Transcript
Alison Gill (0:00)
MSW Media hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Friday, February 14, 2025. Today, the Federal prosecutor handling Eric Adams case has offered her resignation in protest of Emil Beauvais ordering her to drop the charges. RFK Jr. Has been confirmed by the Senate to destroy the health of Americans. The Office of Personnel Management has ordered agencies to fire all probationary employees. The secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins has ordered all Pride flags removed from facilities. The Kansas governor has vetoed a ban on gender affirming care for minors. The fork in the road deferred resignation program has officially ended. Feds have seized $80 million of FEMA aid appropriated to New York. The measles outbreak in Texas was completely preventable. And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the spending freeze on grants and loans. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey everybody. Happy Valentine's Day. Dana says she loves you, but she did have to make last minute travel plans. So you're stuck with me today. I also love you. Thank you for trusting me to bring you the news with swearing. And I'll be joined later by John Fugal sang today because it's Fugal Sang Fridays on the Daily Beans. And we'll have some good trouble for you as well. This one is in support of our LGBTQ + veterans and VA employees. We are going to have a lot going on this weekend. We have a weekly wrap up for patrons for the Daily Beans. On Saturday, we have a Zoom Happy Hour which with Harry Dunn, this is next week, February 21, Friday at 7pm Eastern, 4 Pacific. And that's going to be for patrons of the Daily Beans and cleanup on aisle 45. And of course, this Saturday, I'll be recording an update for the new patrons of Fed Oath, which is our nonprofit to help federal workers. Plus a new episode of Unjustified Drops this Sunday and cleanup patrons will get their cleanup bonus episode with Harry Dunn and me this weekend as well. RFK Jr has been confirmed by all Democrats and Turtle Mitch voted no. And you know, first of all, fuck Mitch McConnell because he could have stopped all of this by voting to convict after impeachment for the insurrection on January 6th. He said we don't have to impeach him because the DOJ can indict him. But then the Supreme Court granted him immunity and postponed all of those cases. He won reelection and all those cases were dropped. So thanks a bunch, Mitch. And by the way, coming out and voting no now when you don't have to run for office again is real chicken shit move. And this sort of underlies the fact that we need term limits. People grow spines when they don't have to run for office again. And so this should be a revolving door, I think. So they have confirmed RFK Jr. We have a brain worm at Health and Human Services. Also, the Office of Personnel Management has sent a letter to agency heads to fire all probationary employees. This is damaging and drastic. And I mean, just like everything else really that's going on, I imagine these letters will start going out soon and hitting people's inboxes. As always, if you're a federal worker and you want to share something with me anonymously or just vent, have a shoulder to lean on. I have my DMs open on blue sky and in my Blue sky BIO There are two secure ways to contact me, one through ProtonMail and one through Signal. Please do not contact me using a government issued phone or don't send me anything from a government email address. Maybe set up your own Proton email address and grab screenshots with your personal cell phone and send them to me that way. Also, the fork in the road deferred resignation program is over, according to an OPM email that went out after hours Wednesday night. As we know, Elon Musk had promised that that would be over as soon as legally possible. And once Judge I think it was O'Toole dismissed the restraining order or dissolved the restraining order, halting the expiration of the deferred resignation fork in the road email program, they did what they promised and ended the program. They actually ended it before they told everybody that they ended it. They sent the email out at like 8pm and said effective at 7:20pm so nobody even had a chance for a last minute resignation. So all of that's going on today, just on Thursday alone. There's going to be a lot more that happens this weekend, I'm sure. But we do have a lot of news to get to today, so let's hit the Hot Notes. Hot Notes. First up from Ryan Reilly at NBC. The top federal prosecutor in New York and two senior federal prosecutors in Washington have resigned after refusing to follow a Justice Department order to drop the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The resignations amount to a stunning public rebuke of the Trump administration's new Justice Department leadership in one of the country's most high profile criminal cases. The departures come after Emil Beauvais, the acting US Deputy attorney general and former private attorney of Donald Trump, issued a memo Monday ordering federal prosecutors in New York to drop the case against Adams, arguing in part that it hampered his ability to tackle elite legal immigration and violent crime. Danielle R. Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced her resignation in a brief statement to colleagues on Thursday, the day before Sassoon appealed to Attorney General Pam Bondi and expressed her alarm at being ordered to drop the case. That's according to a letter obtained by NBC News. I've also written this up and put some relevant parts and, you know, standout paragraphs from this letter on my substack at M. That's free. Sassoon wrote to Bondi that she had attended a meeting on January 31st with Beauvais Adams, attorney Alex Spiro and members of her office. Quote, adams's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed. That's what Sassoon wrote. She went on to say, Mr. Bovet admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Sassoon also said in the letter that her office was preparing to file additional charges for Mayor Eric Adams, quote, based on evidence that Adams destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence and provide false information to the FBI. I knew this was coming. I knew these superseding indictments were coming because of all the weird activity and people going over to do wellness checks on Eric Adams's colleagues that helped him in this. And conspiracy, obstruction charges can carry a 20 year max sentence for federal offenses. So big news, really important and a hats off to Danielle Sassoon for writing this letter and resigning. Andy McCabe and I are going to go over the letter in detail along with ML Bove's response on this Sunday's Unjustified podcast. He wrote an eight page letter saying, oh, well, I accept your resignation and all those other people in the public corruptions unit, I'm going to put them on administrative paid leave. But a lot of them ended up resigning anyway. All right, next up from Jennifer Bisram at CBS News, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is calling on city officials to step in after the federal government seized over $80 million he says was given to the city to house migrants. He held an emergency news conference Wednesday afternoon after he said his office found the money was missing from the city's accounts. According to Lander, FEMA awarded the funds to the city's house asylum seekers. Now, quote, these folks who for the most part registered with the federal government when they crossed, in many cases got sent here by the federal government. New York City stepped up to provide shelter and services to pay for that. That's what Lander said. And this comes after Elon Musk claimed that the money was being wasted on luxury hotels to house migrants, which pretty sure is a false claim. But what's really interesting about this is this wasn't money that was stopped. This money was pulled out of a bank account, $80 million. They've been robbed. Also from CBS News, a West Texas county is dealing with a measles outbreak. That's according to experts. And they're reminding Americans that outbreaks like these can be avoided with safe, effective and available vaccines. Health officials confirmed Tuesday that two dozen people have been identified with measles in Gaines County, Texas, which has one of the highest rates of vaccine exemptions in entire state. All of the confirmed measles cases in the county involve unvaccinated residents, and nine patients have been hospitalized. Now, Dr. Amesh Adalja, who's an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins, told CBS News, this is troubling because this was completely preventable. What we're seeing is one of the places in Texas it has the lowest vaccination rates, the highest school exemption rates for measles vaccinations, having a measles outbreak, including hospitalizations of individuals who've been infected with measles. Adalja said that this should act as a reminder that measles is still a risk when proper precautions are not taken. Quote, it's the most contagious infectious disease known to humans. And when we start seeing measles outbreaks, that's a sign that there's a chink in the armor of vaccination. And the fact that it's preventable I think is what people should understand. This doesn't have to happen if we can get vaccination rates back to high levels again. Now, keep in mind, RFK Jr. Donald Trump wants to stop funding schools that require vaccinations. So this could become very widespread. Next up from ABC News, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro on Thursday sued agencies under President Donald Trump saying they are illegally and unconstitutionally withholding billions in federal aid from the state that had already been approved by Congress. Shapiro filed the lawsuit despite the fact that federal courts have repeatedly rejected the Trump administration's sweeping pause on federal funding. And Shapiro's lawyers suggest that the Trump administration is continuing to ignore court orders to restore access to the suspended money. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Philadelphia, calls actions by the federal agencies, quote, flagrantly lawless and said the agencies have no legal authority to unilaterally refuse to spend congressionally appropriated money over a policy disagreement. Further, the agencies have provided no plausible explanation for the suspension. The federal agencies named as defendants are the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Energy, Interior and Transportation. They did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. By the way, in the Department of Interior's case, it said its policy is to not comment on pending litigation. The Trump administration issued a memo in late January, as we know freezing federal grants and loans. Administration officials said the pause was necessary to review whether spending aligned with Trump's executive orders on issues such as climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The freeze, of course, caused widespread chaos and a judge ordered the administration Monday to immediately take every step necessary to unfreeze all federal grants and loans, finding that the Trump administration hadn't fully followed his earlier order. They were in violation of the restraining order. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling and lost on Tuesday. In Pennsylvania's case, the Shapiro administration said about $2.5 billion in grants or reimbursements committed to Pennsylvania is now suspended or under some sort of review that hasn't been approved by Congress or any funding agreement and hasn't been explained to Shapiro's administration. The lawsuit said aid is being withheld from programs that distribute money to plug abandoned gas wells, improve energy efficiency in homes, upgrade rural electric service and reimburse industry for cutting their planet warming greenhouse gas emissions. Shapiro's lawyer said the administration cannot legally add new conditions to federal aid after a state has already accepted it and federal aid cannot be shut off unless it is for a reason that is specifically laid out by the law or a funding agreement between a state and a federal agency that violates the spending clause of the US Constitution and from Anna Kaminsky at the Kansas Reflector Kansas governor Laura Kelly vetoed Republican led legislation Tuesday that attempted to ban gender affirming care for minors, a move a top GOP lawmaker called reckless and senseless. Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed a similar bill last year and Republicans failed to coordinate the necessary two thirds majority to override her veto. The House Speaker, Dan Hawkins, a witchita Republican, said in a statement Tuesday that House Republicans were ready to override this year's veto. The so called Help Not Harm act, which restricts certain types of health care that professionals can provide to individuals under 18, cleared the House in an 83 to 35 vote and the Senate in a 32 to 8 vote last month. The House vote was one shy of a 2/3 majority with four Republicans absent. Quote Right now the Legislature should be focused on ways to help Kansas cope with rising prices. That is the most important issue for Kansans. This is where my focus is. That's what Kelly said in a statement. Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said the Senate is prepared to swiftly override her veto before the ink from her pen is dry. Hawkins said House Republicans were ready to override the reckless and senseless Veto. Senate Bill 63 would prohibit gender affirming care recommended or performed in response to gender dysphoria. That's the psychological distress that arises when a person's biological sex and gender identity differ. Gender affirming care includes the prescription of puberty blockers and hormones along with surgery. The bill would forbid the use of taxpayer dollars for promotion or education on gender transition. It would also allow civil penalties for health care workers found to be in violation. Kelly said it's not a politician's role, quote, to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind. Kelly said the legislation, if her veto is overridden, would drive Kansas families, businesses and health professionals out of the state. She added that the Legislature's support of the act was disappointing. Hawkins said Kelly's veto was a choice of partisan politics over the safety and well being of our Kansas children. Masterson pinned the veto on Kelly's extreme left wing ideology. Ah yes, the extreme ideology of parents making health decisions for their own children. Brittany Jones, a lobbyist for the anti abortion organization Kansas Family Voice who testified in favor of the Help Not Harm act and hearings last month encouraged lawmakers to override her veto. Quote Kansas children deserve better than harmful experimentation and life altering procedures, she said in a Tuesday news release. She's full of shit, she said. This bill merely regulates a medical procedure which is well within the legislature's jurisdiction. No, it's not. Some opponents have called into question the constitutionality of the Help Not Harm act if it becomes law because of a Kansas Supreme Court decision on abortion that affirmed a right to bodily autonomy. Democrats have opposed the bill in committee hearings and floor debates. I hope they do not get this. Every single doctor's association pediatric association says that this care saves lives. It's