Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 Today, turns out the intel that Pete Hegseth shared on at least two unsecure Signal chats came from a classified system; three prosecutors on the Eric Adams case have resigned after being pressured by Emil Bove to lie about it; new images could change cancer research but ICE has detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them; lawyers for Abrego Garcia issue their first letter accusing the government of obstructing the court ordered discovery in his case; the FDA has suspended quality tests for milk; the Trump administration will be sending those in student loan default to collections; A Tennessee bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the year; a Trump draft order calls for a dramatic restructuring of the State Department; a federal judge orders the government to give Venezuelan migrants in Colorado a 21 day deportation notice; HHS is going to scrap the national LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline; and Sarah Palin loses her defamation suit against the New York Times… again; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025
Today, turns out the intel that Pete Hegseth shared on at least two unsecure Signal chats came from a classified system; three prosecutors on the Eric Adams case have resigned after being pressured by Emil Bove to lie about it; new images could change cancer research but ICE has detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them; lawyers for Abrego Garcia issue their first letter accusing the government of obstructing the court ordered discovery in his case; the FDA has suspended quality tests for milk; the Trump administration will be sending those in student loan default to collections; A Tennessee bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the year; a Trump draft order calls for a dramatic restructuring of the State Department; a federal judge orders the government to give Venezuelan migrants in Colorado a 21 day deportation notice; HHS is going to scrap the national LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline; and Sarah Palin loses her defamation suit against the New York Times… again; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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Stories:
Info Hegseth shared with wife and brother came from top general's secure messages | NBC News
Judges extend Venezuela deportation blocks, question Trump's use of wartime law | Reuters
3 Adams Case Prosecutors Resign Rather Than Express Regret to Justice Dept. | The New York Times
US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts | Reuters
Good Trouble:
Doug Collins shared a snitch email address to all VA employees on Tuesday. The email read in part: On February 6, 2025, President Trump enacted Executive Order (EQ) 14202, Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, establishing a Task Force to review the last Administration's treatment Accordingly, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is establishing its own Task Force to better effectuate the Department's internal review. The VA Task Force now requests all instances of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting@va.gov
Submissions should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates, and locations - make sure to let them know about any anti-christian shit the trump administration is doing.
From The Good News
Signs of Justice (@signsofjustice) | IG and MSW Media (@mswmediapods) | IG
Papal conclave - Wikipedia
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Um, MSW Media Media. Hello, and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Today, turns out the intel that Pete Hegseth shared on at least two unsecure signal chats came from a classified system. Three prosecutors on the Eric Adams case have resigned after being pressured by Emil Bovey to lie about it. New images could change cancer research, but ICE has detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia have issued their first letter accusing the government of obstructing the court ordered discovery in this case. The FDA has suspended quality tests for milk. The Trump administration will be sending those in student loan default to collections. A Tennessee bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the rest of the year. A Trump draft order has called for dramatic restructuring of the State Department. A federal judge orders the government to give Venezuelan migrants in Colorado a 21 day deportation notice. Health and Human Services is going to scrap the national LGBTQ Youth Suicide hotline. And Sarah Palin loses her defamation suit against the New York Times. Again, I'm Allison Gill.
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
Hey, everybody. I should say with that again, about Sarah Palin. She actually didn't lose the first time in 2022, and we'll get into that, but she's lost it now for good. So I just wanted to sort of automatically correct or make clear what I meant.
Live in, in lifetime corrections. I mean, who doesn't love that, being like, you know, what lied to you all at the beginning of this show? That's the precedent I'm setting moving forward.
Yes. And a, ah, further precedent being set that as soon as the lie escapes my lips, I correct it.
Indeed.
Just a little bit. Uh, this has been going on for a very long time.
In other words, um, we are an honest people. That's what we are.
I think that the suit started in, like, 2017 anyway. It's been a long time coming, but she lost. And so, yeah, too bad for her. Uh, later in the show, I'm going to be talking to Andy McNew. She's the director of the East County Victory Pack here in San Diego. But she's going to talk about how to scale up her vision for how we tackle, like, rural politics to sort of close the rural urban divide.
