Tuesday, October 6, 2026 Today, in a rare interview with CBS, Justice Alito says Obergefell is settled law; ICE is releasing detainees who win Habeas petitions only to re-capture them seconds later; Jane Doe in the Cornell 7 case is receiving threats to drop her lawsuit; the Supreme Court rejects Roy Moore’s bid to restore a defamation case; Brazil heads to a runoff after Bolsonaro and Lula both fail to get a majority; a British banker who outed Howard Lutnick’s trip to Epstein island has been found dead; the U.S. rushed to move B-1 bombers from a British air base after credible Iranian threats; plus Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
Today, in a rare interview with CBS, Justice Alito says Obergefell is settled law; ICE is releasing detainees who win Habeas petitions only to re-capture them seconds later; Jane Doe in the Cornell 7 case is receiving threats to drop her lawsuit; the Supreme Court rejects Roy Moore’s bid to restore a defamation case; Brazil heads to a runoff after Bolsonaro and Lula both fail to get a majority; a British banker who outed Howard Lutnick’s trip to Epstein island has been found dead; the U.S. rushed to move B-1 bombers from a British air base after credible Iranian threats; plus Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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Guest: Janet Reitman
Author of The Inheritance: An American Tragedy in Five Acts
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604725/the-inheritance-by-janet-reitman
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Cornell rape accuser faces threats demanding she drop her lawsuit, attorney says | NBC News
The Alito Court: A rare interview with the influential Supreme Court justice | CBS News
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Supreme Court rejects Roy Moore’s push to restore $8.2M defamation verdict | AP News
Horror as final post of banker who outed Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein resurfaces | Raw Story
Bolsonaro and Lula head to a runoff in Brazil's presidential election | AP News
U.S. Rushes to Withdraw Bombers From U.K. Air Base After New Threats | The New York Times
Dennis Hastert, Powerful Politician Disgraced by Child Sexual Abuse, Dies | The New York Times
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msw media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Tuesday, October 6, 2026. Today, in a rare interview with CBS, Justice Alito says Obergefell settled law. I don't believe him. ICE is releasing detainees who win habeas petitions, only to recapture them seconds later. Jane doe in the Cornell 7 case is receiving threats to drop her lawsuit. The Supreme Court has rejected Roy Moore's bid to restore a defamation case. Brazil heads to a runoff after Bolsonaro and Lula both fall short of getting a majority. A British banker who outed Howard Lutnick's trip to Epstein island has been found dead. And the US rushed to to move B1 bombers from a British air base after credible Iranian threats. I'm Alison Gill.
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
I know we're going to talk about this, but I do not believe a word that comes out of Justice Alito's mouth.
not at all. Are you kidding me? I don't trust any of the conservative justices about anything. What was settled law? They said Roe v. Wade was settled law. They said it was precedent. They turned it the fuck over. So don't start with me with, oh, it's settled law.
Yeah, and you'll cover this. But he. He says, oh, it's different. Obergefell is different from Roe v. Wade because people did stuff like got married and things after Obergefell. And that didn't really happen with women. Women didn't have any expectations for bodily autonomy, basically. And it's, oh, my God.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Yeah, fucking. Oh, my God. I have a great guest today. She's an author, Janet Reitman. She just wrote the Inheritance An American Tragedy in Five Acts. The book comes, and it's basically an elegy of the post 911 evolution of extremism in America, following five stories that sort of illustrate what has happened to us post 911 and how maybe our reaction to 911 pushed some people into extremism. Really fascinating book.
Interesting. Very interesting. Looking forward to hearing that interview.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. All right, everybody, we have a bunch to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up, from NBC, in a surprise to exactly zero people, the woman who says she was sexually assaulted by Cornell University fraternity members has received threats pressuring her to drop her lawsuit. According to her attorney, Thomas Jufra. That's her attorney said to CNN State of the Union that people attempting to unmask his client's identity had also targeted at least three women mistakenly identified as Her.
Wow.
The former Cornell student is identified as Jane Doe in court documents, quote, she's received multiple threats and women who aren't even Jane Doe have received threats, Jufre said. And he added that he had received a threat on Sunday morning. Juver did not identify those responsible or say whether the threats had been reported to law enforcement. And he did not immediately respond to NBC News requests for more information about the threats. The allegations have sparked, as we know, renewed scrutiny of the university's and local authorities handling of the allegations. And Governor Kathy Hochul, as we discussed yesterday, appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to consider whether criminal charges are appropriate. NBC News reported Friday that Cornell police interviewed witnesses and received anonymous tips during their investigation in 2024, but that the Tompkins County DA, Matthew von Houten, didn't even review that additional information before deciding not to pursue charges. At the time, he has defended his decision, saying that Jane Doe's initial six page statement to police did not allege criminality. We've talked about this. There was 120 page deposition shrunk into six and a half pages.
Yeah.
And the fact that she said I was 100% raped was omitted from that six page statement. Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff said on Saturday that the university has to do better and that its board of trustees would announce an independent review of its handling of the case next week. So you're going to announce that you're going to review it in the future? You're going to announce that you're going to do it in the future? Like just wired.
I really. Yeah, all of the people involved in this initial investigation need to be investigated. Yeah, it's craziness. this is a rare interview with cbs. One thing Alito makes clear the Dobbs decision did not do was to call into question Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark ruling guaranteeing a right to same sex marriage. All right. Despite Thomas's arguments, Alito says that case is different because people have come to rely on it to organize their lives. Unlike, he says, with Roe, fuck all, all the way off. You know what's really inconvenient? An unwanted fucking pregnancy. Alito. Now, Alito made that point in this majority decision and he emphasizes it in his book. And let me also say, you know what also is what you plan for a pregnancy that is endangering the life of a fetus or the mother. Yeah, I just can't with this fucker.
