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The Daily Beans
The People’s Purse
00:40:20
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 Today, RFK Jr pauses a billion dollars in Medicaid to California and Minnesota; Rep. Jamie Raskin is seeking documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s foreign contacts; IRS Chief Frank Bisignano spied on colleagues when he worked at JPMorgan; Trump and the OMB are violating the Impoundment Control Act by ignoring Congressional appropriations; an appeals court has overturned the release order of Mohsen Mahdawi; an appeals court has denied Peter Navarro’s bid to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction; and a federal judge says Trump has to hand over his financials in discovery in the BBC libel case; plus Allison delivers your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Allison Gill
History is messy. It's weird, wild and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you stop and ask, wait, is this real life? From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising heartwarming tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos, and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole. MSW Media. Msw media.
- [00:59]
Brian Caram
Beans
- [01:01]
Allison Gill
daily beans daily beans. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, July 22, 2026. Today, RFK Jr. Is pausing a billion dollars in Medicaid to California. And Minnesota Representative Jamie Raskin is seeking documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's foreign contacts. IRS chief Frank Bizignanos spied on colleagues when he worked at J.P. morgan. Trump and the Office of Management and Budget are violating the Impoundment Control act by ignoring congressional appropriations again. An appeals court has overturned the release order of Mohsin Madawi. An appeals court has denied Peter Navarro's bid to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction. And a federal judge says Trump has to hand over his financials in discovery in the BBC libel case. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everybody, happy Wednesday. It's the taint of the week, the middle of the week. It's hump day. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. What day is it? Yep, it's hump day, everybody. Happy Wednesday. First of all, Peter Navarro was denied by an appeals court to overturn his conviction for contempt of Congress when he failed to respond at all to a January 6th select committee subpoena. He was referred to the Department of Justice. He was charged by Merrick Garland. He went to court, he was found guilty, and he spent four months in jail. Now, he's been appealing that ever since. Trump won't say that he got executive privilege. Trump won't pardon him. And so he's been appealing and he was denied that appeal. And of course, Harry Dunn and I are going to go over that all in detail on today's episode of cleanup on aisle 45 so you can get more information there. He does plan to appeal. Not sure if he's going to appeal on bonk to the full circuit or if he's going to go up to the Supreme Court, but we're going to keep an eye on it for you. All right, everybody, there's a lot of news to get to today, so let's hit the hot notes Hot notes. All right, first up from the Guardian, the Trump administration has paused more than a billion dollars in Medicaid funding to my state, California and to Minnesota, citing suspected fraud and non compliance withholding of funding. That allows a $243 million pause in Medicaid payments to Minnesota earlier this year. Quote, if those states want the money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate. That's what RFK Jr. Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, said at a press conference on Tuesday. Officials relied on AI to identify potential fraud. And we know how that goes. Quote we used AI this is Kennedy. We used AI, advanced analytics and other cutting edge tools to identify suspicious activity and potential fraud. The pause includes more than $867 million for California and about $200 million for Minnesota. In California, most of the suspected fraud was in home services, he said. Kennedy has several times singled out in home care provisions, which can be a lifeline, by the way, for disabled individuals. And that's rhetoric that has worried families and angered lawmakers. Vice President J.D. vance threatened in March to withhold funding to states if they did not cooperate with new fraud task forces headed by Vance and established by a White House executive order. The health department is also expanding its exclusion authority in order to override states and remove, quote, bad actors from federal health care programs and even permanently ban them from receiving federal funding, according to RFK Jr. Payments had been used to, quote, pad the pockets of criminals, said Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, at the press conference. No mas, he said. No more. It stops. Oz said the government has identified potential areas at high risk for fraud, but claimed that, quote, states have not yet been able to document fully and acceptably to the federal government claims that are unresolved and claims that smell like fraud. And if it smells like fraud, we're not paying for it anymore. Unbelievable. In home care for persons with illness and disability, quote, often these are services that your family would typically have provided for you and it's a program which can be abused, according to Oz. Wow. In March, the state of Minnesota sued the Health and Human Services Department for withholding Medicaid funds. This is going to be stopped and overturned in a lawsuit. It seems like they just, the DOJ wants to lose another lawsuit