Nice.
Uh, and so, again, it all boils down to local. Like, get involved at your local level. And so we're going to have a chat with her. And, uh, breaking news. This is just. This has just been handed to me on paper because that's how my cat's handed it to me. Tesla's net income slid 71% in the first quarter of 2025 as the company struggles to overcome competitive pressure overseas. And a reputational hit from Chief Executive Elon Musk's polarizing role in the Trump administration. That's from the Wall Street Journal. We've been waiting for this report all day. They released it, of course, after stock trading closed, so on Tuesday.
It is bizarre to me that he did not expect this. You know what I mean? Unless this is all part of some weird larger plan, this was bound to happen.
Mhm. So being that you're probably listening to this Wednesday morning, you want to feel good, go check out TSLA on the stock exchange, see how it's doing. I'm. I'm betting not real. Well, maybe we can get it down to 200 a share. Come on, we can do it. So congrats to the Tesla takedown, folks. I know we have. We had Evan Sutton on here. We also have another patron data, uh, diva, who's working on coordinating, um, the data to get out the Tesla takedown rallies. So well done, everybody, because 71 in the first quarter, it fell.
Oh, boy.
Yeesh. Not, um, good. And what's really funny is, like, some people are still in denial. They're like, well, uh, people are just waiting for the new Tesla Y model.
Stop it.
Yeah, yeah, we thought it would come out before this report. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. I'm sure people are just waiting for the new.
We're waiting for the new Tesla SS model I heard was coming out in the coming months. They're only making it in white.
Um. Oh, that's good. Love it. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure that's what it is. Um, anyway, uh, thanks. Thanks to, uh, everyone for help helping make this a reality. Every single Tesla I see. Now, Dana, I don't know about you, but they all have a sticker on it that says, we bought this before he was a Nazi or whatever.
Yep, it is. It's hard to. Either some people are in leases they can't get out of. Some people bought them and they're like, listen, I'm undoing something good for the environment. And, uh, you know, I'm not. This was purchased before. Everyone has the reasons. There's obviously some people that bought it because they're fascists, but, you know, we're not going to go there if you. You can't tell them apart. Except maybe with some bumper stickers, but.
Yeah, or if it's just a cybertruck. Cause I mean, what exactly.
Oh my God. There's a cybertruck in my neighborhood.
Me too.
Um, but I live in a neighborhood that's full of apartment building and so. Not that rich people can't live in one bedroom apartments. It's just sort of mind blowing to me that someone who owns a Tesla truck clearly lives in an apartment building around here. Otherwise they'd have a driveway to park it in.
Right.
I'm like, where are they charging it? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Do you have to charge a Tesla truck? I'm assuming you do.
I assume you do as well. And like, I don't have a garage. We only have street parking because I was years ago gonna buy a Tesla or some other electric car.
Yeah.
Ah, uh, and, and can't. Because what, am I going to run a cord all the way out to the street? Like.
That's how I feel. Listen, I'm very proud of my little one bedroom apartment. So, you know, not. There's no, I'm not slamming that. I'm trying to figure out where this person is charging their giant massive refrigerator that they park on the street.
Yeah. And I think it's interesting too that somebody who had that kind of money to purchase a cybertruck, you know, would, would not have a place to charge it. It's just, it's, it's odd.
Yeah.
But hey, you know, whatever. I'm not going to judge based on that. We're just going to. Buying a cyber truck.
Exactly.
Anyway, we have a lot of news to get to today, as uh, you could tell, as, as evidenced by the amount of headlines we had up there. So let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up, remember how we said that more tea was going to spill from those four kegseth aids?
Oh, yes, we did.