Oh, well, you know, I don't organize my life around my bodily autonomy at All.
Ugh. Alito made that point, by the way, in his majority decision, and he emphasizes it in his book. While he refused to directly say how he would vote if a case ever reached the court, in our interview, he all but said, obergefell is settled law.
Okay, so he wouldn't say it. He wouldn't say how he would vote if Obergefell ever came up.
Right. Which is what they all said while they were going through this confirmation hearing. It's settled. It's settled law. I did not, and this is a quote, I did not think that there was any realistic prospect that it would be overruled because of the passage of time and the developments in this country.
When was Roe?
They said Roe was overturned because it was too young of a law. Obergefell is like 40 years younger than Roe or something like that. He said, I knew that the decision in Dobbs would be attacked on the grounds that this is terrible decision, not only because of what it says about the right that was identified in Roe, but also because it will mean that these other decisions, Obergefell and contraceptive decisions are also going to be potentially overruled. And that was not a realistic prospect. And I wanted to lay that out. Alito, said even though in Obergefell he rejected the idea that the Constitution guarantees a right to same sex marriage, the case remains settled law under principles of stare decisis, which means settled law. But it also means to let the decision stand, like in Roe. Correct. And I quote, one of the important factors we take into account in deciding whether we should reexamine a past decision is the degree to which there has been reliance on the decision. M. This is what he said. Obviously, a great deal has changed in the country as a result of Obergefell. There was a lot of reliance in various ways on the decision In Obergefell. I pointed out that people thought Roe v. Wade was settled law of the land, had organized their lives around it. Overturning Roe also would have consequences. And he said, Obergefell, he said, was different. And this is the quote. After Obergefell, people of the same sex got married and entered into contracts. It was much more concrete. Whereas with Roe, the argument was made that it had an effect on people's ideas, women's ideas about the kind of society that they were going to live in. And this would have an effect on the society. It was much more abstract than what would have been involved had we been asked to overrule Obergefell.
Abstract. Tell that to the women who are bleeding out in parking lots. Because they can't get an ablation or
going to prison because of having to get an abortion or miscarriage. Having a fucking miscarriage and being charged with murder because of it.
That doesn't seem abstract to me.
Fuck.
Nope. And I don't believe him for a second. Oh, mergerfell's different. It's stare decisis. It's settled law. It's what you said about Roe.
And he was also, by the way, in that interview just shocked and dismayed about the leak of the Dobbs decision.
I know.
Probably one of his clerks.
Dickhead.
Probably.
Next up from Minnesota Public Radio on Thursday morning last week, Ivan, who's 27, signed papers to be freed from immigration detention at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. A judge had granted his habeas petition and ordered his release. He walked toward the doors, planning to visit a church and thank God for his release and then see his wife. Quote, I didn't even make it to see the sun, ivan said in Spanish in a call from Freeborn County Jail on Saturday. Five federal agents were waiting for me. The, agents handcuffed him and took him to Albert Lee Jail, which contracts with ICE to hold immigration detainees. Ivan requested to only go by his first name out of fear of retribution. John Barham, one of Ivan's lawyers, was baffled. At worst, he thought agents would try to arrest Ivan later that day after he got home, quote. But we certainly didn't expect they would have this kind of farce thing, sending him to Whipple, giving him his possessions back, and then walking him right into the hands of some other ICE agents before he could even leave the building. That's what his lawyer said. Operation Metro Surge officially ended in Minnesota, but attorneys say federal agents have simply adapted and shifted tactics since last winter. They worry pushing the boundaries of legal definition of release is just the latest strategy that federal agents are using in Minnesota to fulfill arrest and deportation quotas. ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on this practice, the practice of immediately rearresting immigrants whose habeas petitions have been granted by the court. A petition of writ of habeas corpus is often translated from Latin as you should have the body. It requires government officials to produce a person they are holding and justify to a judge why the person is imprisoned. The number of habeas petitions filed on behalf of immigrant detainees skyrocketed in the past year as the federal government changed its interpretation of immigration law. Previously, immigrants without status or with pending cases might not be arrested at all and instead would regularly just check in with immigration court. If they were arrested, they could get out on bond. But now the federal government argues that it can automatically detain immigrants, even those without criminal records, without a bond hearing until they are deported. The Supreme Court has said it's going to take up that case, by the way. And Ivan isn't the only person. Dana. NPR News spoke with four additional attorneys who said multiple people they have recently represented have fallen victim to this bait and switch.
there's so many things about this administration I hate.
Yeah, I know.
So many things. All right. This is from the Associated Press. This is also one of the things about this administration I hate. The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected Roy Moore's push to restore an $8.2 million defamation verdict over a 2017 Senate race ad funded by a Democratic aligned super PAC. Justices declined to hear Moore's appeal of a lower court decision that vacated the large verd. The outcome keeps in place the decision by the 11th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals that erased a jury's decision that Moore had been defamed by the ad. It was a victory for Senate Majority pac, which funded the ad and argued it was truthful. The decision comes months after the court in June rejected Moore's emergency request to put the 11th Circuit decision on hold while he appealed. Moore, a former Alabama chief justice who also ran for a different office and rode his horse to the polls to vote, known for his hardline stances opposing same sex marriage and supporting the public display of the Ten Commandments, lost that race. The 2017 Senate race after his campaign was rocked by misconduct allegations that I do believe involved a very young person,
a 14 year old girl.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Yeah.