here or at least get another lawsuit filed against them and lose trying to withhold Medicaid funds. You can't do that. You can't do that. And we'll talk more about what the OMB is doing later in the show next up from Politico, Jamie Raskin, ranking member on House Judiciary, is pushing the federal government to provide all of its records on Epstein's contacts with foreign governments pursuant to an inquiry he launched Tuesday into whether the convicted sex offender had acted as an unregistered foreign agent. It's perhaps a preview of House Democrats plan for next year if they take back the House majority in the November midterm elections, Raskin could assume the House Judiciary Committee gavel as soon as January, giving him broad subpoena powers, the kind necessary to capitalize on an investigation. Quote, Jeffrey Epstein never registered as a foreign agent. That's what Raskin wrote in a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jay Clayton, Trump's pick for the Director of National Intelligence, quote. Yet numerous recently released documents now show he acted aggressively on behalf of multiple foreign governments, including several with interests adverse to the United States, in order to influence policies of the first Trump administration. Raskin has little power to pull together a full scale investigation while his party remains in the minority, but he could yet succeed in dragging Epstein back into the mainstream. Last year, the public backlash after the White House announced it was shelving the investigation on Epstein's contacts threatened to engulf the administration, leading Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to successfully force a House vote that resulted in the release of the files. The White House, quote, absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein file. That's what Vice President J.D. vance told podcaster Joe Rogan last week. In his Tuesday letter, Raskin alleged that Epstein had offered to serve as a conduit between Saudi Arabia and members of the Trump administration that he had consulted with Russian officials on engaging with the president and advised former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Quote, just as President Trump has said, he's been totally exonerated on anything related to Epstein. That's what White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. It's not illegal to lobby on behalf of a foreign government, but it is a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration act not to register as a foreign agent. Quote, an unprecedented global sex trafficker who described himself as the best friend of the president for many years, interacted with foreign governments at the highest levels and offered them advice on how to deal with the president and influence his administration. That was in Raskin's letter. All right, next up, an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal. Frank Bisignano, the head of the IRS and Social Security Administration, sits atop two government organizations that store vast reams of sensitive financial data about every single taxpayer More than a decade ago, he was co chief operating officer at JPMorgan Chase, another perch that gave him visibility and authority over every part and a massive financial institution. At the bank. People familiar with the matter said he spied on fellow executives using his authority over the security department and position to access sensitive information and internal communications. Without an apparent business justification. The executive directed his security staff to use software to snoop in the email of rival executives, including Charlie Scharff, JPMorgan's then head of consumer banking, who is now the CEO of Wells Fargo. That's according to some of the people. One executive said he suspected the spying and put a code phrase in his email, which he said Bisignano repeated back to him. Bisignano also accessed a draft complaint from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about a questioned derivatives trade that was confidential, a document only seen by a few members of the legal department. He also directed his staff to use software to surveil the work of employees, sometimes seeking to track keystrokes, which can show draft versions of written material. The people said that Bisignano's goal was to keep a tight rein on employees and use the information to undermine his rivals as he expanded his responsibilities. No allegations are known to pertain to the improper access of customer information. Now. Around the end of 2012, following years of complaints about his behavior, including allegations of disrespectful conduct toward colleagues and underlings, and of the breaking of company norms around data collection, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon lost trust in him and told Bisignano he would support him finding a job elsewhere. Bisignano left the bank to become CEO of First Data, which later merged with fiserv, a payments company critical to the digital infrastructure used in card transactions and banking. Now, Courtney Forrest, a lawyer for Bisignano, said in a statement that he never spied on coworkers. She said he, quote, never directed anyone to look through any employee or executive's communication or engaged in any form of surveillance. She said Bisignano, quote, never accessed the draft FERC complaint, that he and Scharf, quote, have maintained a strong personal and professional relationship for years and that it was false, quote, that an executive planted a code word to catch Bisignano reading an email. Courtney Forrest said, quote, diamond never asked, encouraged or suggested that Mr. Bisignano leave JP Morgan and that Bisignano voluntarily left to become the CEO