ourselves, because everyone's case is different.
- [32:24]
Dana Goldberg
Indeed. And I just want to correct myself very quickly, even though I wasn't sure I was rereading this paragraph, I do believe the pronouns for your child are they, them. I want to honor that. And so I just want you to know that I saw that. And so hopefully I'm correct in that correction of myself.
- [32:39]
Alison Gill
Thank you. And thanks for sending that in. And thanks to everyone for what you submit. We definitely need these stories, and we need to keep telling them. It's so important to tell our stories as we continue to fight to preserve democracy. So thank you so much. And if you have anything you want to send into us, please feel free to do so by going to digleybeanspod.com and clicking on Contact. Dana, do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here today?
- [33:02]
Dana Goldberg
You know what's really funny is I thought I did. I was going to say something at the end of this episode, and I cannot remember what in the world it was.
- [33:09]
Alison Gill
All right, well, that's good news.
- [33:10]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, I don't have any final thoughts for. I don't even know what day it is. What day is it?
- [33:14]
Alison Gill
I think. Well, if you're listening to this, it's Wednesday. But today's Tuesday.
- [33:17]
Dana Goldberg
No, no, it's Monday. No one knows. I'm having a weird, like, pandemic experience where, like, I didn't realize it was May. I didn't know what day of the week it was. It just. It was weird. Okay. So I don't know if anyone else is having the same problem.
- [33:32]
Alison Gill
Hopefully tomorrow everything will be back to normal. Well, at least, you know, with knowing what day it is.
- [33:37]
Dana Goldberg
Absolutely.
- [33:38]
Alison Gill
Just the basics. Get us the basics together.
- [33:41]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, you got it.
- [33:42]
Alison Gill
That'd be great. If we could just do that. If we just maintain at least knowing what day it is. All right, until tomorrow, everybody, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, and take care of your mental health. And vote blue over Q. I've been.
- [33:54]
Dana Goldberg
AG and I've been dg.
- [33:55]
Alison Gill
And them's the beans. Refried beans. I like refried beans.