And that's what the ad was about. And he said, they defamed me and a jury awarded him some money. But then the 11th Circuit overturned it and the Supreme Court says, we're not listening to you, Roy Moore.
Yeah. So good.
You did something right. Supreme Court shocking. Next up from RAW story. This is crazy. The final online post of a British banker who reportedly died by suicide shortly after outing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's business ties to Epstein left several critics speechless. On Sunday, Simon Andre, a former employee of Lutnick's Canter Fitzgerald Group, used his insider knowledge to dig through the Justice Department's millions of released Epstein files and unearth emails that exposed business dealings between the top Trump administration official, Letnick, and the convicted sex offender. Subsequent reporting revealed Letnick's business dealings with Epstein took place as recently as 2014. Now, while Letnick was forced to backtrack on his previous statements regarding Jeffrey Epstein and visiting the island. He was not charged with a crime or accused of any wrongdoing because Todd Blanche is killed covering up for him. Andries, who was found dead last week in an apparent suicide, immediately raising suspicion among countless onlookers and even drawing the attention of Rep. Thomas Massie. And on Sunday, a number of critics stumbled on his final post on Twitter, the content of which some found to be chilling. He said, I am the British whistleblower who reported evidence concerning Howard Lutnick, his links to Jeffrey Epstein and canter Fitzgerald and BGC to the FBI in 2020 and 2021. That's from a post on a Twitter account widely reported to belong to Andres. It went on to say, the personal consequences of whistleblowing and the retaliation I say followed have been devastating for my family and me. So follow me here on Twitter and on LinkedIn. I intend to share more of the evidence and the story behind what happened.
And then he just disappeared. And by disappeared. Yeah, come on. I know we are living in a fucking weird timeline. Weird timeline. All right. This is from the Associated Press. Flavio Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump and Brazil's incumbent President Luis Enacio Lula da Silva, was. They're going to face off in a runoff Oct. 25 for the top job of Latin America's powerhouse economy after neither won a majority in Sunday's vote. The country's electoral court in Brasilia said neither the 80 year old incumbent. That's right, 80 year old incumbent seeking his fourth non consecutive term, nor the 45 year old son of former President Jair Bolsonaro would garner the majority vote needed for an outright win. The court had Bolsonaro with just over 56 million votes to Lula's 53.7 with 99.8% of the vote reported. The next presidential term is set to begin January 5th. Bolsonaro addressed the press and a small group of supporters, including some wearing green and yellow Brasil jerseys and one woman wrapped in the Israeli flag, outside his, Brasilia home. And I quote, brazil wants change. That's the reading of what happened today. This is what Bolsonaro said. It's the end of the Workers Party era, he added in a reference to Lula's party. Both Lula and Bolsonaro will have three weeks to reach moderate voters who did not support them in the first round. Augusto Curry, a writer who finished in third place with 3.4 million votes, said he would not endorse either of Those people on the runoff, Ronaldo Caido and Rylan Santos, two candidates who garnered about 5.3 million votes combined Sunday. They have previously said the same. So this is a total of 8.7 million votes that are up for grabs.
Way over. Bolsonaro? Yeah.
Way over.
Because he was what, 54 to 56? Ish. 53 to 56.
Yeah.
What are you doing? Brazil.
I know.
Have you not seen what's been going on here in the United States? Seriously, man. We'll see how the runoff goes next. Up from the Times. The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran backed plot against the installation. According to two U.S. officials, the withdrawal is highly unusual. Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone. But the need to move the bombers out of the base, RAF Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed in their home base in South Dakota by Sunday, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. In September, US Military commanders received a chilling warning from American and other Western intelligence agencies. According to US officials, RAF Fairford was the target of a potential Iran backed attack. Now the murky outlines of a plot had been pieced together through a combination of intercepted communications, informants and other intelligence. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his intelligence officials also warned their British counterparts of a probable Iranian sponsored attack, though they did not provide a specific target. Thanks, Bibi. Follow up attacks were likely to include drones, according to the confidential assessments. And that's what I had initially been thinking. Although many right wingers online were arguing that, you know, a couple guys in a van aren't going to take out your B1 bombers. Yeah, drones. Everyone. Drones.
Yeah.
So they had to move those B1s really, really fast. Very unusual.
All right. This one's from the Times. Dennis Hastert, one, obscure Illinois congressman who rose to become the longest serving Republican speaker of the House before falling from grace in a sex abuse scandal that came to light after he left government has died. He was 84. Good fucking riddance. Like a serial molester. Yeah. Mr. Hastert, a former teacher and wrestling coach, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in April of 2016 for violating federal banking laws. Have made millions of dollars in secret Payments to cover up sexual misconduct with a male student. Just a reminder that not all victims are female.
Or even subscribe to one gender, but
pretty much all perpetrators are dudes.
Just a reminder. Yeah, well said. Well said. he was released, by the way, in July 2017. Remember what I just said? He was going to prison for 15 months in April 2016. Released July of 2017, and from then on lived out of the public eye. Despite his earlier prominence in Washington, Mr. Hastert admitted at his sentencing that he sexually abused teenager wrestlers as young as 14, whom he coached at Yorkville High School in Yorkville, Illinois, where He worked from 1965 to 1981. Federal judge who sentenced Mr. Hastert called him, and I quote, a serial child molester.
All right.
Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.