of First Data. She also said, quote, the claim that Mr. Bisignano's growing responsibilities at JP Morgan were accompanied by a pattern of undermining colleagues is patently untrue and inaccurate. After Bisignano left the bank, investigators for the legal department found digital traces of the spying activity, including records that showed email access, according to some of these people. As a result, Matt Zames, who took over as JP Morgan's sole chief operating officer, increased restrictions on access to sensitive employee information, requiring approval from senior members of the legal department to access emails and other data. President Trump picked Bizignano to become chief of the Social Security Administration, the government retirement system, as we know, and he was confirmed by the Senate last year. His responsibilities were expanded later in the year when he was appointed to the new position of the CEO of the irs, running its daily operations. Last Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced that Bizignano would take charge of the implementation on Trump accounts, the tax deferred retirement accounts for kids at the Social Security Administration and the irs. His challenges include modernizing the systems that power the nation's biggest benefit agency and tax collection authority, both of which still rely on technology that's more than 20 years old. At the IRS, which has rotated through a half dozen leaders during the Trump administration, Bisignano is also tasked with enforcing the tax law with a smaller staff. So six half a dozen leaders at the irs, probably because none of them wanted to give him that tax immunity. Now Trump has complained that the IRS was weaponized against him by political enemies. And in May, Bisignano agreed to settle a lawsuit that Trump brought against the agency for the 2019 leak of his tax records that include an unprecedented agreement that the government would never review or audit previous tax filings by Trump, his sons, or the Trump Organization. Again, I hate that they're calling it a settlement here, but because it's not. But that's what they said. On July 13, Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami harshly criticized the agreement, in part because Bazignano is part of the Trump administration. The federal judge said the president and his family acted in bad faith to bring the $10 billion lawsuit and said it was brought to manipulate the judicial process. Her ruling does not alter the no audit promise, but she said the acquiescence to it by Bisignano and others was wholly incompatible with their duties to enforce the law and protect the public interest. What the Wall Street Journal is leaving out is that another treasury general counsel was fired for pointing out that giving the tax immunity to Trump was illegal and also that they didn't just act in bad faith, as the Wall Street Journal says here, they brought a fraud on the court. They colluded to bring a fraud on the court and. And she referred them to the bar for disciplinary action, including Todd Blanch. So I'm going to add that little bit of a more accurate language that the Wall Street Journal left out. All right, from the Hill. For centuries, kings embroiled England in numerous wars on the European continent, largely without consulting Parliament in advance. Monarchs would do this because they alone had the power to both command the armies and to pay them. This bitter experience convinced our nation's founders of the importance of giving Congress, not the president, the power of the purse. 250 years later, that crucial choice is under active attack by a White House that increasingly is snatching that power of the purse out of the hands of a feeble Congress. Trump's most direct assault on Congress's constitutional power of the purse is his repeated claim that he can implement cuts that he has proposed to federal programs. And even after Congress has refused to make those cuts, a unanimous Supreme Court rejected similar attempts to override Congress from Nixon. But Trump and the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vaught are undeterred. Federal law requires that the president initiate the budget process by submitting an annual budget request to Congress each February. This is only a request. It has no force of law. No president's budget request is enacted without Congress making changes. The president's budget request does include a wealth of financial and programmatic information that helps Congress craft the nation's actual budget. That is, that is what happens next. Congress determines how much it wants to spend in each major area of the budget and then assigns the Appropriations Committee to write detailed funding bills. Inevitably, these add to some of the president's proposals, while trimming or eliminating others. Even in these polarized times, most appropriations legislation is bipartisan. If a president strongly disagrees with Congress's spending choices, he can veto the appropriations bill and begin negotiations. But once the president signs the bills into law, those are the legally binding funding levels for each program. This year, as in years past, Congress made some of the cuts that the president proposed, while rejecting others that they thought were unwise. But what happened next was different. This year, rather than implement the laws Congress passed and signed, and he signed, Trump has directed some agencies to implement cuts that Congress rejected. For example, his budget request proposed eliminating the Community Development Financial Institutions program. Congress provided the funding anyway. Trump's Office of Management and Budget used a technical tool called an apportionment to block $289 million of these