Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 Today, a federal judge rules that prisons must continue to provide gender affirming care to transgender inmates; FEMA staff was left confused after the director said he was unaware that there’s a hurricane season; the Department of Veterans Affairs has ordered scientists NOT to publish in medical journals without permission from the administration; Jonathan Joss from King of the Hill and Parks and Rec was murdered in his neighborhood in what his husband describes as a hate crime; Poland narrowly elects the Trumpian candidate in a global reversal of recent elections; Mayor Ras Baraka is suing Alina Habba and ICE for false arrest and vindictive prosecution; DOGE is actually making government less efficient and more expensive; Trump is weighing new names for Navy ships; Musk blasts the Billionaire Bailout Bill on social media; and Allison delivers your Good News.
Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
Today, a federal judge rules that prisons must continue to provide gender affirming care to transgender inmates; FEMA staff was left confused after the director said he was unaware that there’s a hurricane season; the Department of Veterans Affairs has ordered scientists NOT to publish in medical journals without permission from the administration; Jonathan Joss from King of the Hill and Parks and Rec was murdered in his neighborhood in what his husband describes as a hate crime; Poland narrowly elects the Trumpian candidate in a global reversal of recent elections; Mayor Ras Baraka is suing Alina Habba and ICE for false arrest and vindictive prosecution; DOGE is actually making government less efficient and more expensive; Trump is weighing new names for Navy ships; Musk blasts the Billionaire Bailout Bill on social media; and Allison delivers your Good News.
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Guest: Guest: Daniel Knowles - Midwest correspondent at The Economist
Elon Musk’s failure in government
Daniel Knowles - Economist, @dlknowles - BlueSky, @dlknowles) - Twitter
Jonathan Joss, 'King of the Hill' voice actor, killed in San Antonio shooting | NBC News
FEMA staff baffled after head said he was unaware of US hurricane season, sources say | Reuters
Judge orders Trump admin to maintain gender-affirming care for transgender inmates | POLITICO
DOGE vowed to make government more ‘efficient’ — but it’s doing the opposite | The Washington Post
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Um, MSW Media Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Today, a federal judge has ruled that prisons must continue to provide gender affirming care to transgender inmates. FEMA staff was left confused after the director said he was unaware that there's a hurricane season. The Department of Veterans affairs has ordered scientists not to publish in medical journals without permission from the administration. King of the Hill and Parks and Rec star Jonathan Joss was murdered in his neighborhood in what his husband described as a hate crime. Poland narrowly elects the Trumpian candidate in a global reversal of recent elections. Mayor Ras Baraka is suing Alina Haba and ICE for false arrest and vindictive prosecution. Doge is actually making government less efficient and more expensive. Trump is weighing new names for Navy ships and Musk blasts the billionaire bailout bill on social media. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey, everybody, Happy Wednesday. Taint of the week. It's hump day. Yesterday was mostly a good news day. Today, not so much. But we're gonna get through it with community and curse words. So I'm here for you. Dana will be back tomorrow, Promise. Also, I'm really looking forward to seeing all of you on June 14th at the no Kings rally. In March, I'm gonna be hosting the one down in San Diego at the county admin building at the waterfront. And we're going to have a Patreon meet and greet later in the day. And, uh, I'm very excited about that. So I'm looking forward to seeing all of you and spending some time with a bunch of awesome, smart, like minded people. Later today, I'm going to be joined by one of those smart, like minded people, Daniel Knowles from the Economist. And we're going to talk about his latest piece on Musk and Doge. Also, thanks to all our new listeners and all of our sustaining members. Really appreciate your support. Thanks for being here. And I got to hand it to Bluesky. Uh, you know, everything kind of plateaued over on Twitter after Elon bought it, but Blue sky has really helped us reach more listeners. So thanks for joining us. So, bad news from Poland. The conservative Carol. Let's see n Rocky. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Let me know if I'm not. Carol's victory in Poland's weekend presidential runoff has set the country on a more nationalist course. And it's cast doubt on the viability of the centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk after the defeat of his liberal ally. Now Rocky, who was supported by President Trump won just 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against the Warsaw mayor, Rafal. Uh, let's see if I get this right. Traskowski, who only received 49.11%. And that's according to the final results of Sunday's runoff published Monday morning. And this story is devastating content warning for gun violence, hate and harm to animals. Fast forward if you would like to avoid those things. Okay. Jonathan Joss, the voice actor best known as John Redcorn from King of the Hill, was killed in a San Antonio shooting on Sunday. Joss's husband, Tristan Curran de Gonzalez, alleged in a social media post that Joss was killed in a homophobic attack at the site of their old home while living there. Kern de Gonzalez said the couple was harassed regularly by individuals who made it clear that they did not accept our relationship. And that's a quote. Adding that, quote, much of the harassment was openly homophobic. He said the couple was at their house checking the mail when they noticed the skull of their dog and their dog's harness placed out front, causing them to begin yelling and crying. And then a man approached them and yelled slurs at them. According to Kearney Gonzalez and the man then fired at the couple. Quote, jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone. We were grieving. We were standing side by side when the man fired. Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life. So we here at MSW Media Media are sending all our love to Joss's family and community. This kind of hate, as you know, is unacceptable. All right, everybody, um, we need to dig into the news a little bit more, so let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up, who among us could have predicted that Musk and Trump would clash at some point? Besides everyone I know, this is from cnn. They said Elon Musk on Tuesday lashed out at Trump's agenda bill, which the president is pressuring GOP senators to support, calling it a disgusting abomination. Quote, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. That's what he said on Twitter. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it. He added in a subsequent post, Congress is making America bankrupt. Now. House Speaker Mike Johnson Tuesday forcibly pushed back against this criticism, arguing that Musk is terribly wrong about the legislation. He added to reporters that he and Musk had a very friendly conversation over the phone Monday where Johnson extolled all the virtues of the bill. Minutes after Musk posted on Twitter, Republican Senator Rand Paul said he agrees with Musk, adding, quote, we can and must do better. So when I thought the representatives would have to start listening to their constituents, they'd have to choose between Trump and their voters. I guess now they're going to be choosing between Musk and Trump. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene complained about a provision in the bill, which she voted for, by the way, which bar states from making, uh, artificial intelligence laws. I guess she didn't read what she voted for. And then even a little bit later on Twitter, Musk posted in November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people. Well, I for one welcome a fractured Republican Party. I imagine Republican legislators will start taking sides like I said, and I love this for them. Best of luck fellas. Next up from Reuters. And I don't even know what to say about this one Staff of fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were left baffled on Monday after the head of the US Disaster agency said he had not been aw that the country has a hurricane season. That's according to four people. The remark was made during a briefing by David Richardson, who has led FEMA since early May and kind of looks like the Vigo in Ghostbusters 2. So I am not a meteorologist, nor do I live in areas that get hurricanes. But I know there's a hurricane season. Um, so that's just embarrassing. And, but you know, par for the course put absolutely not just inexperienced, anti experienced people in these positions. So Next up from the Guardian Senior Officials at the U.S. department of Veterans affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists may not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Trump. They edict laid down in emails on Friday by Kurt Kashauer, the VA's assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, and John Bartram, a senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins. It came hours after the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a perspective co authored by two pulmonologists who work for the VA in Texas. Quote, we have guidance for this. That's what Kashauer said, a former Republican congressional aide and campaign consultant, attaching the journal article. These people didn't follow it. All part of the uh, oligarchy playbook, right? Muzzle the experts, elevate the idiots. Pulmonologists. Uh, it's baffling, right? I think so. And this is sad news from the Navy. The US Navy under Kegseth is considering renaming multiple naval ships named after civil rights leaders and prominent American voices. This is according to CBS News, among them the Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler named after the slain gay rights leader and Navy veteran. U.S. navy documents obtained by CBS and used to brief the Secretary of the Navy and his chief of staff show proposed timelines for rolling out the name changes of the USNS Harvey Milk to the public. While the documents did not say what the ship's new name would be, the proposal comes during Pride Month, the month long observance of the LGBTQ community that also coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in 1969. World Pride celebrations are being held in D.C. by the way, this was timed purposefully with Pride Month. The documents obtained by CBS also show other vessels named after prominent leaders that are on the chopping block. Among them the Thurgood Marshall, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, um, Lucy Stone, Cesar Chavez, and the Medgar Evers. Uh, I'm really sorry about all the bad news today, but hopefully these next stories will lift your spirits a little. This is from the Associated Press. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has sued New Jersey's top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility, saying the Trump appointed attorney Alina Haba had pursued the case out of political spite. Baraka, who leads the New Jersey City the biggest city in New Jersey, is a candidate in a crowded primary field for the Democratic nomination for the governor next Tuesday. The lawsuit against the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Haba, coincided with the day early in person voting began. The lawsuit seeks damages for false arrest and malicious prosecution and also accuses Haba of defamation for comments she made about his case, which was later dropped. Citing a post on Twitter in which Haba said Baraka committed trespass, the lawsuit says Haba issued a defamatory statement and authorizes his false arrest despite clear evidence that Mayor Baraka had not committed the petty offense of defiant trespass. By the way, if you say somebody has committed a crime that is like pro se defamation, like on its face, prima facie, you aren't allowed to do that. The suit also names Ricky Patel. That's the Homeland Security Investigations or HSI agent in charge of Newark. Baraka's attorney, Nancy Erica Smith, said they also expected to sue President Donald Trump's administration, but they have to wait six months to do it. So we'll look for that in six months. The case has been assigned to Judge Martinotti, an Obama appointee, and we're going to be covering this lawsuit in more detail on The Cleanup on Aisle 45 podcast. Next up from Politico. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue providing gender affirming care to hundreds of transgender prison inmates, ruling that an abrupt decision to curtail their medical care was not based on any reasoned analysis which the law requires. U.S. district Court Judge Royce Lamberth previously ordered the Bureau of Prisons to continue to provide medical care to several individual prisoners who are transgender. But his ruling Tuesday is the first that broadly blocks federal prison officials from carrying out an executive order from Trump targeting gender ideology. Trump's executive order requires the Bureau of Prisons to cease providing any medical procedure, treatment or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex. But amid a torrent of lawsuits, prison officials interpreted Trump's order to allow transgender inmates to continue to receive medication unrelated to that care, such as relieving anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. And that led to about 600 transgender inmates continuing to receive gender affirming care, while about 400 were denied. So prison officials actually defied this for more than half of the transgender inmates. So good for them. Lamberth, however, said that this parsing of Trump's order, which did not appear to have such wiggle room, amounted to a fabricated distinction. Lamberth's order requires the Bureau of Prisons to resume providing hormone therapy and social accommodations, such as gender conforming undergarments and hair removal products that were available prior to Trump's executive order. Lamberth ruled that there was no evidence the administration made any factual analysis at all before implementing Trump's directive. Quote, neither the BOP nor the executive order provides any serious explanation as to why the treatment modalities covered by the executive order should be handled differently than than any other mental health intervention. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee based in Washington, has repeatedly ruled in favor of transgender inmates suing over BOP's effort to implement Trump's policy. He ruled that transferring transgender women to men's facilities would violate the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, in part by subjecting them to potential danger. So that's good news. Thank you, Judge Lamberth and Aaron Reed. I love Aaron Reed reports from Aaron in the Morning that Missoula, Montana has cleverly voted to defy the pride flag ban by making it an official city flag. This comes after a law banned the flying of the flag, but made an exception for, quote, official flags. Now the pride flag will fly defiantly in the state. An S. Baum tells us in Aaron in the morning that Florida banned cities from lighting up bridges rainbow colors for pride. So the people of Jacksonville did it themselves using flashlights and gels. The city opened the drawbridge to block them. So they marched to a different bridge. Now, Ron DeSantis, by the way, stranded drivers at that bridge just to block people from displaying rainbows. All right, we're going to shift gears a little bit. We're going to talk about Elon Musk and Doge for a second. This reporting comes from the Post. Somewhere in the world last month, a State Department employee began the routine process of hiring a vendor for an upcoming embassy eventually, but quickly ran into a problem. The vendor was refusing to sign paperwork certifying that it did not promote diversity, equity and inclusion, a new requirement under Trump's executive order eradicating DEI from the government. The state employee, who spoke on a condition that neither he nor the location of his embassy be named for fear of retaliation, sighed. And then he got busy. The workaround, he knew would take time. First, he got his ambassador signed approval to hire the vendor anyway. Next, he filled out an Office 365 form justifying the expense in 250 words before selecting which pillar of necessary spending it fell under, choosing from options including safer, stronger, more prosperous and submitting that to higher ups and getting their sign off. And then he filled out another form, this one destined for political appointees back in Washington, and a week later the vendor was secured and approved. Now, under any previous administration, it would have taken a day, the employee said. Now, ah. Similar layers of new red tape are plaguing federal staffers throughout the government under the second Trump administration, stymieing work and delaying simple transactions. That's according to interviews with more than three dozen federal workers across 19 agencies and records obtained by the Post. Many of the new hurdles, federal workers said, stem from changes imposed by Doge. That's Musk's cost cutting team and I put that in quotes, which burst into government promising to eradicate waste, fraud and abuse and trim staffing and spending. The team's overarching goal was in its name, Department of Government Efficiency, although it's not part of the Cabinet. But as Musk departed government on Friday, many federal workers said Doge has in many ways had the opposite effect. New rules mandating review and approval by political appointees like Think back to the VA having to get approval to publish in medical journals. That's leaving thousands of contracts and projects on ice. For months, large scale firings spearheaded by Doge have cut support offices, especially IT shops that assisted federal workers with issues ranging from glitching computers to broken desk chairs. And the piecemeal reassignment of staff is causing significant lags in work in some agencies, notably Social Security, as inexperienced workers adjust to new roles. And this is happening across agencies, y' all. And I believe I pointed out the problem with firing stewards of taxpayer dollars because it would end up costing the taxpayer more. Right. Government workers save the government money. They save taxpayer dollars. So it stands to reason that when you fire them, it's going to cost you more. It's going to create more red tape, and that's exactly what it's done. And right after this break, I'm going to be joined by the Midwest correspondent for the Economist, Daniel Knowles and his latest piece about musk and Doge. But first, it's time for some good trouble.