First, serious. That's the. The days I, you know, wish I wasn't an atheist. I wish hell existed and that he was burning in it. All right, I have to talk generally for about another 15 seconds without a swear word before we go into the break because, you know, we have some terms and conditions.
Good luck with that.
God damn it.
Now I gotta start the clock all over again.
Do, do, do, do.
How's your day? How's your day with the news of Hastert? yeah, we can't. We aren't, you know, I don't want to. Can't do swear words within 15 seconds of a commercial break.
So.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Everything's great.
Oh, I didn't know that was real. I apologize to the listeners. And we're just gonna go and take up seven more seconds, and Allison and I are gonna talk about this after the recording.
Yeah, well, we have a really great guest coming up, right? Janet Reitman, who wrote the book the Inheritance, which is out today. And I'm looking forward to having a really informative discussion with her. And it's a great book. You're gonna wanna get a lot of these for holiday gifts and little free libraries. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody. So there are weeks when I enjoy cooking, and then, there are weeks when I would like dinner to just simply appear the moment I get hungry. Home Chef is the way for me, because they can give me both. Home Chef delivers restaurant quality meals to my door. that's far less than the cost of eating out and without all the extra hassle of shopping, which I love. Home Chef makes the healthy options a lot easier to stick to because so much of the work is already done. The ingredients come pre proportioned. The meals follow dietitian approved nutritional guidelines with options that are high in protein, rich in fiber to help support fullness, appetite regulation, blood sugar stability, regularity. And I also appreciate how there's over 30 meals to choose from each week, so I never get bored. It's practical, it's varied, and the meals are convenient and less expensive than takeout. I recently tried their indulgent mushroom gnocchi with parmesan and pine nuts. It was amazing. The flavors were great, it was easy to make. Even cleanup was a snap because you know than, you know, different from making it from scratch. Because Home Chef has made it easier to enjoy the kinds of meals I want, when I want them, without all the hassle. And people really love it too. Home Chef is rated number one by users of other meal kits for quality, convenience, value, taste and recipe ease. And for a limited time, Home Chef is offering you 50 off and free shipping for your first box. Plus you get free desserts for life. Go to homechef.comdailybeans that's homechef.com dailybeans for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. Again, homechef.com dailybeans must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Okay. I'm excited to introduce you to Cozy Earth, especially because their bamboo sheet set gave my bedroom one of the best upgrades that I loved immediately. No new furniture, no redecorating, just fresh sheets. And the whole bed and the whole room felt upgraded. Now they're made from viscous from bamboo. And Cozy Earth has a huge range of colors, so you can actually find something that fits your room instead of settling for whatever happens to be available. My first night sleeping on them was the moment I understood that this is exactly what I've been looking for. The fabric is unbelievably, smooth. It's buttery, soft against your skin, but it's also light enough that you don't feel buried under it. And it doesn't get hot, it's cooling. And I tend to notice that heat at night. You know, menopause and all that. And these sheets stayed breathable and comfortable. Instead of trapping that warm, sticky feeling, they naturally wick away moisture as well, which means the bed feels fresher when you wake up. Cozy Earth also gives you room to try them out without feeling locked in. Their 100 night sleep trial lets you sleep on them and see how they work for you in your bed. If they're not perfect Returns are easy and you get a 10 year warranty, which is reassuring when you're investing in something that you'll be using constantly. I love my new sheets so much
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So head to cozyearth.com use our code daily beans for up to 20% off. That's code daily beans all one word for up to 20% off. Home and sleepwear. And if you see a post purchase survey, please be sure to mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here on the Daily Beans. Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm honored today to be joined by the author of a new book called the Inheritance An American tragedy in five acts. It's like a post 911 evolution of extremism in America, but it actually does kind of go back a little bit further than that to set the whole thing up. Absolutely incredible book. And it's out today on October 6th. Please welcome Janet Reitman. Hi Janet, how are you?
Hi, I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
Thank you. And thank you for writing this book. This is fascinating to me. When I was a young, a Youngster in the 90s and the 80s, Neo Nazi skinheads were on the rise and I was in an anti racist skinhead group and many of the people from the rival Nazi skinheads are like now still listed in the Southern Poverty Law Center's like top 15 extremists, like from all the way back then. And so to see what happened, following these five acts, and I should say it's like the stories of five people or groups of people and it's sort of through the lens of what happened with them, describing extremism in post 9 11America. And it's just absolutely fascinating read. And I wanted to ask because, you know, I host a Show with Andy McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, and he always talks about post 9 11. Everything got ripped up and moved over to counterterrorism. And so when we talk about white collar crimes and corruption in the government, for example, they just sort of stopped looking at that and everything was focused on counterterrorism. You talk about that and kind of the stuff in the 90s that led up to what happens here post 911 in the book, in the Inheritance, talk a little bit about that, the setup.