safe, it's effective and this should be a decision between parents and their doctors. Period. For anything. All right, it's time for some good trouble. All right everybody, welcome back. Our good trouble today comes from me. I've written this up@muellershirote.com I say I am beyond sickened by what's happening at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yesterday, dozens of VA employees shared a new flag directive with me sent by Doug Collins, Trump's VA secretary. It says Public Displays or Depictions of Flags throughout VA facilities to establish more consistent and clear guidance across the Department of Veterans affairs and among all employees at the VA is instituting a new policy, effective immediately, limiting the display of flags beyond the United States flag at VA facilities. The guidance applies to public displays or depictions of flags by VA employees in all VA facilities, workplaces, buildings, common areas and public areas, including but not limited to individual offices, cubicles, government vehicles, office buildings, recreational areas, medical centers, storage rooms, kitchens and restrooms all spaces or items in public or plain view outside of a VA facility, including the parking lot the public display or depiction of unauthorized flags in museum exhibits, state issued license plates, grave sites, memorial marker monuments, educational displays, historical displays or works of art where the nature of the display or depiction cannot reasonably be viewed as an endorsement of a flag by the Department is not prohibited. All veterans and VA beneficiaries will always be welcome at all VA facilities to receive the benefits and services they've earned under law. This policy will bring consistency and simplicity to the display of flags throughout the Department, which I expect to have a singular focus serving the needs of veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors. So as you probably know, I worked at the Department of Veterans affairs from 2009 to 2020 and our core values were to welcome and celebrate all who served with the explicit understanding that providing quality health care actually requires us to understand and accept all veterans, especially when providing essential, life saving mental health care. While the new Secretary claims that all veterans will always be welcome, yanking pride flags sends a pretty clear message that many are not welcome and that will have a chilling impact on patients who may no longer feel that it's safe to talk about who they are or to simply exist as a person. VA's pledge to serve all who served will be disrupted by sending signals to some who served that they're not valued. VA has spent years undoing the impacts of don't ask, don't tell, restoring benefits to those wrongly discharged and ensuring that no one is left behind. And these pedantic and childish flag restrictions on celebrating joy and individualism will have damaging consequences, and it's a far cry from the VA I was proud to work for for over a decade. Further, not one single impact study or white paper was done to test the impacts of this policy on our veteran population and their families. So I truly hope that our VA employees will continue to display pride flags and depictions of flags under the exemptions to this policy because exempt from this are educational displays or works of art where the display or depiction can't be reasonably viewed as endorsement of a flag. For example, the picture I took below is from a display at my VA clinic and I believe it to be educational and I have a picture of dog tags. One of the dog tags is a trans Pride flag. The other is the full pride flag and it says we serve all who served. So what can we do? Here's your good trouble, your mission should you choose to accept it. I encourage everyone to visit your local VA hospital or VA cboc, which is a community based outpatient clinic. You don't have to be a veteran and look for other flags that might violate this policy, including but not limited to MAGA flags, Trump flags, thin blue line flags, Gadsden flags, the Don't Tread on Me flag, Confederate flags, 1776 flags, or other outdated American flags with fewer than 50 stars, the Pine tree appealed to Heaven flag that Martha Alito waved so proudly, Punisher flags, NFL team flags, anything. And report those flags to the facility director, the visn, the VISN director, the VA Office of Inspector General, the clinic patient advocate. There's one on staff at every clinic and your Congress people. And don't forget to check the commissary and the gift shop for these unauthorized flags. They're all over there. I bet they're always selling some right wing mugs and pins and bumper stickers and shit that undoubtedly have flags and depictions of unauthorized MAGA flags on them. And finally, my door is always open for anyone who needs to talk. My secure contact info, like I said, is in my Bluesky bio at Mullershirote BSky Social. Feel free to reach out to me anytime if you need to talk or vent. And if you're in crisis, please dial 988. Veterans, press one. Love you all. AG all right everybody, we'll be right back with John Fugal saying after these messages.