And, and I said yesterday on the beans that maybe by today you probably would already hear some more tea. Well, here's some more tea from NBC. Minutes before US fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army General Michael Eric Kurilla, who leads U.S. cENTCOM, that's the United States Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send that detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The material Kurilla sent included the details about when US fighters would take off, when they would hit their targets. Details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. Provide the Secretary of Defense, his superior, with information he needed to know. And used a system specifically designed to safely transmit classified information. So, looks like Kegseth copied and pasted. Because you remember, we were all in the first signal gate where all this looks like cups. Copy and pasted from somewhere. Had to be some sort of a classified system he copied and pasted this from. Turns out now that is confirmed by NBC News. It was sent from a general at CENTCOM using a classified system. And it. And then Kegseth copied it, pasted it, and sent it to. Well, they don't say copy and paste, but, I mean, clearly, it seems like it, uh, sent the information to both. Now, two signal chats.
You know, I don't. I know. If Trump's not going to get rid of him, I sure hope the Pentagon starts putting a lot of pressure. He's putting our military in danger and.
Our national security at risk, 100%.
Yeah. This one's from Reuters. A federal judge in Colorado directed Trump's administration on Tuesday to give Venezuelan migrants detained in that state notice 21 days in advance before any deportations under a law historically used only in wartime, and to inform them of their right to challenge their removal. Okay. Now, in a written ruling maintaining a temporary block within Colorado on deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, U.S. district Judge Charlotte Sweeney said the administration must tell the migrants in a language they understand, that they have the right to consult a lawyer. You have to give these people due process.
That is part of the Supreme Court said, right. You have to give them meaningful notice and meaningful due process.
Yeah.
So good on that. And there was also another hearing, a scorcher of a hearing in the Southern District of New York with Hellerstein. Now, Hellerstein is another judge. Sweeney was in Colorado, Hellerstein's in New York, Southern District of New York. There's another judge considering this in Texas. Right. That issued a restraining order. Hellerstein issued a restraining order. And the hearing today was whether or not to extend that temporary restraining order order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. And it did not go well for the government. And we're going to cover that in more detail. He, uh, did extend the restraining order, but that was, you know, you remember, they tried to do it in Boberg's court for the five plaintiffs, and then expanded the class nationwide. And the Supreme Court said, no, we're vacating Boseberg's orders, and it has to be habeas petitions from the jurisdiction that you're being detained in. And so then those original five plaintiffs, two of them were in New York and they filed there, and the other three were in Texas and they filed there. This was the New York from the original jgg.
Got it.
The lawsuit that was initially before Judge Boasberg. So, uh, we're now seeing people following what I think is the wrong Supreme Court order. I think there should be able to be a nationwide injunction and not just district by district, but now we're seeing in the districts the judges issuing these same restraining orders that Boseberg tried to do nationwide.
Got it.
Um, yeah, so that's really good news. Next up from the Times, three Manhattan federal prosecutors who worked on the criminal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City said Tuesday that they're resigning rather than admitting wrongdoing in refusing to abandon the case. That's according to an email obtained by the New York Times. The prosecutors were placed on administrative paid leave this year after Trump administration officials in Washington ordered them to to seek dismissal of the bribery and fraud charges. In the email, the prosecutors Celia V. Cohen, Andrew Roach and Derek Wilstrom said that Todd Blanch, the Deputy Attorney General, had placed a condition on reinstating them from administrative leave to their jobs. And that condition was that you must express regret and admit some wrongdoing by your office in connection with refusal to move to dismiss the case. The prosecutor said, we will not confess wrongdoing when there was none.
Nice.
So, fuck, yeah. Uh, they're like, nope, we quit. Fuck you.
I love that. I want to see more of that. Uh, this one's from NBC. A groundbreaking microscope at Harvard Medical School. This could lead to the breakthroughs in cancer detection and research into longevity. But the scientists who developed computer scripts to read those images and unlock its full potential. Well, she has been in an immigration detention center, uh, for two months, putting crucial scientific advancements at risk. The scientist, the 30 year old Russian born. And I'm gonna try this one. You'll correct me if I'm wrong. Petrova worked at Harvard's renowned Kirchner Lab until her arrest at a Boston airport in mid February. She's now being held at ICE's Richwood Correctional center in Monroe, Louisiana, and fighting possible deportation to Russia, where she says she fears persecution and jail time over her protests against the war in Ukraine. And I quote, I would call it a grinding machine. Petrova, who spoke with the NBC News from Louisiana facility, said about being detained, quote, we are in this machine and it doesn't care if you have a visa. A Green card or any particular story. It just keeps going.