Well, I mean, I think the, in terms of white supremacy or extremism, I think that extremism or white supremacy or racism, all of these things, these are not new. These are part of our country. They exist in many countries. It's part of who we are on some level. But These negative impulses, I think they really get suppressed during periods. or to put it another way, they get suppressed unless there is some kind of a traumatic incident that fractures everything and allows these, sort of dark impulses to emerge. And 911 was definitely one of those moments because it was really like a moment that, And not just like the attacks itself, but what came after those attacks was a total rewriting of the American narrative. It took, you know, we all sudden became a country that was completely oriented around fear and around declaring a war on terror, which is a war on fear, basically. Right? And we militarized the fear, we politicized it, we internalized it. And I think that, we turned. We were encouraged in a sort of very organized way. Like, people forget this, I think, but like there was a, kind of a directive given to the American people that you have to get on board with this war on terror. And if you don't, you're kind of the enemy, right? You, like, actually you're. I mean, literally you're either with us or with the terrorists. Was. Was a line that people used. Like, it's now become almost sort of like a cliche. But at the time people talk that way, then, you know, President Bush talked that way. And so, you know, it was. And I don't think we really even knew what that meant and what that was going to mean moving forward. But I think what it did is it created a lot of divisions in this country and it encouraged a level of, distrust in one another that enabled all kinds of forms of extremism, not just white supremacy, but anything, honestly, anything political extremism, name something to emerge and take hold. And so that. So my book is, I had actually begun this book in 2017 while I was reporting on the sort of the rise or the seeming rise of the neo Nazi. Right. It was right after Charlottesville, and sort of. A lot of people were sort of trying to understand what was going on. and I was talking to a family whose son had just become very involved in this sort of neo Nazi, far right movement. And they didn't understand what was going on in this country, and neither did I. And so I, I think a lot of people were asking the question of, where are we right now? What's happening in this country? How is it that these suburban white guys in polo shirts and khakis are walking down the streets of a college town shouting anti, Semitic and racist slogans? And how is it that at the same time we had also elected a president that was saying these kinds of very polarizing statements himself. So I thought that what would be important would be to try to tell a story that could explain how we had arrived at this place. And I went backwards to this moment of fracturing that I understood and tried to tell that story through people. Right?
And because, you know, as I read this, you start asking yourself questions like, are the things we put in place like the Patriot act and the FISA courts, the secret FISA warrant courts and this you're with us or against us thing, if that sort of extreme response to what happened and could you even call it, we all demanded kind of an extreme response to what had happened on 9 11, but did it also trigger more extremism against it? Right, because as you, you know, you bring up, you talk about what goes on in the 90s with like Waco and you know, this real distrust in government. And McVeigh was just, you know, a veteran who is in a lot of aspects, a lot like the disillusioned veterans that you talk about in the book. So let's, let's, let's do that. Let's talk about these, these five acts because first we have the Onisheks, right? And that is a couple, a dynamic family with all sorts of things going on.
They are, they are a, a middle class, upper middle class family from the suburbs of Boston, from Wakefield, Massachusetts, very close to, to Boston. And we meet them, we actually meet Walter otischuk in the 1980s, in 1980 as a matter of fact, which was the year that Ronald Reagan was elected. And Walter was 16 years old and he was in a prep school in the Boston area. And he's a very kind of in some ways like just sort of a typical privileged white guy. He would say this about himself, right? He was a typical privileged white guy at that point in the late, in the 80s. And you know, very kind of preppy was. It took for granted that he was going to college, went to college, studied engineering, computer engineering. But he gets out of college and he is so bored with the idea of working at like a desk job and all he wanted to do was to go and have an adventure. And he, which is very normal and you know, lots, of, lots of young people in their early 20s feel the exact same way. But he had a secret desire to join the Navy and. Which was so uncool. Let me just say if you were growing up in the 80s and the 90s, I don't know about how you felt about this. But it was seen as very uncool. This was not like a time where everybody was like, rah, rah. Patriotism.
Not at all.
Let's all thank everyone for their service. It was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, why in the world. His parents were like, why in the world would you join the Navy? You're going to go to college and you know, get a master's degree or whatever.
Yeah.
And he, he wanted to have an adventure. He'd literally seen Top Gun and was like, I want to be a pilot. And so he, he goes off, he joined, he, you know, does, goes through officer training. He becomes a helicopter pilot and he spends the 90s flying helicopters for the Navy, having a great time during this peacetime military, which was a kind of a great time to, to honestly to travel around the world on the government's dime and do a lot of fun things if you are into that and not really risk your life in any significant way. And then after nine, 11, by this point he's married and he's living in suburbia and he decides to kind of use his high security clearance to get himself a job in the sort of military, tech contracting world. So he worked during R and D for a company for government funded sort of outfit that works for groups like, you know, for companies like Raytheon or Bechtel or whatever. So he was basically helping to oversee some of the technological developments that helped to build the national security state. And what I was interested in, in telling his story was how that played out in his life. You know, how that. Which initially it did not. It was as if it didn't matter. It was almost as if like, you know, he was just going to a job and doing his thing and it didn't really matter what this, what this technology was being used for. What it was being used for was to drone people, to increase security at the airports, to increase surveillance. You know, all the things that were put in place by TSA or by the, you know, the military itself to to kind of wage and then expand this war on terror both abroad and at home. And his. He had two children who completely looked up to him. They worshiped him. One was a girl, one was a boy. And his son Andrew was a very, he was kind of a militant kid. You know, he wanted to be a macho, he wanted to be a hero. He had grown up in an era like sort of after the, the peak of the Iraq War. So he, he sort of longed to be old enough to go to war, but he was not old enough to go to war. And. And he, ultimately found his way into a neo Nazi organization. He got kind of hooked on right wing ideology online and, and winds up joining a group called the Atomwaffen Division, which was a. Became a very famous, sort of infamous far right group. But he was one of the earliest members and. And was tragically killed. It's. It's a. I am summing up what is a extremely long and complicated story.
Yeah. And his sister is involved. She was a conscientious executor or whatever, and she was first woman in the Navy SEAL program. Like just an extraordinary family. But, yeah, the sun drifts toward extremism. There's. And, you know, she becomes a conscientious objector because of what has happened to her brother, who may have drifted toward extremism because of, you know, I mean. Well, when they recruit. Right. They go after lonely adolescent men and who need a place to find home. Right. A tribe.
