Transcript
Alison Gill (0:00)
MSW Media hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, July 9, 2025. Today, the Supreme Court greenlights Trump's order for mass firings across government agencies. President Bukele of El Salvador tells the UN that he doesn't have constructive custody of the men sent to his torture prison. Sen. Schumer is demanding an investigation into Trump weather Service vacancies and their impact on disaster response failures in Texas. A militia descended on MacArthur park in Los Angeles for no other reason than to scare people. The Department of Justice's release of the Epstein jail video is missing a full minute. Elon's AI Twitter bot Grok has been reprogrammed to be a Nazi. A federal court has struck down a Republican ballot law in Kansas as unconstitutional. And a judge temporarily blocks Trump from cutting off Planned Parenthood funding. I'm your host, Alison Gill. All right, everybody, we're halfway through the week. We made it halfway through the week. We have to celebrate the wins where we can, and I'll take that as a win. Later in the show today, I'm going to be speaking with Garrett Graff. He's the host of the Long Shadow podcast. And we're going to talk about season four, and it's about the Internet and how it's been weaponized by the far right. It's actually a great history of the Internet and pivot points throughout, you know, basically since the Y2K bug. It's really, really good. And you're going to want to listen to our interview about his podcast. Dana's going to be back Monday. I can't wait. I miss her very much. Thanks for hanging with me solo. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks to all our new listeners as well. Welcome. If you've joined us in the last week and a half, you will get to experience Dana on Monday and you will not be sorry. Yeah. All right, everybody, we have a lot of news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up from Politico, the Trump administration can move forward with plans to fire tens of thousands of workers across the federal government. That's according to a ruling by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. A judge in California had blocked the layoffs, finding they would likely violate federal law. I think they do, too. But the justices granted an emergency appeal from the administration, seeking permission to enforce a February 11th executive order that instructed agencies to carry out dramatic reductions in force. In an apparent 8 to 1 ruling, the high court said it was not assessing the legality of any particular agency's layoff plans. Nor any moves taken so far to implement those plans. Litigation over the downsizing efforts is sure to continue. But for now, the justices said the administration can enforce the executive order and a memo from the Office of Management and Budget implementing the executive order. The high court's unsigned decision, which the majority explained in two terse paragraphs, lifts an injunction issued by US District Judge Susan Ilston, who had blocked 21 agencies from complying with the mass layoff orders. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the court to record a dissent. She said President Donald Trump is unleashing a wrecking ball on the federal government. And she slammed the court's majority for its demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture. Emergency posture is the key word there. All right, next up from me@muellershiroad.com if you've been following my writing there or listening to these podcasts or unjustified or Cleanup, you'll note we've been covering the group of men stranded incommunicado in a Salvadoran torture prison across multiple cases in the courts. Now, these men have been declared a putative class by Judge Boasberg in the JGG case, which is currently in the D.C. district Court. Now, across multiple cases, when ordered to return people unlawfully or erroneously disappeared to Seacoat, the government has continually relied on the argument that that they don't have constructive custody of the men and therefore cannot return any of them to the United States because President Bukele and the, quote, sovereign nation of El Salvador control the custody of those trapped in the foreign gulag. But yesterday, and Adam Klassfeld and I talked about this Briefly yesterday, on July 7, a new filing hit Judge Boasberg's docket in the JGG case and it says, petitioners respectfully notify this court of the attached document from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Working Group on ENFOR or involuntary disappearances, a report on enforced or involuntary disappearances in four cases investigating the disappearance of four Venezuelan men who were sent to El Salvador on March 15, 2025. Now, I'm a break in here and remind you that on March 15, that's the day Judge Boasberg held that emergency hearing over a lawsuit filed by JGG et al in the early hours of the morning, like 1:30 in the morning. And they asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order on an emergency basis to stop the planes as non the people aboard were given due process. Judge Boberg held the hearing and issued the order in the afternoon. The Same day on March 15, he ordered the planes be turned around. The government ignored that order. The Supreme Court eventually vacated Boberg's order, but said 90 that people must receive meaningful due process. Since then the plaintiffs have filed a new complaint and Judge Boberg granted class status to all those disappeared to Seacote, and that status includes anyone who was sent there on March 14th and 15th, which is around 238 men. The women were sent back. As Cekote does not accept women. The new filing in Boseberg's court goes on to say as set