A scientist.
Mhm.
Who developed the way to read these microscope images.
Cancer breakthrough. And they're holding her.
Probably. I don't. Why? Because she's against the war in Ukraine. Like.
Yeah.
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. All right, next up from Reuters, the Food and Drug Administration. We talked about them ending food inspection. Uh, they're suspending a quality control program for testing milk.
Oh, boy.
And other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division. According to an internal email seen by Reuters, the suspension is another disruption to the nation's food safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the fda, as part of Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce. Now, Dana, before FDA milk inspections, rich people would put like, chalk and plaster of Paris in milk to make it appear whiter.
Oh, my God.
They would add formaldehyde to cover the taste of rotten milk, for example.
So again, people. Oh my God.
Who inspect for that are going away. Makes me wonder why Trump wants to bring asbestos back. Does he want to. Does he want to add asbestos back to milk? Is that. I don't know.
I have no idea why they would do this. Absolutely nothing.
Or not. I don't know if. Back to milk. I don't know if we used to put asbestos in milk, but yeah, I wouldn't put it past them.
No. This, uh, one's from the Associated Press. The Education Department will begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wages for potentially millions of borrowers. This is from officials Now. Currently, roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans. The Trump administration's announcement marks an end to a period of leniency that began during the COVID 19 pandemic. New federal student loans have been referred for collections, uh, since March of 2020, including those in default. Under President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness of student loans, only to be stopped by the courts.
Republicans.
Mhm. Beginning May 5th, a department will begin involuntary collection through the Treasury Department's offset program, which withholds government payments, including tax refunds, federal salaries and other benefits from people with past due debts to the government. After a 30 day notice, the department also will begin garnishing wages for borrowers in default.
My God.
Yeah. This coming from a guy who stole money from people with a scam called Trump University is now going to garnish your wages if you are in default on a Student loan, which they stopped.
To, but they prevented forgiveness on.
Yep. Fuck.
May, uh, fifth, all right. Beginning May 5th, everybody. So that's horrible. I mean, it's going to. If you think the economy is bad now, you're going to garnish people's wages. Millions of people. All right. From the Guardian. A draft Trump administration executive order reported to be circulating among US Diplomats proposes a radical restructuring of the State Department, including drastic reductions to Sub Saharan operations envoys and bureaus relating to climate refugees, human rights, democracy, and gender equality. The changes, if enacted, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the department since its founding in 1789, according to Bloomberg, which had seen a copy of the 16 page draft. The New York Times first reported on the draft. The U.S. state Department disputes the report, with a spokesperson telling Newsweek that the reporting is entirely based on a fake document. We got it from you.
Oh, my God.
Earlier On Sunday, the US Secretary of State face McAsshole Marco Rubio called the reported overhaul fake news. In a post on Twitter. The New York Times falls victim to another hoax. Yeah, sure, Marco. Let's, uh, wait a couple of days and we'll start getting the report of this reorganization actually happening.
Yes, we will. Because anything they call a hoax is an omission. This, um, one's from other Jones. The federal government plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth who call 988, and that is the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline, according to a Health and Human Services budget draft leaked last week. The budget, first reported by the Washington Post, would go into effect in October if it's approved by Congress. Since the Hotline's launch in 2022, callers have been able to speak with counselors trained to work with specific at risk populations, including LGBTQ youth, who are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. The service for LGBTQ Youth has received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since 2022. In February, the program received an average of 2,100 contacts per day. Per day. And I quote, here we are cutting off the nation's lifeline to those in crisis. This is from Paolo De Vecchio, former director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration's Office of Recovery. And I quote, due to the discriminatory practices of the Trump administration, they're putting that life preserver away from thousands and thousands of people. This is horrible.
2100 a day. 2100 a day. Uh, why?
There's no cruelty. The cruelty is the point.