What are you guys doing getting into trouble?
All right. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, apparently there are. There's a restaurant chain in Texas called Trump Burger. They have four locations in Texas. One in Belleville, one in Flatonia, one in Kema. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. Let me know if you're in Texas and one in Houston. And they have requested that people stop calling Trump Burger to ask if they serve chicken tacos. So if you'd like to call a Trump Burger location and see if they serve chicken tacos, we have the phone numbers for you in the show notes. Belleville, 979-270-50623 618-653893. Kima 281-532-6305. And Houston, 346-718-2850. Trump Burger locations in Texas have begged people to stop calling and asking if they serve chicken tacos. So you're welcome. And, uh, let us know how it goes by sending in your good news. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back with Daniel Knowles after these messages.
We'll be right back.
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Hey everybody. Welcome back. So I recently read an incredible piece in the Economist about Doge and Musk. It was drawn to my attention by our good friend Anna Bauer at LawF who reposted it on Bluesky. And there's a very uh, interesting little, kind of a buried lead down a little bit of a scoop and some breaking news in this article and I wanted to talk to the author. So please welcome Midwest correspondent for the Economist, Daniel Knowles. Hi Daniel.
Hi. Thanks ever so much for having me on, Alison.
Yeah, no, it's absolutely my pleasure. This is a great piece and I wanted to just kind of go over it in general. Everybody, you can find it at the Economist. You can just, you know, google Daniel Knowles and uh, see what he has to say about Musk and Doge. But you know, you open the article by talking about how when Musk was first named to the so called Department of Government Efficiency, people were excited. Like uh, you know, not, not me personally, but some folks even I think you, you, you brought up Bernie Sanders Right.
Yeah. Bernie had these comments in early December. I think it was about how, um, they needed to go, you know, Doge would be a good thing if they went for the defense budget. Um, which I think, uh, something about Musk, um, saying that they would be going for the Pentagon. And I think even when I've been covering Doge really since the beginning of this administration, and even in January, early February, I think that kept surprising me in a way, was how much, um, civil servants, people who are not, who are quite impartial, uh, were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt initially. People really, really wanted this to succe, and it obviously has not.
Yeah. And because at first, you know, you think, okay, cutting waste, particularly at the Pentagon. I mean, we have old jokes going back decades about you spending $800 on a hammer or whatever. We all, you know, some folks were like, oh, great idea. But instead of taking a scalpel and carefully cutting waste, fraud and abuse from the government, they instead came in, took a sledgehammer to it, and got rid of, in my opinion, the front line that guards against fraud, waste and abuse, which are the federal employees. For example, you know, I worked at the Department of Veterans affairs for, uh, as a liaison to the Department of Defense, the Pentagon. And my whole job, they were paying me six figures to go in and make sure that the Department of Defense was paying the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were paying someone money to make sure that the government paid the government. And I was like, my job seems like, uh, a little bit of waste. And so I worked actually pretty diligently to get rid of my job and perhaps go put a hat on somewhere else to have direct care for veterans or help actual veterans. Uh, the fact that you fire tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants whose job is to be a ward of the taxpayer dollar are. I, I don't think a lot of people understand that our federal civil servants save taxpayer dollars. And so when you cut them first, you are going to spend more money because you aren't going to have me. Like, I probably saved the government about $60 million a year by paying me, you know, $110,000 a year and multiply that exponentially across the federal civil service. When you, when you take a sledgehammer to that, you're going to end up spending more money, which we did in Q1.
Exactly. And, you know, I think, I think that an awful lot of people, uh, just simply hadn't understood, and I include Elon Musk himself in this, is that, you know, payroll is only 5% of federal spending. Um, you can fire everybody and you'll still have 95% left. Uh, it's mostly entitlement spending, defense spending, lots of things. But so it's very hard to save a lot of money by firing people. And that's really what he was trying.
Yeah. And, uh, I think that there are better ways to go after fraud, waste, and abuse, as I'm sure Senator Bernie Sanders felt as well in that particular instance. But that sort of the shine on the honeymoon sort of faded, uh, pretty quickly when we saw what started happening. And now we're actually seeing their receipts. But aside from money gutting programs like usaid, US Institute of Peace, people are actually dying.