funds from being spent, largely disregarding Congress's decision to reject the cuts. Similarly, Trump proposed cutting funds for the Smithsonian by more than $60 million. Congress rejected that cut and increased Smithsonian funding to account for inflation. Vaught's office then unlawfully forbade the Smithsonian from spending any money that Congress appropriated beyond the president's budget request. In both cases, Vought likely has been emboldened by the Impoundment Control Act's lack of penalties for unlawful withholding of funds. They did it to Ukraine during the shakedown that Trump was impeached for in the first term. Congress has made clear that this is not allowed. For more than a decade, annual appropriations bills have been required government wide that no funds may be used to increase, eliminate or reduce a funding program, project or activity as proposed by the President's budget request for a fiscal year until such proposed change is subsequently enacted in an appropriation act unless the administration follows congressional procedures to reprogram the appropriated funds. Now, when a president delays, withholds or impounds funds to impose a cut that was rejected by Congress, he's blatantly disregarding the appropriation law. The funds appropriated for the salary of the Office of Management and Budget officials imposing those cuts is being spent in direct violation of that legal prohibition. The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly found that even small improper expenditures are still illegal. Spending public funds contrary to the terms of an appropriations act violates the venerable Anti Deficiency act, which carries criminal penalties. Last year the OMB could argue that it was cutting spending enacted under Joe Biden. Not that unilateral cuts are legal, but it could at least make the argument. This year, however, it is implementing cuts that Trump proposed and Congress rejected. And the provisions that Congress has in place to punish officials who implement rejected cuts or rejected increases definitely applies. Members of Congress are concerned about preserving the constitutional separation of powers. It should warn Vought and agency officials to reverse these lawless actions or else face consequences. And if that fails, criminal referrals to the Department of Justice are possible. If not now, then during the first years of the next presidential administration within a five year statute of limitations. It should go without saying, but America is not a monarchy. Our founders granted Congress the power of the purse to prevent the kind of abuses people suffered when kings controlled both the army and the purse in England. As the Supreme Court insists that we honor the Constitution's original public meaning, the other two branches too should respect the founder's wise choice to grant the power of the purse to the people's representatives in Congress, not to unaccountable executive officials. All right, next up from Reuters U.S. appeals Court ruled on Tuesday that a lower court lacked jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to release pro Palestinian advocate Mohsen Madawi from immigration detention in a decision that could pave the way for his eventual rearrest. Maudawi, who is 35, was one of several non citizen students who were placed in deportation proceedings last year after taking part in demonstrations against Israel's military campaign in Gaza. The arrest prompted court challenges that placed Republican President Trump's crackdown on immigration against the right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Tuesday's decision from a three judge panel of the Manhattan based 2nd U.S. circuit Court of Appeals stopped short of backing the Trump administration's push to deport noncitizens in the US Lawfully on the basis that their presence in the country runs counter to U.S. foreign Policy, a practice that rights groups say infringes on free speech. But taken together with another decision earlier this year in the case of pro Palestinian advocate Mahmoud Khalil, the ruling could make it more difficult for non citizens detained in immigration jails to seek their release quickly on the grounds of an alleged violation of their First Amendment rights. Now the panel drew a shitty panel. It included two judges appointed by Trump during his first term and a third appointed by G.W. bush did not order Madawi's immediate rearrest. Madawi could ask a full panel of all the Second Circuit's active judges to hear the case or appeal to the Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Madawi, said there was no basis to deport or redetain Madawi while the appeals process played out. Now Madawi, a West bank born Columbia University student, was arrested in April 2025 upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. Vermont based U.S. district Judge Jeffrey Crawford ordered him released on bond two weeks later, ruling that he enjoyed the same First Amendment free speech rights as U.S. citizens. Everybody does. In overturning that ruling, the Second Circuit panel said Crawford didn't have jurisdiction over the case because it should have been resolved in in immigration court first. Crawford was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama earlier this year. The Philadelphia based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals reached a similar conclusion in the case of Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who spent more than 100 days in immigration detention before his release on bond by a federal judge in New Jersey. Khalil has asked the U.S. supreme Court to review the divided 3rd Circuit's conclusion that his claims should have been heard through an appeal removal order from an immigration