Yeah. I mean, I think that they're not. It's really complicated how kids get into these groups, because they're not really. I wrote about another guy whose name is Nathan d', Amigo, who was, a young adult. I mean, he was already an adult. He was in his late 20s when he got interested.
And I learned from you, first time that he was the one who coined the phrase, you will not replace us, which was later chanted at Charlottesville as well.
Charlottesville. And he was a veteran. And he came out of the military, with ptsd, untreated ptsd, having a very, very difficult time in Iraq. And, he did two tours and he came back and he, you know, one thing led to another essentially, and he wound up in prison. he robbed a cab driver at gunpoint on one drunken night in San Diego and wound up in prison. And, was cut loose, you know, from the military, which was like his family in a way. Right. So cut loose from that. Cut loose from all his benefits. given. No, there was no PTSD treatment. There was. Nothing was available to these people at this time. I mean, now, you know, PTSD at that time was a very kind of new, believe it or not, for the military. They were just realizing that people were coming home with this trauma that they had not anticipated and they didn't know how to treat. And the treatment programs would not even be put in place. And we can have a long conversation about whether those programs are even effective.
Yeah, it didn't get really robust until about 2006, 2007. And then it had to build from there, but.
And it had to build from there. And so he, you know, he came back in 2007 and the Marines didn't even recognize that PTSD was a real thing. Yeah, it was, Brandon. It was. Yeah. And so. Yeah. And so he winds up in prison. And of course, you know, white supremacist ideology is, is, is part of prison life, you know, that you can, lots of people, lots of young white guys can get turned on to various far right books. And the Aryan Brotherhood is very big in persons. So it's like, it's not a surprise that he got interested in this stuff and he gets out of prison and he's a white supremacist. But he goes looking for a way to kind of, spread the word. He had grown up as an evangelical Christian, and so he wants to spread the word. How am I going to kind of. He goes to college and he tries to talk about his views with his classmates and his professors, who immediately shut him down, of course. And so he finds his way online and then he meets people online who are, you know, equally frustrated and, and lonely and whatnot, and trying to connect with one another. And so Nathan finds a community of people that ultimately will help him elevate his ideas and, and in so doing recruit young people into his movement. They, the more organized white supremacist movement identified, him as a hugely attractive, sort of avatar for their movement because he was handsome, he was a marine, he was well spoken, he had a very sort of studied way of speaking. And so he was great for promoting what they wanted to promote recruiting this younger generation. Andrew Onischuck was not one of the kids that was attracted to Nathan's organization, which was called Identity Yoruba. He wanted something harder core. But you know, the the way I used to talk about the Internet was like, imagine it's just like it was a. At this time, you know, in the sort of mid, mid to late Obama era, right. It's like a big city and, and there are these like nightclubs inside this city that really nobody should be able, no, no child or teenager should be able to get into. But they're not going to card you. So you come in and there's a. In that place you're going to meet a lot of people who share some of your ideas and it's going to be, you know, who are equally lonely or who equally feeling adrift, and it's going to be the greatest club ever. It's going to be the one place that you can hang out where you feel normal. And in that club are going to be some bad actors that are looking for exactly you. And as a child you do not know how to discern. And this is what happened to a number of young people. And Andrew, I think was probably one of them. He met, he hung out on various in airsoft forums. He hung out on a place called Ironmarch, which was a huge, hugely far right, and very, very popular forum for sort of the international, neo Nazi movement. and so he hung out there and you know, there are people of all different age groups that were there and he got sort of sucked into this whole thing. But I mean, his sister Emily, on the other hand, was this amazing and is this amazing. I just talked to her yesterday. She's an amazing person and yeah, she was. At the same time as her brother is falling into all of this. She is in an ROTC program and, she wants to be a Navy pilot like her father had been. And then she gets recruited, to try out for the seals and she becomes the first woman SEAL candidate. And it was a big deal. I guess it was fairly well publicized, but not with her name, so nobody knew it was her. And she ultimately, goes to this tryout not long after her brother has died and she just can't do it. She sees the kind of similar mentality within this, sort of elite military environment, as she recognized in her brother, extreme aggression and a complete willingness to otherize somebody in order to make them into your enemy and kill them. And she just, it just didn't sit well with her. And it increasingly didn't sit well with her until she realized she had to be, you know, become a conscientious objector. And that's what she did.
Yeah, just an incredible story. And it's. And like you said, it's not just white supremacy. We have an FBI agent who didn't like what he saw post 911 at the FBI and ended up leaking stuff to the Intercept about it. And I'm not going to give away what it is, but it's, you know, what he found out was really, really interesting stuff. We also, we have a defense attorney who defended the bride of Islam. Right. The case with Miriam, who had been recruited by ISIS to, you know, when she was young and defended her. And you get to see the resolution of what happens in that case as well. So there's all kinds of different. It's just so many different backgrounds so many different folks doing so many different jobs, but you're still kind of coming to the same conclusion. You don't necessarily do the same thing about it. But I think just. I think it's, an incredible, just elegy of post 911 extremism. And I really hope everybody comes out today. I really hope everybody gets their copy because it's the holidays. And you know what I like to do? I like to send you to the independent books, you know, bookshop.com. go to the independent bookstores, buy 10 copies, give some away for gifts over the holiday. Put some in your little free libraries. It's called the Inheritance. An American Tragedy in five acts. It is by Janet Reitman. Janet, I really appreciate you joining me today to talk about this book.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thanks, everybody. Hey, stick around. We'll be right back with the good news, everybody.