Yeah, I mean, one of my previous jobs was I was the African correspondent for the Economist for several years. I was based in Nairobi. And if you look back at what my colleagues were writing about in that job 20 years before, it was the devastation caused by HIV, AIDS. And in the three years I spent covering Africa, that was, you know, not a story because of the incredible success of pepfar. And that has now been, you know, all but demolished. It's just stopped. And of course, so much other humanitarian aid that you would see everywhere, you know, going places like South Sudan, Somali, see the USAID kind of logos on bags, um, of grain. And again, it's. It's been stopped. And that will have real, you know, costs in lives. It's already happening, and I think it's hard to quantify, but people are trying. And it's going to be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not eventually millions of people who will have died because of these cuts. So that's the real big consequence, I think, of what, what Doge sort of achieved, as it were.
Yeah. And I think it brings the parties together in some cases. Pepfar, for example. I know the guys who started pepfar. These are Reagan, Bush, Republican men who started and helped implement and kept PEPFAR going. And when that cut came down, they were, uh, devastated. And even though it got reinstated through, you know, a court order, the damage had kind of already been done. It, you know, when you slash or sledgehammer a program that's been working for decades, you can't just put it right back into where it was. You have to dig yourself out of a hole. That can take years and years, and that costs more money. So you aren't at all saving money. But now let's talk a little bit about the US Institute of Peace and your little scoop that happened in there. Because I'VE got friends who worked there and they shut down the headquarters. I, uh, think this is something Musk was very proud of, along the lines of usaid. Uh, we did it, we put it in the wood chipper or whatever. I think the terminology they used was totally ignoring the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, including children, would and have died because of these slashing cuts. But apparently you had found something out about when they went into the US Institute of Peace offices after. In the aftermath of what DOGE had done.
Yeah. So I've been kind of following the story about the U.S. institute of Peace, USIP since March when it happened, because I thought it was such a. Just sort of fascinating and mad example of really where how much DOJ were pushing the boundaries of, uh, what presidential power can do. They had essentially an armed standoff that took over this building. They brought in the FBI, they brought in police from the diplomatic police, they even brought in the Washington Metropolitan Police, and they essentially forced the, um, employees of the USIP out of the building, all under this sort of legal claim that the President has absolute authority over anything that Congress funds, um, when USIP is not part of the executive branch in any traditional way. So I've been kind of following it for a while and writing about it and of course, yeah, um, week or so ago, a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, um, uh, there was a judicial ruling that said that all of this was illegal, how DOGE operated was illegal. And everything that they had done to sake of USIP had was essentially null and void. And so they, the, the USIP staffers have taken back their building. And of course what this thing I heard, you know, over the weekend was that they've gone in the building, had essentially just been sort of, you know, left to rot. They've got problems with rodents now that they didn't have before. There's things missing. But of course what they, what they found was, you know, it looks like in the days after taking over the building that the people who are in there, these, these dose staffers were having a bit of a party and their cleaners found whole big lumps of, uh, marijuana, um, in a trash can, um, in one of the offices that they'd been hanging out in together with beer cans and things like that. Um, and, um, I'm not a great expert in weed, but having posted a photo of it on Bluesky after my story, which print only or text only rather came out, I'm told this is very poor weed. And that seems to have driven the Internet.
It's bad weed. It's really, really bad. Wee. I would have thrown it in the garbage as well. Um, but you know, on one hand we can laugh about this. On the other hand, to think about a bunch of 20 somethings who have no experience in government coming in, uh, trashing the US Institute of Peace, partying, drinking, smoking, uh, weed, it adds insult to injury.
Yeah, I mean, I think what particularly rankles for so many people in government is that, you know, you cannot be taking drugs, uh, and that includes marijuana, which is obviously legal in the District of Columbia, but it is not federally legal. You cannot be taking those drugs if you're in government service and you can't be working, uh, with the federal government. And so there's a level of just impunity that I think, uh, beyond the sort of comicness, that's why it struck a chord. That's my sense of it.
Yeah. And as a veteran, for me it struck a chord because at the Department of Veterans affairs, we have been disallowed to even discuss the possibility of using medicinal marijuana for veterans with PTSD and, uh, other issues. Cancer, pain relief, anxiety, et cetera. Barred from even discussing it with your doctor because it's on the schedule and, uh, illegal. And then here you have these, uh, you know, people from Doge just going in and through. I guess. I mean, I hate to picture it in my head like, oh, this weed sucks and they just throw it in the garbage and leave it there. But it is, it's, it's, um, it's insulting on so many levels. And now we've got, you know, the New York Times coming out just this past week with a story about Musk being on, like the rest of us could see with our eyes, the, you know, Musk being on all sorts of drugs. Ecstasy, ketamine and K holes. Shows up at the Oval Office with a black eye, his, you know, jaw clenched and his eyes rolling back in his head. Oh, what? I'm not on drugs. You're crazy. But today, I think on, uh, Twitter, Elon Musk posted. I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know, you did wrong. You know, it. So I think, uh, either the bromance is over or this is some sort of weird controlled opposition or they're all just a bunch of idiots. And he's high AF I. But he is now. He was kind of avoiding it in an earlier interview where he was like, I just want to talk about spaceships. Uh, I don't want to talk about this administration and what I disagree with. But now he's full force coming out on Twitter and saying he disagrees with this billionaire bailout bill, and not that we necessarily needed him to be against it. There's a lot of Republicans that are calling themselves Medicaid moderates in the Senate that, um, are kind of banding together to say that we need to leave Medicaid alone. But it's just a. I don't know. The sort of palace intrigue is stuff that just shouldn't be happening at the government level. I miss very boring. I miss boring government.