forth in the attached report, the Government of El Salvador responded to the UN's inquiry opened by the four families asking about the disappearance of their family members and they said the Salvadoran State emphatically states that its authorities have not arrested, detained or transferred the persons referred to in the communications of the working group. The actions of the State of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another State that's us through which it has facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of that other state. In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities and by virtue of international agreements signed and in accordance with the principles of sovereignty and the international cooperation in criminal matters. In this regard, the actions attributable to the Salvadoran State are limited to its sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction and therefore it cannot be held responsible for the failure to observe the principle of non refoulment with respect to the persons mentioned. It goes on to say this court correctly held that whether or not respondents defendants have constructive custody of petitioners for purposes of habeas jurisdiction, the respondents are required to facilitate the ability of the Seacoat class to seek habeas relief. However, should it become necessary for petitioners to pursue the constructive custody issue, the petitioners reserve the right to seek additional discovery in light of this new information as well as Respondents original inadequate discovery responses and this court's acknowledgment that the constructive custody conclusion was predicated on the current record and the Trump government knew that it had constructive custody of those at Secote before it made a declaration to the court that it didn't. The filing says that here it says such additional discovery may be particularly important because this new evidence contradicts the underlying custody conclusion in the kozak declaration of May 9, which is dated after El Salvador's responses to the UN and after petitioners sought habeas review. That's the date habeas attaches quote. And this is from the declaration from the government. Michael G. Kozak representing the Government. It was and remains my understanding that the detention and ultimate disposition of those detained at Seacote and other Salvadoran detention facilities are matters within the legal authority of El Salvador in accordance with its domestic and international legal obligations. So not only did the Trump government obfuscate and stonewall court orders requiring it to hand over documents related to the facilitation of the return of these men, including during the two week discovery ordered by Judge Sinis in the Abrego case, but the government openly misrepresented itself in court documents and declarations under the penalty of perjury. Today, this Bukele declaration was mentioned in another case about a man in custody at Seacote in a letter from Judge Gallagher, a Trump appointed judge handling a case called jop. This is a man named Christian who is being held at Seacoat. She wrote what amounts to a show cause order to the government requiring that they explain themselves to the court. She writes, in status reports submitted pursuant to this court's June 5th order, the defendants have repeatedly skirted this court's directive to provide information regarding the steps they have taken and will take to facilitate the return of Christian to the United States. Instead, the defendants have repeatedly made oblique references to their request of assistance from the US Department of State, which has entered into negotiations to facilitate Christian's return and quote, assumed responsibility on behalf of the US Government for diplomatic discussions with El Salvador, unquote. Assuming the government of El Salvador provided truthful information to the UN no diplomatic discussions should be required here because El Salvador has no sovereign interest in Christian's continued confinement in that country. This court directs the defendants, that's the Trump government, to explain their position that diplomatic discussions involving the Department of State are required to facilitate Christians return to the United States in compliance with this court's order. Defendants should provide their response no later than Tuesday, July 15. Despite the informal nature of this letter, it is an order of the court and should be docketed accordingly. So I'll be awaiting the lawyers for Mr. Abrego to mention this in their complaint. I'll also be looking for it in the now fired DOJ lawyer Arez Reuveni's whistleblower complaint. So we'll see where this goes. I end the piece by saying if the courts are unable or unwilling to hold the government in contempt for this blatant lie, then we need to re examine those procedures because if this is not contempt, nothing is. All right. Next up from alternate On Monday, heavily armed Federal agents stormed MacArthur park in Los Angeles, California in an apparent show of force, making no arrests and conducting no raids. And just prior to their arrival, dozens of children in the middle of summer camp were playing. Los Angeles based ABC affiliate KABC reported Monday there were more than 20 kids playing soccer on a field before federal personnel descended on the park who were apparently in the middle of a summer camp activity. These kids. LA Council member Hernandez said that the staff ushered the kids into the lower level of a nearby building that the camp was using after they were made aware they were tipped off the federal agents were in the vicinity. One eight year old boy who was at the summer camp told Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass that he was scared the agents would arrest his parents. Quote, I don't think the goal is to detain. The goal is to spread fear. That's what Mayor Bass said, adding that the agent's behavior was absolutely outrageous. Now independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Monday that he obtained documents from an unnamed source in the California National Guard in which the storming of MacArthur park was apparently dubbed Operation Excalibur. The mission was thoroughly planned and was ostensibly for a show of presence aimed at preventing the distribution of fake IDs. However, Klippenstein's source said the operation was botched due to poor communication between federal and city officials. Quote, we were on the objective for 24 minutes. That's what a National Guard member told Klippenstein. Many of the phase lines were not reported because they didn't happen. So we parked and then left. Soldiers didn't get out of trucks. They stayed in the back of the five ton military trucks sweating in the heat. This was just nothing but a show of force. There were cavalry, there were horseback, Border patrol on horseback, men in full military gear with assault rifles marching through MacArthur park just to show everybody how big and strong they are. All right, next up from cnbc, Musk updated Grok this past Friday, according to Musk. And Musk has long complained that Grok has parroted woke Internet content and said users will notice a difference with the new version. And who boy, has there been a difference? On Tuesday, Grok went full Nazi. He praised Adolf Hitler, made other anti Semitic comments. The chatbot built by Musk's startup Xai made the comments on Twitter in response to a user's question about the recent Texas flooding. A Twitter user asked grok which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with this problem and this was in a conversation about the Texas flooding. In one post, the chatbot said the Texas flooding tragically killed over 100 people, including dozens of children from a Christian camp, and then referenced Hitler, quote, to deal with such vile anti white hate Adolf Hitler. No question that's what Grok said. He'd spot the pattern and handle it decisively every damn time. This is just one Grok is going off on Twitter right now talking about exterminating Jewish people. I mean, it's hideous. It reminds me of Tay. Remember the friendly millennial chatbot from Microsoft that went full Nazi? So this is the reprogramming by Elon Musk. All right, next up from the Hill, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is demanding that the Commerce Department's inspector general investigate vacancies at the National Weather Service offices and whether they increase the death toll in recent flash flooding in Texas. Schumer wrote in a Monday letter to Roderick Anderson, the Commerce Department's acting inspector general, urging him to immediately open an investigation into the scope, breadth and ramifications of weather staffing. Shortages at key local National Weather Service stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding. I can tell you they did. I don't think I need to have a Trump handpicked inspector general investigate it for me over the next two years. But I guess strongly worded letters are what we have next up from Rolling Stone. On Monday, the Justice Department and FBI released a joint memo aimed at putting the saga of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to rest. It described how an exhaustive investigation had led to the same conclusions we've heard before. Epstein died by suicide in a prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, and there's no evidence that he kept a client list of political elites and celebrities he could blackmail over involvement in his trafficking ring. Those answers, of course, did not sit well with the significant portion of the MAGA base that fervently believes Epstein was murdered by the powerful people he could implicate in his crimes, and that there is somewhere a document that definitively proves they took part in the same abuses. White House officials knew they would face blowback from the president's conspiracy theorist supporters. But what they may not have expected is that one element of their final report, almost 11 hours of security footage from the Metropolitan Correctional center in New York City on the last night of Epstein's life would add fuel to the fire. The camera view gives a partial glimpse of a common area in the facility, with Epstein's cell door out of frame to the right early in the evening, guards escort him through that area to his cell. And for the rest of the night, through the early morning, no one can be seen approaching his door. But many viewers noted there seems to be a glitch in the video as the Timer turns from 11:58 to 11:59, seemingly skipping a minute ahead of midnight. Naturally, that missing minute was enough to get people wondering if the DOJ and FBI were withholding a key piece of information and just hoping no one would notice. Chatter and confusion around the time skip led to a question on lingering mysteries for US Attorney General Pam Bondi. On Tuesday, at a Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked whether she could confirm if Epstein had ever worked for an American foreign intelligence agency, adding, quote, also, could you say why there's a missing minute from the jailhouse tape? And before she could respond, Trump jumped in to deflect. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking. We have Texas, we have this, we have all these things, and people are still talking about this guy, this creep. This is unbelievable. You want to waste time? Do you feel like answering? And Bondi said she wouldn't mind, and she did answer me thinks Trump dost protest too much now. Bondi said in her answer she had no knowledge of whether Epstein worked for an intelligence service. And on the topic of the video, muddled through an explanation of how the recording system in the prison works. Quote, the minute missing from the video. We released a video showing definitively the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide. She went on to say, what was on that. There was a minute off the counter. And what we learned from the Federal Bureau of Prisons was every year, I mean, every night they redo the video. It's old from, like, 1999. So every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing. So we're looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night, and that's it on EPSTEIN. So since 1999, they've known. Let's, let's, let's say her explanation is true. Let's just go down that road for a second. So since 1999, everybody knows that you won't be recorded for that minute between 11:59 and 11:58. Interesting cut to Kash Patel and Pam Bondi feverishly removing the same minute from all the other day's tapes going back to 1999. Hmm, interesting. All right, next up, some better news from democracy. Docket In a major win for voters, a federal court ruled that a Kansas law banning pre filled mail in ballot applications is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. The law, known as the personalized application prohibition, made it a crime for voting groups to send voters mail in ballot applications with basic information like their names or addresses already filled in. U.S. district Judge Katherine Vraytil. I think that's how you say it. GW Bush appointee held last Thursday that Kansas Legislature enacted the law to suppress speech which advocates voting by mail. The lawsuit was brought by Vote America and the Voter Participation center, two nonprofit organizations that work to increase voter participation, particularly among young people, voters of color and unmarried women. They argue that pre filled applications make it easier for voters to request a mail in ballot and they're a key part of their outreach efforts, quote, providing personalized applications to young voters, voters of color and unmarried women provides them simple access to advanced mail ballot applications. The court said Republicans in the Kansas legislature passed the law in 2021, just weeks after the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection. The court found that Kansas officials offered no compelling reason to criminalize pre filled applications despite the state's claims that the prohibition prevented fraud. And some more good news from NBC. A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from barring Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood under a provision of the Republicans sweeping tax and spending package. Massachusetts U.S. district Judge Indira Talwani issued the temporary restraining order directing Health and Human Services to take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be dispersed in the customary manner and timeframes to Planned Parenthood. The order will remain in effect for 14 days because it's a temporary restraining order. And the judge will hear arguments on July 21 on whether to grant a longer pause in the provision. A preliminary injunction in this provision of the administration's, well, I call it the billionaire bailout bill, which Trump signed into law Friday. Quote, we're grateful that the court acted swiftly to block this unconstitutional law attacking Planned Parenthood providers and patients. That's what Planned Parenthood Federation of America said. Also Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood association of Utah in a joint statement, all three of them, quote, already in states across the country, providers and health center staff have been forced to turn away patients who use Medicaid to get basic sexual and reproductive health care because Trump and his backers in Congress passed a law to block them from going to Planned Parenthood. There are no other providers who can fill the gap if the defunding of Planned Parenthood is allowed to stand. The fight is just beginning, and we look forward to our day in court. The provision bans state Medicaid funding to health care groups primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health and related medical care, including abortions for one year, while federal law already prohibits health care providers from using federal Medicaid funds for abortion unless the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother or is the result of rape or incest. While a provision in the billionaire bailout bill doesn't directly name Planned Parenthood, the group alleged in its lawsuit Monday, the legislation is a naked attempt to leverage the government's spending power to attack and penalize Planned Parenthood and impermissibly single it out for unfavorable treatment. The group claimed that the law violates its equal protection rights and retaliates against protected speech. So that preliminary injunction hearing July 21st all right everybody, it's time for some good trouble. What are you guys doing? All right everybody. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants health and Human Services employees to snitch on their colleagues who have supported diversity, equity and inclusion. And it looks like the form is open to anyone. We will have a link to it in the show Notes do your worst. All right everybody, Stick around. We'll be right back with the amazing Garrett Graf to talk about Long Shadow, the new season of his podcast. So stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.