Welcome back.
It's time for the good news, everyone. Then, good news, everyone. Good news. All right. We are, what, 27 days away from the end of the midterm elections. You got to flood the zone with sunshine. Send us all your good news. It's all gas, no brakes for the next few weeks. And you, can send it to us. We need to microdose in your hope@, ah, dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. It can be good news. It can be good trouble. Suggestions, a shout out to you yourself or a loved one or a small business or a nonprofit. Or let us know what kind of good trouble you're getting into ahead of the election. Tell us how you're getting out the vote where you live. Would love to hear about that. I know we've had so many folks writing in saying, I'm giving people rides to the polls or I'm going to be a poll judge or a poll worker or an observer. Like, so many people are getting involved, and I love it. So we would love to hear from you. And all you got to do to get your stuff on the air is attach a photo. It can be your pet to pay your pod pet tax. We can try to guess the breeds in your shelter pup if you want. We're not very good at it, but we love trying, it can be a random animal on the Internet. It does. If you don't have a pet, it doesn't matter. Send an adoptable pet in your area. Send us pictures of chickens. I love chickens. Secretary birds, Pygmy marmosets. I enjoy. Dana likes otters and pandas. You can send family photos, baby pictures. Dana Loves a baby picture. Send it all to us us dailybean spot.com and click on contact. First up is your Good trouble. Good Trouble today is from Rogan's list on substack, become an operator for voter assistance hotlines in key states. What a good idea. Right now we're putting in place the infrastructure to ensure everyone who wants to stop this regime gets their ballot counted. A central part of it are voter assistance hotlines trained volunteers who are on call ready to tell folks where and when they could submit their ballot, field questions about checking registration and what documents they need, and give guidance to work through any obstacles the vote suppressors put in their way. With mail in ballots already in people's hands and early voting about to be widely available, we need as many people as possible engaged in this work immediately. And this is a role we can play from home, from anywhere in the country. Let's jump to it. Sign up to get on board in the coming days to serve voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Alaska, Texas, New Hampshire. Again, you can do it from anywhere. Trainings are multiple times per week. You can find one that works for you by clicking on the link below. the Beat voter suppression staff of Voter assistance hotline link. Or you can find it at susanrogan.substack.com thank you. Rogan's list for this idea. This is fantastic. If maybe you're not a kind of let's go knock on doors person, you're better from behind a phone, right?
Yeah.
this may be the cool the way to help for you. So I absolutely love this. Also, we are nominated for a Signal award and there's a link in the show notes to vote for us for that. And you have just another day or two left to match our donation to Equality New Mexico by going to dailybeanspod.com eqnm and the big show, the big funny Fest to raise money and to, you know, just have a good time and laugh. As we know is in a few days as well.
Yeah, Friday. I can't believe it. And QNM has been blown away by, the donations small and large because they're a small organization. So even a $5 donation to them is a big deal. So if you're thinking about donating and you want to join the rest of the beans in doing that and really making a difference in, one of the smaller organizations in the country, you can do that, like Allison said, by going to thedailybeans.com eqnm m and I love it because I'M excited to see what the total is. before we announce our donation at the shop.
Amazing.
all right, next up, looks like we got another event. This is flairusa.org's October Surprise with Cliff Cash. We love cliff. This is October 6th through 8th in DC. You can RSVP, volunteer or support at. We're gonna have a link in the show notes, but it's flairusa.org octobersurprise so you can also follow Cliff Cash on Instagram. We're gonna have a link to that. It's basically Cliff Cash Cash comedy. And also while you're on Instagram, if you have not followed myself and Alison, you can follow me at DG Comedy. I'd love to have you. And Allison is Mueller. She wrote, you know the tag. You've been following it for years.
Thank you very much. All right, first up in the good news, Anonymous in Kansas. Hi, Beans. When I first heard Adam Hamilton was running for Senate in Kansas, I thought about reaching out. And then he came on the pod and I was inspired to sit down and actually submit. Oh, he came up on the pod. Adam Hamilton was a pastor for my mother in law Hillary's funeral, and he spent time with the family during her hospice care. While these are difficult times to look back on, particularly because I'm now divorced, I'm forever grateful for Reverend Adam and his congregation for showing me what it means to give the benefit of the doubt and to hold grief as closely as love. Their example started me on a path to be the person I am today, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election. I'm excited to see Adam Hamilton's influence gaining momentum, and I know we're better for it. I've included a picture of Manjotti, the young orangutan at my local zoo many years and miles away. Watching her play always reminds me of, my mother in law.
Look at the baby.
Oh, my God. So my dream that I have not had is to go hang out with these guys and just monkeys in general. Like monkeys and otters. My girlfriend's gonna kill me. I know, but I really want. I really want to go hang out with the monkeys and apes. All right, next up from Holly Pronoun. She and her. I want to thank you for making me a smarter and more politically active person. I read the Separation of Church and Hate and even highlighted my favorite passages, something I haven't done since college. We went to visit my in laws in Colorado this summer and my brother in law thought he would have a gotcha moment with me. He knows how much I hate Trump. He said to his, what do you think that is?
A something, something, A. I don't know if we're blocking out a name here.