Yeah. I mean, Musk, there's something, you know, following his adventure in government, as it were, in the last few months, and I've read all the biographies of him, and I struggle to peer into his head, but I always wonder, you know, there is just like, uh, you want to ascribe kind of cynical motives to everybody, but there's a part of me that wonders, just, is he just extraordinarily naive? Because it was so predictable going into the election that it would not work for his businesses to have a Trump presidency. This is a guy who hates electric vehicles, who wants to put tariffs on everything, and it's not working for his business. Um, and I know there are incredible conflicts of interest there. Trump is not the guy that Musk would have liked. And I find it a kind of. It's just. There's something comic almost in him sort of realizing that now, you know, he's.
Been disillusioned by the reality.
How did you not notice before?
Right.
Yeah.
Sort of the same as all of us. Like, uh, you know, people are like, well, I didn't vote. I didn't vote for them to deport moms. Well, I'm not sure that. Like, how did you not know? Uh, how did you not see this coming?
Particularly when you're the richest man on Earth, right?
And then you've got Tesla now, who's like, you got to stop with this government thing that you're doing and come back to us. As though bringing Elon closer to you is going to help your brand. It's. That also seems incredibly naive to me.
The damage feels like it's done to me for sure. But I. You know, I guess if you're the kind of board of Tesla, you're the, um, shareholders, you know, you getting rid of the man entirely when he founded the company, that's a fight that. That perhaps too big for them. But Certainly it seems pretty clear that Tesla owners, um, uh, sorry, in terms of the business owners rather than the car owners, but maybe the same thing. But shareholders were pretty unhappy seeing their business. Musk only owns 13, 14% of it now, essentially being trashed by his kind of grand day out in government. And they've seen this huge decline in their revenue, um, in their free cash flow. Um, the share price remains insanely high for reasons that I do not really understand, but it is a considerably less viable business than it was four or five months ago. And that is, that's not great if you're a Tesla shareholder.
Yeah, I agree. Well, I'm going to continue to follow your reporting, everybody. You should do the same. Midwest, uh, correspondent for the Economist, Daniel Knowles. We're going to be keeping an eye on the lawsuits, um, trying to protect usip. We're going to also be keeping our eye on lawsuits, uh, about violations, um, potential violations of the Appointments Clause. I know Judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled that the case can go forward against Doge and Musk for not having to go through Senate confirmation and trying to figure out who is the administrator of Doge, as everyone, everyone, uh, at Wittoed has been following pretty closely. So again, everybody, Daniel Knowles at the Economist, you want to follow this report? We appreciate it and, uh, thanks for your time today.
Great. Thanks ever so much for having me. This was great.
Yeah, no problem, everybody. We'll have to have you back on when more scoops come out.
Please do, um, please do. As you guess my title. I'm like, it's kind of a surprise to find myself on this, but obviously it's been all hands on. Normally I'm writing about kind of urban governance in Chicago and that sort of stuff, but, um, it's been a bit of a wild ride in Luster. Uh, yeah, four months of, of this. But I've been back and forth in D.C. a lot, but it's been, it's been fun.
Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, I was m. Immediately thought when I saw your scoop, uh, about the weed at USIP, I immediately thought of Johnny McEntee at the, uh, personnel, Presidential Personnel Office, um, back in the first term, he would hide bottles of Smirnov Ice in the office, and if you were unlucky enough to find one, you would have to chug it. And I was like, it's. They're just running it like a frat house. It's. That's pretty mind blowing.
I don't think I'd heard that story.
Yeah, uh, oh, yeah. It's like the feeling of having your house broken into is bad enough. And honestly, I think Doge was just a smash and grab to get all of our personal data and give it to Palantir.
But added enforcement thing, I mean, that's been my conclusion about it. It's just a device to do things that civil servants would otherwise say. No, they just bully their way through it and take control of the computer systems and go, all right, we're doing it anyway, you know.
Yeah, precisely. But, you know, it's bad enough your house gets broken into, but then you see a bunch of, you know, a bong and a couple of beer cans and that they had a party when they were doing it. That brings it just an extra level to the. To the violated feeling. All right, thank you again, Daniel Knowles. I appreciate your time today.