Yeah. So, you know, if you call the national crisis hotline 988, which was set up under, uh, the Biden administration. Uh, you would select like, one, if you were veteran, two, LGBTQ three. You know, they had different experts for different, um, groups and communities, and they're just going to rip the LGBTQ youth one out of there, apparently. I don't know what else to say other than, like you said, the cruelty is the point. It's a feature, not a bug. Um, all right, we need some good news. So here's some good News from Channel 5 Nashville. A bill that would have required school districts to ask students their citizenship status is likely now dead for the rest of the year. House Majority Leader and State Rep William Lamberth says he was taking the bill out of the legislative picture for the rest of the year until the state gets confirmation from the Department of Education that their bill won't jeopardize federal funding for Tennessee. My goodness. Imagine that we want our federal funding. Mhm. And oh, if. If our citizenship question makes us ineligible for federal funding. Oh, we'll. Never mind. Will figure out another way to target these students. So it's not clear m. When state lawmakers will hear back from the Trump administration, but it'll likely be after the legislature adjourns in 2025. As written, the legislation would have gone against Plyler v. Doe, which is a Supreme Court ruling that said schools cannot deny any undocumented child access to the K through 12 education system because it violates the equal protection CL of the Constitution. That's a Supreme Court ruling. Maybe they'll overturn themselves.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at this point.
I know, I know. Me neither. Nothing surprises me about this Supreme Court anymore.
No. But I do have some good news. This is from Politico. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore Voice of America.
Yay.
Saying the effort to gut the 80 year old government funded news service likely violated the law and the constitution. Well done. U.S. district Judge Royce Lambert said the administration's rush to dismiss the VOA and related news organizations funded by U.S. agency for Global Media resulted in the suspension of hundreds of journalists and employees. It put some overseas correspondents at risk of being deported to their home countries. This is also what the judge said. And Lambert said that the silencing of VOA for the first time in 80 years also deprived hundreds of millions of listeners of a reliable source of news in parts of the world that lack a free press, which is why they wanted to silence them.
Wow. Lamberth. Huh? Wow.
All right, now, the judge, by the way, Lamberth is a Reagan appointee. He ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore all employees and contractors to their news programs and unfreeze funding streams for other affiliated networks like Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He also ordered officials to restore VOA programming to fulfill the legal mandate that it, quote, serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.
Wow. Go, Judge Lamberth. Um, that's. That's outstanding. I'm very glad that they're reinstating Voice of America. I'm sure the Trump administration will appeal this, and we'll let you know how that goes. Uh, finally from msnbc, some more good news. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin lost her defamation retrial against the New York Times over a 2017 editorial.
Oh, my God.
2025. A 2017 editorial, she said, damaged her reputation. Maverick. Um, that's according to Reuters, uh, who reported this on Tuesday. Damaged her reputation.
Huh?
Huh? Sarah Palin didn't do that all by herself.
Yeah, I don't know how much reputation was intact damage that.
Okay. The, uh, federal jury found the media company not liable after deliberating for about two hours. It only took two hours. Palin, a former Republican vice presidential nominee, lost a previous trial in 2022. Oh, I was right.
Uh, yep, we're correcting our correction.
We had a correction and now a recorrection. She lost in 2022 against the media company.
Oh.
But one, a new one due to several major issues in the case, as a federal appellate panel put it last year. All right, so she lost and then won and then lost. Okay. All right, so lost again is correct. All right, well done. Well done, jury.
Well done indeed.
Uh, yeah, I think that the thing was about. Remember when she had crosshairs over Democratic. She, she posted a photo on social media of crosshairs on, like, Democratic districts, and one of them, uh, was in, uh, Tucson, where the shooting happened. That. Oh, happened to Gabby Gifford. Got it. So that, yeah, that was part of the thing. And they were comparing it to a different shooting in the New York Times. And she's like, that's ma. Maverick. I don't like that. And, um, she lost, and then she won and then she lost again. So that's an eight year ordeal is done. Although I'm sure she'll appeal this ruling as well. Um, so anyway, thanks.
I just, I, I can't. I can't with them.