I know. Oh yeah. To his a something, something. Yep. Tell Holly that Trump is the greatest president ever. And Blank said there is insufficient data. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing listening to Bean's talk today, Dana said something that really stood out for me. She said the amount of money we spend on elections could solve so many problems. Sorry for the long post. My pod pet tax is a photo of the mountains in Colorado. This Florida girl still gets excited to see them. Thank you for all you do, Holly. I love this picture. And I still get excited to see all of the nature I live around, to be honest with you, even when I'm not from that area.
Wow. Fantastic. And shout out to your brother there, Holly.
Yeah, right on.
Next up from Jane. She and her. On Sunday, I walked 19k in the Jimmy Fund walk in Boston. I finished in two and a half hours.
Wow.
My listening along the way, Unjustified and refried beans. Podpet Tariff is my new grand dog, Jolie, adopted two months ago. First of all, amazing photo. Together against cancer. 19K in two and a half hours. And this doggo is so, so adorable. And glad we could keep you company along the way. Refried beans. By the way, those are reruns that we run on the weekends.
Yep, just brilliant.
Somebody wrote in and was like, you can't be called the Daily Beans if you don't have a show on Saturday and Sunday. And so it was like, all right, let's play reruns. Call it refried beans. So that. So listener idea was amazing and we appreciate it.
Yeah, that was such a short one. You want me to.
I'll go again.
All right, yeah, you do that.
From Denise. Pronouns known. No, no pronouns given. Greetings, Beans Queens. We live in central New York, but our house Happy Places Campground in rural Pennsylvania in the endless mountains. We make the drive every possible weekend, May through October, for the past way too many years. Once I crossed the border into PA on the drive down, it was an onslaught of stupid ass Trump signs. So many signs on so many properties, it was fucking gross and highly irritating to submit my poor eyeballs to it. I will say I have noticed fewer signs over the past year or so. However, I am so happy to report this past weekend as I made the drive down, I realized that I passed exactly one sign in support of that corrupt orange fuck. The realization made me smile and gave me Just a little hope that the light is breaking through where it couldn't before. So I wanted to share that little bit of good news. We have to hold on to hope and vote our fucking asses off in the midterms and beyond. For my potpat tax, I bring you Ruthie. We rescued her from a shelter that received her the day RBG passed away. So they named her Ruth. And of course I knew she must be mine. we must keep that name. When we rescued her, they said she had stage six heart murmur and might not live long. I proceeded to spoil her rotten so that her last day would be full of love and all the treats. Here we are five years later and we joke that it was all a marketing ploy. She's perfectly fine and very bossy. We're not sure of her breed, other than we suspect some pity in there, probably mixed with something smaller. Thanks for all you do to keep us factually informed with the best kind of news. The sweary kind. Thank you so much. This is a great submission. Denise. And look at this. This looks like a Chihuahua pit bull or something.
It's so cute.
Or even a wiener pit.
Oh, my God. The second photo on the table.
Yeah.
Ugh, I love it. All right. From Julie Pronoun. She and her huzzah. Salutations, Wonderful Queens of the beans and your trusty court. Behind the scenes, I wanted to share some hopeful news. Each year I end up taking a trip to the beach to recharge and prepare for the next year. I love the drive. There's something about forest covered highways that suddenly opens to a panorama of the Pacific Ocean. The only thing that has marred these trips in the past is the small towns I drive through littered with Trump flags and signs, including a barn painted with a mural dedicated to the orange baby man. Except this year there were none at all. Even the barn had been repainted to say farmers Feed America. It feels like a lot of people have had a change of heart or at least don't like the consequences on their vote. While hopeful, I'm not taking my foot off the pedal. Good, good, good. I'm pestering everyone around me to check their voter registration to make plans to get their ballots returned. There's no slowing down until we break through the tape for my Podpet tariff. I'm submitting a couple of photos of the sunset I managed to get on my trip. The weather didn't help much this year, but it did let up enough to let me play with the light and reflections. Thank you for all that you do.
Yes. Pester everyone around you. Be the annoying voter, lady. Be.
Do it.
Make it so people who know you call each other and go, man, you talk to Julie? Yeah, she keeps bothering me about voting. Be that person. Be that person. These are beautiful sunset pictures.
Wow.
Absolutely.
All right. Oh, baby pictures for Dana. In our final submission from E. The engineer. Pronouns he and him. Hi, AG and Dana. This is for Dana. My wife and I went through the IVF process. We have been fortunate. So many people have had much rougher roads with ivf. Our son was born in June, three weeks early, under six pounds and healthy. My wife is amazing. She managed so many challenges and did so good. Attaches a pic of our son. He's almost three months old. He might be small, but he's an angel. And mom is recovering. My affiliation is officially D. After 20 years unaffiliated, I'm door knocking for a candidate that will flip a very purple house seat. Stop fantasizing about the apocalypse. Start imagining the revolution.
Ooh, that should be a T shirt.
Like a. The baby.
The baby's perfect. Congratulations to you both.
E. The Engineer, Dino Hoodie and the Footprint Swaddler. And the hat. Oh, my God.
I know. So good.
look at that in the second one. He's like, super skeptical of me right now.
Yeah.
Adorable. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. You got baby pictures? I, We. We don't care what century they're from. Send them. Send them in. Baby pictures are the best.
Totally.
Along with all your other good news. Dailybeanspot.com click on Contact. I think we announced everything. I think we covered everything. Is there anything we missed?
I don't think so.
No, I don't think so either. So we'll see you on Beans Talk and we'll be back here tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health. Vote blue no matter who, and take
everyone you know with you.
And vote, blue all the way down the ballot. I've been aggressive, I've been teaching. 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 Joelle Reader 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 MSW Media Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com commsw media.