Great. You too.
Uh, everybody, check them out. The Economist. Everybody, stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news? Everyone? Then good news, everyone. Good news, good news. And if you have any good news confessions, corrections. You want to tell me about your Siamese cats and what I can expect from my new Siamese cat? Uh, if you have a shout out to a loved one, a small business in your area, your small business, a self shout out, a shout out to a government program that's helped you or a loved one, anything from the Affordable Care act, subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid, um, SNAP, WIC, Section 8, Social Security. Great VA health care. You've received some student debt forgiveness. Any local, municipal, county, or state programs that have helped you out. We'd love to hear about that, too. You can send it all to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on Contact. And to get your submission read on the air, you just have to pay your POD pet tariff, which means attach a photo of your pet. If you don't have a pet, you can attach an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have that, you can really just pick any animal photo off the Internet. That works for us. Baby pictures also work, and we're doing bird watching, which can be an actual bird, or you and your family and friends flipping the bird to Trump and Musk Properties. So send it to us dailybeanspot.com and click on contact. First up from Joel G. No pronouns. I recently attended Indivisifest, uh, a national gathering of indivisible leaders. It took place in D.C. and we learned organizing techniques, ideas for engagement, discussing upcoming elections and shared success stories and failures with other groups across the country. It featured the famous Leah and Ezra, of course, but we also had some trainings from phenomenal organizers and presentations by new media aficionados including Lee McGowan and Aaron Parnas. We had a cameo by Rhett Maxwell Frost and Senator Chris Van Hollen as well. The long weekend culminated with a, uh, moral Monday march at the Supreme Court with Reverend William Barber. Anyway, we walked to the Supreme Court, and on the way I took the obligatory selfie with the White House. Enjoy. Excellent bird watching photo. I thank you so much, Joel. What? Very cool. Lee is so great. So is Aaron. Um, Senator Van Hollen, Maxwell Frost. That's just an incredible lineup. I'm so glad you got to experience that. Next up from Anonymous. No pronouns. Hi, AG and DG Love the show. Patron of the Beans Cleanup and Unjustified. Thought you'd get a kick out of pics of the albino squirrel that lives on the National Mall. I swear it poses when the camera comes out. Thanks for all you do to keep us sane and informed and entertained. Oh my God, he's so cute. Uh, I didn't know he lived on the National Mall. Were you up there for the Indivisifast as well? That's so cool. Thank you for sharing that. Next up, Becca Pronoun. She and her hi Beans Queens. I'm a relatively new listener to the pod, but have been listening basically every day for a few months now. A few weeks ago, someone asked, where's all the protest music? I have an answer for that. A little over a decade ago, another person asked that same question. His name was Vincent Harding. He was a civil rights leader and an activist and was a mentor to members of the hip hop band the Flobots in Denver [Riggleman, Colorado. When Vincent Harding asked them that question, where's all the protest music? Where's the music for this revolution? The Flobots had an answer. It's inside all of us. Jamie Laurie, the lead MC of the Flobots, and other members of the band started a project called no Enemies. No Enemies is not really a choir, but it's more like a loose confederation of people that gather on a non regular basis to sing and raise their voices and then bring the music that they practice together back to the streets. Off and on for the past decade, Jamie and others have been gathering people together to teach the music that they can bring out into the protests as well as bringing the protest music into the music of the band. You can check out their album no Enemies to hear some of the protest inspired music if you've been to a protest or a demonstration in Denver [Riggleman anytime in the past 10 years and there have been people singing there, they are probably part of no Enemies. I was pretty consistently attending no Enemies practices and protests back from 2015 to 2018, but had more recently fallen off. No Enemies itself has also kind of paused, with people being busy and doing other things and life moving in different directions. But with the second Trump inauguration, Jamie has brought it back. I attended a practice this past Sunday and for the first time in a long time, Monday night I went to a protest and raised my voice in song. The gathering that night was at the Geo Group ICE detention facility in Aurora to protest against the detention of Jeanette Vizgara and other people who were illegally detained in that for profit jail. For more about that case, we'll have a link in the show notes. By the way, in addition to speeches from family members of people detained inside, lawyers and other activists, this protest was special because of the music. We sang songs that had been requested by some of the detainees and we moved to a place in the building where hopefully they'd be able to hear us sing. Singing is a very powerful thing to do in protest. You can say things in a song that you can't say in a speech, and a song can hit people in a way that words by themselves never can. Every time I raise my voice in song, I feel something deep in my soul that