I know, I know. And, and it's, it's depressing that these kinds of things take so long to finally, you know, for, for, for somebody like Sarah Palin to finally lose again. Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, everybody, it's time for some good trouble.
What are you guys doing?
All right, everybody. This is, uh. This one hits home for me. You know, I worked at the VA for over a decade. Doug Collins, the new secretary of the va, is just a giant piece of shit. He shared a snitch email address.
Oh, my God.
To all VA employees on Tuesday. And the email read in part. On February 6, 2025, President Trump enacted Executive Order 14 202, Eradicating Anti Christian bias, establishing a task force to review the last administration's Biden administration's treatment. Accordingly, the Department of Veterans affairs is establishing its own task force. Not a task force to help veterans or to get better health care or to help adjudicate claims at the va. Uh, of which there's a backlog. No, this is a task force to better effectuate the department's internal review of anti Christian bias. The VA Task force now requests all instances of anti Christian discrimination, send them to Anti ChristianBiasReportinga.gov Again, Anti Hyphen Christian bias reporting@va.gov Submissions should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates, and locations.
I think someone should write in about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, where it was when it happened.
Yeah.
Or, you know, J.D. vance and the Pope.
Oh, my God.
So you got that, everyone? Anti hyphen Christian bias reporting a.gov, we'll put the email address in the show notes. Make sure to let them know about any anti Christian stuff that's happening in the Trump administration, which is pretty much all of it. Uh, let's render that inbox unusable. So that's your good trouble. That's your mission today, should you choose to accept it. All right, everybody, we'll be back with Andy McNew. We're going to talk about how to get involved locally to close that urban, rural divide that we see in our politics. Um, so stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
We'll be right back.
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Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by somebody doing something. Remember Michelle Obama's speech? Do something. She's the chair of the East County Victory Pack here in San Diego, but her efforts are scalable nationwide to help close the urban, rural political divide, among other things. So please welcome community organizer and campaign specialist Andy McNew. Hi, Andy, how are you?
Good, I'm great. Hi, Allison, how you doing?
I'm great. It's really good to talk to you. So talk a little bit about, first of all, talk a little bit about East County Victory Pack and what y'all do.
Sure. So, um, we started last year, sort of halfway through the election cycle. Uh, we realized that I, um, know that a lot of people have a lot of problems with the Democratic Party right now. I am a tried and true Democrat. I'm a party loyalist. So I'll disclaim that right now. But, um, we do have problems in the party and one of our problems is our pressure priorities. And we saw that our local candidates here in East County, San Diego, which, by the way, I think a lot of folks across the country think San Diego, they think blue California. Um, East County, San Diego is one of the reddest districts in California. There is about a 15 point gap in registration between Republicans and Democrats. It's very red. But we're still trying to run Democrats in our local races, and we realized that we weren't going to get help in the party other than volunteers. Well, when you're running in a rural area, a lot of times you can't go out and canvas because the houses are half a mile apart and behind fences and there's dogs and it's dangerous. And a lot of times the only way to contact those voters is through things that cost money. And, um. So we wanted to start raising money that we knew would go to good progressive candidates in these areas. Because one thing about the Republicans in these areas, they're so entrenched, and I'm sure across the country, if you live in a red area, you see Republicans running for city council or for Farm Bureau or whatever you have that don't have any competition ever. No one runs against them. They've been there for 30 years, so they don't do the work anymore. And we're operating under the assumption that if Democrats do the work, we can win. And, um, the work in these cases requires money, which is sending mailers, which is sending texts. Reaching, um, these voters is a lot more difficult than when you live in a city with nice square blocks and flat, you know, flat. Flat places where it's easy to walk and knock on doors.
So what are some of the issues that some of the candidates have been having? Other than there just aren't any usually running against the Republicans. But. But, you know, you had. You were briefly mentioning that, um, there were issues with, you know, a lot of saying a lot of people have some issues with, uh, some Democrats and. And I'm with you. I feel like, though, we. We can reshape the party rather than throw the whole thing out and start from scratch. Because we've been building grassroots outreach for years and years and years and years, and we don't want to throw that by the wayside, but we can be more selective about our candidates. So what were some of the things that you were saying that you were going to talk about with regard to the issue with some of the candidates previously?