court. Both Khalil and Madawi were authorized to be in the United States and neither has been charged with a crime. I still have faith the full court will correct a legal error and restore the constitutional principles that protect all people equally. That's what Madawi said in a statement and from Politico. A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that Trump must turn over detailed financial information in connection with his defamation lawsuit against the BBC. US Magistrate Judge Lett concluded that Trump's sweeping complaint put injury to his business at the forefront and made their vitality a fair subject for the BBC to demand information about. Quote, all of President Trump's brand properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now an issue in this case. That's what Judge Lett said at the conclusion conclusion of a three hour hearing. Her decision opens the door for BBC to expose the finances of more than 400 companies owned by the Trump family Trust. But Trump can appeal the ruling to a US District judge, Roy Altman, who's a Trump appointee, leaving court. Trump attorney Al Brito, who's also been referred to the bar for disciplinary action, declined to comment on let's decision or whether Trump's going to appeal this. Trump's lawyers had tried to head off the ruling by backing away from some of his initial damage claims, giving up on assertions that the 2024 BBC documentary had cost him economic injuries and diminished the value of his companies. Brito told Judge Lett the president's approach to the case has evolved and he's now pursuing only damage to his reputation, not his businesses. Please don't look at our business records. That's been the result of how the BBC spliced together portions of Trump's January 6, 2021 speech. That's what hurt his reputation and his businesses. Trump contends that the edits made him sound like he was calling for violence. Okay. If the suit continues, Trump is virtually certain to be required to sit for a deposition. However, the BBC has moved to dismiss the suit on the grounds that the UK Based broadcaster lacks enough of a presence in South Florida to give the court here jurisdiction over the network. Judge Altman has yet to rule or schedule a hearing on that motion to dismiss, so we'll keep an eye on that. Very interesting. All right, everybody, we have a lot of good news we need to get to, but we have to take a quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Fast growing trees makes it so much easier to stop just talking about improving your yard and actually start doing it. They are America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of plants and trees and more than 2 million happy customers. And it's easy to see why you get the convenience of shopping from home without giving up the selection or the expertise of a great nursery. 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- [26:17]
Brian Caram
I'm Brian Caram and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes one interview at a time. Join us as each week Brian confronts the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth. We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram every week as we cut through the noise and get straight to it. This is Just Ask the question for curiosity will lead us to the facts. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question.
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Allison Gill
Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news? Everyone then good news everyone. Good news. Good news. Okay, time for the favorite part of my favorite part of the show. At least I hope it's yours too. Send your good news to us. It can be anything. Big, small, from yesterday, from 20 years ago, from 50 years ago. Maybe just a note to say hi. You can send in good trouble suggestions. Send in your favorite street joke, misheard song lyrics, just a funny story. Something happened to you on the way to the train. It doesn't matter as long as it brings a smile to our face. We want to. We want to microdose that hope. So send it to us. You can also give a shout out to a loved one or a nonprofit or a small business you want us to know about or yourself. We love a self shout out government program that's helped you or a loved one. Send it all to us dailybeanspod.com click on contact and just attach a photo to get your stuff right on the air. It can be your pet. It can be an adoptable pet in your area. A random animal on the Internet. I'm accepting any and all Jimothy photos and videos. If you live in that Seattle neighborhood or if you just want to grab a photo of Jimothy off the Internet and send it to me, that works too. It can be a photo of your garden or what you're knitting or quilting or crocheting. Anything you're making or creating. Anything that will bring a smile to our face. And if you're traveling, I would love to see pictures of your travel as well. Send it all to us dailybean spot.com and click on Contact. First up is your Good Trouble. Good Trouble today. There are 104 days left until the midterms. OMG. And your very simple, very important Good Trouble today. Make sure that you and everyone you know and love is registered to vote. They are purging voter rolls the likes of which you've never seen. It is quick and easy and it never hurts to double check. Check your voter registration status@vote.org and there are links to all the state official voter registration lookups. And we've included a link to a list of voter and election day registration deadlines by six state in the show notes. Your other Good Trouble today. We've got eight days left. Nine days left to raise money for the Trevor Project for San Diego Pride Month. It's July. That's when we have our Pride celebration here in San Diego so you can donate. We've raised a ton of money for the Trevor Project. They support LGBTQ+Youth. They have a great crisis hotline 24. 