can't be described. Singing brings joy and it can help us express pain. Singing brings people together and makes the movement stronger. So my challenge to you and everyone out there is to find your group and sing your song. No Enemies and the Flowbots have done an amazing thing in Denver [Riggleman and that is bring music to the movement. I challenge everyone across this country to bring that music to their movements as well. You don't have to be a famous rapper or even a great singer. You can just bring your voice. You if you start to sing, I guarantee you some people will start to sing along. If you live in Denver [Riggleman, you can find the no Enemies choir meeting the first Sunday of the month at Capitol Heights Presbyterian Church on 11th and Fillmore at 2 in the afternoon. Stop by and raise your voice with us. You can also find the Flobots going out on tour this summer and doing a big show in Denver [Riggleman at the Levitt Pavilion on the Fourth of July. Go out and see them and connect with them. They love to meet people that are also raising their voices. I'm not a member of the band. I am just an old friend and a big fan. But I know they love their fans. You can find their tour dates@, uh, flowbots.com for my podpet tariff, I'm sharing pictures of my foster fails, Bronco and Snowy. During the pandemic, when my sister was moving and couldn't take her cats for a while, she, uh, asked me to look after them. By the time she could take them back, well, they still live with me four years later. Don't worry, she has new babies and just got a new puppy. Bonus. Here is the new puppy, Jill. Oh my God. The puppy is adorable and the cats are fantastic. Sitting on the keyboard, the laptop keyboard as per, is their job. Thank you for sending that in. Flowbots, everybody. Check them out. Next up, Heather. Pronouns she and her hi AG and dg. Once again, I want to thank you sincerely for making this current shitstorm of fuckery a bit more bearable. I wanted to share an awesome musician in my area of southeast Minnesota named South named James Rex. His music style is a mix of folk and rock. He's very anti Trump and his whole fascist bunch of minions. His recent album is full of anthems to fuel our protests. The album is called around and find out a few of my faves are no kings in America. And Roger, you're a fascist. He has played at a few of our local rallies and protests and I'm hoping he'll be playing at your no Kings rally. The album is available anywhere you get music. We'll have a link in the show notes. Anyway, thought you and the rest of the Leguminati would enjoy this sweary anti fascist album. For my podpet tariff, I'm attaching a photo of my 13 year old Russian tortoise named Yoda. He's my buddy and he loves to go for very slow walks on warm days. Thanks for all you do, Heather. Oh, he's adorable. Hello turtle friend. All right, our final submission today is from Janelle Pronoun. She and her hello Queens of the beans and team Happy Pride to ah. All from an ally and pa. I have a good news shout out and sort of a bummer. First good news. June 4th is my 10 year anniversary of being declared cancer free. Hell yeah, Janelle. Fuck cancer. Woot woot. Shout out to all the McGlynn Cancer Institute at Tower Health Reading. I've never felt true fear until I got the confirmation that the lump I found was indeed breast cancer. Besides bestowing knowledge, every medical professional at McGlynn truly cares for each patient and their family. We were informed of each step of my Treatment. And every question was answered with professionalism and compassion. Smiles were abundant, and hugs were given with enthusiasm. It truly breaks my heart to think of the damage being done to cancer research since the orange turd set the space Nazi and Bobby Jr. Loose on all that was formerly good. I'm sharing a pic of my mom, daughter, and sister with me ringing the bell after five rounds of chemo, a partial mastectomy, and 28 straight days of radiation. Not pictured are my oncologist, surgeon, radiologist, nurse, facilitator, transfusion nurses, sister in law who kept my family fed every three weeks while I was useless. Then my partner, love of my life, who sat with me through every chemo day, treated me like a bald queen, and never let me think we couldn't get through the nightmare. Now the bummer. After losing my voice at all our local protests, I'll miss the no Kings due to a previously scheduled family camping trip. Ag. My spirit will be with you in San Diego next Saturday. I have many fond memories from my time stationed at the naval hospital. Oh, Balboa. Huh? Huh? But I did secure my two allotted tickets for the tiny dick parade. Can't wait to not use them for podpet tariff. I give you my bestest boy, Ollie, at, uh, four weeks old and now four years old. As always, thanks for all you do. This is an amazing community. Thanks, Janelle. Puppy. And he still looks like a puppy. I'm sorry. He just still looks like a puppy. And what a fantastic photo ringing the bell. Congratulations. 10 years cancer free. Oh, uh, thank you all so much for your good news. I really needed that today. It's been a day, let me tell you. So I, uh, appreciate all the. All the good news. Please continue to send it in. Dana will be back in your ears tomorrow. There's, uh, also a new episode of cleanup on aisle 45 out today. I find we could finally find out where Harry's been traveling internationally. Um, and it's pretty cool, so check that out. Clean up on Aisle 45 free, wherever you get your pods. And, uh, everybody, Dana and I'll see you 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 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 msw media.com msw um media.