So I think one thing we're seeing right now is, um. And, you know, we've been talking. I know we've been talking about, um, some of the issues in the DNC and our priorities and where we're going to spend money. I think it's really, really tempting when you say you want to run for office, right? And you've been thinking about running for office and you get really passionate about issues like immigration or education or uh, infrastructure, anything like that, Anything that gets you going. And what you see on the news is Congress and the President. So as an organizer here in east county, our congressman is Darrell Issa, which I know you know, um, you know.
You know, I know everybody knows, uh.
Darrell Issa is the richest man in Congress and Republican, ah, really going to be tough to beat. Um, and I have people approach me all the time, be like, who's going to run against Issa? Or I want to run against isa. And my first advice is don't. My second advice is have you considered running for school board? Or in California we have water district or fire, uh, protection board or whatever you have in your local jurisdiction. Um, because you know, yes, we want to see more young people in Congress. Um, but the way to get there is you have to build a name for yourself locally first. And I think you mentioned it, we oftentimes have no candidates for these positions. And yet these are the positions that affect your day to day life. They affect your water bill, your electric bill, your, you know, if there's a pothole in your street. Um, these are all handled by local officials. And if your local officials are all feckless Republicans who don't do any work, well, that makes it a lot harder to get those issues fixed. Um, I, uh, have 100 examples just from San Diego county that prove that if we just have Democrats in office in some of these, and these are nonpartisan races, let me just say, uh, we don't have, the party isn't on the ballot. So Republicans will vote for Democrats if they show up and they do the work.
Right, because the Republicans aren't doing the work because they haven't had to for so long on these more local level races. I will interject and say I do think that somebody should run against sterilizer. That dude's been whack a mole ing around districts for a while and he's like the last red guy left in this area. And I think that uh, we have a good chance of beating him. But uh, your point being, we also, if you're gonna run for something, need to start at the very local level in the nonpartisan RA and do the groundwork that the Republicans refused to do, which as you said is not easy as easy to go door to door because the houses are so far apart and uh, things like that. But we do need to do things like postcarding and phone banking and text banking and other ways to reach out to the more rural communities. And I know dirt road Dems Does a lot of work, uh, along the same lines. So talk a little bit about nationally speaking. Close. That's the one that's like step one in closing the urban rural divide, Right?
Sure. So I think for so long we've talked about national versus local, but it's all the same, like all of these big policies that they do that they implement at the national level or that they talk about at the national level and they pass in Congress or whatever. When it comes time to actually get things done, it requires local government. For example, uh, the Biden administration passed the inflation reduction Act. And the thing is, all of that money that you saw in transportation, in infrastructure, all of that money, it doesn't just magically go uh, to your district, your local politicians have to, you ask for it. And I have a perfect example right here in East County, San Diego. Um, they had been planning a water purification plant for a long time. But all of the water districts out here in east county, their boards were all Republicans. And then we got two Democrats elected to one of the boards and one Democrat elected to the other board in 2020. And all of a sudden these boards were no longer afraid to request money from the Democrats at the state and national uh, level. And they received $935 million to build this plant. And it's building and it's going to go online in 2026. And that is directly because we got Democrats elected to local water board.
Yeah. And that's big, right? Because it's huge. Water's a huge issue in rural areas. We can also tell uh, me about some of the other issues that you find kind of transcend the political divide, especially in these non political or nonpartisan races. I'm thinking along the lines of um, you know, we have a lot of farmers and these tariffs are hurting the farmers. They can't sell their soybeans for example to China anymore because of the huge massive tariffs. We can talk about taxing the rich. I did an empty chair town hall for Darrell Issa and a very red district as you know. And uh, everybody we there were tax the rich. Chance coming out of this group of people for a very, you know, for a long time, like uncomfortably long time chance of tax the rich. Um, we could talk about, you know, farm workers being deported. So what are some of the main issues you're seeing on the ground in these nonpartisan races where Democrat backed candidates can focus their energy?