7 crisis services, advocacy, peer support, public education, research programs and you can make your tax deductible donation@trevor project.org beans so even if it's just a dollar, everybody listens to the show, gives a dollar, we smash some fundraising records. I'll tell you. All right, first up in the good news from Amanda, no pronouns. Good morning from a newish listener. I found your show after I kicked Twitter years ago and it's been such a comfort with gestures wildly. My youngest started calling Trump president toilet after the last last election and it never fails to make me laugh. Attached, please find a cross stitch of Baba Yaga I am proud of completing and a protest sign made by said 6 year old. Oh my goodness. Thank you for all you do. You make the mornings bearable. Amanda, this is gorgeous. I love it. It's a little witch's cottage with a couple of cauldrons and just amazing. I absolutely love it. Baba Yaga. Look at that. Oh, it's so good. All right, and then here's a drawing, a protest sign from the six year old toilet. Rude, unfair, mean, pea brain. I love your 6 year old. Thank you so much for this, Amanda. All right, next up from Jane Pronoun. She and her greetings musical fruit. Folks, I'm writing to give thanks for advice I got from your show and you suggested doing something tangible to help our community and be with like minded people in solidarity. I've been volunteering once a month at a garden that provides organic produce to the local food bank and it really does help with anxiety. Shout out to the grassroots garden part of food for Lane county who grow over 40,000 pounds of produce every year. I hope to settle any balance due with a picture of Sassa Brass playing at an event in KC raising funds for advocates of immigrants rights and reconciliation emergency fund in indivisible Kansas City. Again, your advice was true. It filled my heart to be with people standing strong for freedom. The second pick is Seren, the serendipitous Serengeti kitty Giraffe, Cat in the garden. Sent with big, big love. Jane. This warms my heart. Jane, do something in your community, man. I'm telling you, you feel like a million bucks. All right, look at this Sassa Brass. I love it. It's a big brass band and that garden is gorgeous. Hi kitty. Hi, Kitty in the garden. Thank you so much for this. Oh, this is so great. Filling my heart with joy. Next up, from Carolyn Pronoun. She and her thanks beans Queens for all you do to keep us informed and connected. I attend a community led water aerobics club class. This is a great way to meet people of different ages and perspectives. Our teacher plays high energy songs over the splashes. I thought the song Everybody's going to a party oh so Happy is actually Chocolate by Soul Control. Everybody say chocolate. Chocolate. Your good news segment is oh, so Happy. So here's to building community. My pet tax is my picture. A picture of my dog Murphy, who is oh so happy to be running around getting muddy. That's a happy dog. And that's a scrappy dog. Look at this baby, Carolyn. This is amazing. A community ed water aerobics class. I see. I see where I misread that. All right, next up from another Amanda pronoun. She and her hello beans and queens. You rock my frog socks. Here's a new goose outfit for smiles and Harry being cute. Keep being fantastic. Okay. Love the new goose outfit by this is a person has a goose lawn jockey like a goose in their yard. There's a little pride flag there with the goose. And you dress up the goose. Now the goose has a ukulele, a couple of lays, some long, blonde, curly crocheted hair and a pair of red sunglasses and I think a purple bikini top. But I might be wrong there. Oh, hello, kitten. Hello, sweet kitten. That is definitely a cute little cat. That's my Ned cat. And my Ned had a freckle on his nose too. So Harry and Ned cut from the same cloth. All right, next up from Grace. Oh, my goodness, there's a lot of redaction bars on this. There's going to be a dog here with a lot of breeds. I can tell our rescue pup, Una Una Banuna just turned one year old. I'd like to shout out the amazing squishy face crew va sfcva.org who rescues pregnant dogs and others from high risk shelters and raises their puppies in foster homes. Please enjoy guessing her breeds. Oh, my God, this dog is adorable. And there, look there. It looks like there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 breeds. All right, let's see. Soft coated Wheaton terrier. I'm writing these down. South Dakota Wheaton terrier, Cairn terrier, Poodle schnauzer, Jack Russell. And then we're gonna throw in a chow chow and oh my God, this dog is adorable. Some kind of something. A chihuahua maybe. All right, I'm all right. I've got enough guesses here. Let's see what we got. Poodle. Got it. Australian Cattle dog? Really? Okay, I didn't get that, but the markings make sense. Labrador, retriever, Pit bull, Terrier. Maybe this dog is bigger than I thought. Australian Shepherd, Chihuahua. I got that one. Boxer. Okay. And Staffy. Wow. So I got poodle and Chihuahua, and that's it. This dog must be bigger than I think. I don't have anything for scale. It's just an adorable dog face, by the way. So cute. It looks like my friend, My friend Zach had a dog named Lola. Look just like this. All right, next up, from Carolyn Pronoun. She and her hello. This is the stuff I do to keep sane. This isn't Recent, but amusing. Mr. Spock Monkey instead of sock monkey. I get it. He lives with my wonderful friend Julie. We used to watch Star Trek during sleepovers in beautiful San Bernardino, California. Love you, Allison. Whenever somebody says beautiful San Bernardino, I always think of Ghostbusters. You could have live living the high life in the beautiful San Fernando Valley. Let's see here. Oh, my God. It's a Spock Monkey puppet. He's got his eyebrow raised like Spock does when he says logical or fascinating. And he's got a tricorder. This is fantastic. I want to Spock Monkey. Carolyn, this is so great. My friend and I, when we used to sneak out at night and go to her house, we would watch the Fugitive, a QM production. That's what we would watch. Oh, they would play the old black and white reruns on Nick at night. Okay, next up, from Sherry, Kitchen Table Days listener here. Thank you, Allison and Dana, and all your supporting staff for your hard work and absolute trustworthiness. Oh, thank you, Sherry. Thanks for listening for so long. By the way, if you're new here and you don't know what Kitchen Table Days are, when I very first started the Miller She Wrote podcast back in November 2017, I did it at my kitchen table. And so that's why we call it the Kitchen Table Days. The sound was horrible. Echoes. You could hear the fridge running in the background. Awful. You can still hear them. They're still up on the Internet. Without you and the Leguminati, I think I'd lose my tiny little mind sometimes. Just a quick thank you for creating this safe space for your community. Most recently, I'm grateful to our traveling members. I became disabled with epilepsy 16 years ago, and between health issues and poverty, I can no longer travel. This week, courtesy of fellow Leguminati, I've traveled to Italy and to see the Falling Waters House. I luckily toured that years ago Keep the travelogues coming, especially for those of us who can no longer visit those special places that will sadly always remain on our bucket list. For my pod pet tariff, here is Layla, so named because she's a rocker. She spent seven. She spent 18 months in a shelter before we found another. We found one another and she is my world Sherry. Look at this beautiful baby. Yeah, my cat Bruce Willis was at the shelter for his whole life. I got him when he was almost two in the shelter. He was found as a kitten abandoned in a plastic bag on a beach in Malibu of all places. I found him when I was this was 2012. I just started working at the VA in Los Angeles. I'd moved from the San Diego via up to Los Angeles to help them with their call center. And I had just been in the documentary the Invisible War and some private person donated a bunch of money for everyone who was in the Invisible War. It's a documentary about military sexual trauma to take part in this amazing 60 day supplemental therapy outpatient program where you did EMDR, talk therapy, yoga, art therapy, mindfulness, and every day, you know you'd go for the whole day. And every day I would take lunch and I would go across the street to this no kill shelter. And every day I would see Bruce Willis in there. His name was Socks at the time, but I changed it to Bruce Willis because he looks just like Bruce Willis. And I eventually took him home. He was just the best man. I love him and I miss him terribly. But look at this sweet baby. All right, next up from Renee Pronoun. She and her hi ag don't be lonely. We're all out here listening. I do miss my Dana. Since everyone has been sharing their summer travel experiences, I thought I'd give you mine too. My husband drove as we made our tour to Tennessee. I recently had to travel to Nashville Nashville for a double regional conference with my teacher sorority Alpha Delta Kappa. We had representatives from all 19 states in the two regions, plus other attendees from around the United states. With about 480 of us there in total, it was a really good conference. After Nashville, we drove to Chattanooga, which is a great small city that everyone should see one day. While there I had an opportunity to check off a bucket list item to go through a cave. I never thought I'd actually accomplish this because I'm fairly claustrophobic. But my pick is proof I made it to Ruby Falls. This is me and my sweet Walt with the falls behind us. He was my supporter all the way and he has been for the last 22 years. Thank you for the news and the swearing. Dana's coming back. Hang in there. Thank you so much. Renee. Look at this beautiful photo. Oh my gosh. I need to go and check that out. It's in Chattanooga, huh? Incredible. And what a fun conference. Boy, everybody, thank you so much. I needed all that good news. I am lonely without Dana. So please send me all your good news. I want to connect with you all. It's my favorite thing in the world, so send it to us dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. I will see you all over on the Beans Talk. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do. It's free. Just Google beans talk, MSW media and you'll be able to get to our YouTube channel where you can subscribe for free. And I'll be back on your ears tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family. I've been AG and them's the Beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joel Reeder with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information Please visit msw media.com msw media
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Brian Caram
I'm Brian Caram and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes, one interview at a time. Join us as each week Brian confronts the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth. We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram. Every week as we cut through the noise and get straight to it, this is just Ask the Question for curiosity will lead us to the facts. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question.