Sure. I think um, a big one right now is um, education. You know, we're seeing at the national level, the administration is Trying to get rid of the Department of Education, cut a bunch of funding and things like that. And it, it, I hate to use this terminology, but it does trickle down to local school boards and you know, um, and you're seeing it across the country, especially in rural and small town school boards that are run by Republicans, uh, the right wing.
And these folks can't bust their kids to charter schools, you know.
Right, right. And they're, you know, they're trying to support charter schools. Right here in San Diego county, one of our very Republican school boards is trying to fire all of their librarians because they think they need a cutback.
Um, well, it's because they don't like.
Libraries and they don't like libraries. So if you're passionate about say the LGBTQ issues and you know, today, just today, right now in Supreme Court, uh, they're arguing a case about giving school boards more local control to allow religious exemptions for uh, LGBTQ materials, that sort of thing. And um, all of that comes down to your local. That case would never have gotten to the Supreme Court unless a local school board started it. So the more Democrats and like minded people we have on our local school boards, the less of a chance of that happening. It's so important to run for these races. And you know, that's why, you know, I'm trying to recruit candidates for all of these races because it is so vital.
Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of coming together right now between people who generally back Republican ish candidates versus those who don't. You generally back Democratic ish candidates because like, uh, like you said, these are nonpartisan races. But there's a lot of agreement of keep your hands off our stuff. And I think if that's, if that's the way to go about it. Because toward the end of the Biden administration we were seeing a rural renaissance and now that that is going to go by the wayside and it's, you know, there are signs that it is already because of things like tariffs and water and you know, things that impact us hyper locally, which like you said, are controlled by these very local multi member boards, water boards, school boards, superintendents, um, and things like that. So I totally get the idea of once we take advantage of the fact that Republicans have stopped the ground game and we swoop in and take over the ground game, whatever that looks like. I think that that's such an important point that you're making.
So I have one brief story, um, right here in San Diego county in a, even a Redder district than the overall. We have a little town called Alpine. And, um, it is an R +18 area. Um, and we ran a demographic.
May I paint a picture of Alpine real quick for everybody? Sure. So I used to be in a band and we practiced at a house in Alpine. And there was this place called the Alpine Springs Inn, which was a bar and pub. And there was a guy who was the self proclaimed mayor of Alpine. Now that Alpine does not have a mayor, but he called himself the mayor. Everybody called him the mayor for decades. He would come in every day to Alpine Springs Inn and bring his own 12 pack of PBR. He would wear overalls with no shirt and he would have a piece of straw in his mouth and he would just sit there and drink his PBR and talk about his tractors and talk about, I think he had at one point a story about how he had. He apparently restored old classic cars and said that, you know, the night before he, uh, had rolled over into a ditch trying to get home from the Alpine Springs Inn. And everybody was like, oh, my gosh, what car were you driving? Because they were all concerned about his collection of classic cars. And he said, driving hell. I was walking. And so this is Alpine. Okay. So I just want to give you sort of a, ah, paint a picture of what Alpine is like.
Alpine is very rural and very red. And, uh, we decided to run a Democrat for the water district, uh, the division that covers Alpine. And um, all we did was we knocked on, you know, there is a central part of Alpine. So we knocked on about 1800 doors.
Wow.
And sent, uh, about 8,000 texts. There are 15,000 voters in this district. Um, and we won by 10 points.
Yeah.
And it's because all the Republican did was put up some signs, didn't knock on doors, didn't make calls, didn't talk to anyone. No one knew who he was. And our message was, hey, he's a member of the good old boys club. And even you have to find the right message. But in a lot of these places, that message hits because it's the drain, the swamp message, right?
Yeah.
And that message hits and it's like, it's time to get someone in there that's going to really listen to you about your water bill and about what's going on. Going on. And, you know, nobody wants to pay higher water bills. And, you know, and we won by 10 points.
Yeah, let's make a change is the best message, right?
Yeah. It is possible and probable because the Republicans sit on their laurels and you know, that's. They think they've got it in the bag.
Yeah. They just sit back and they think they're entitled to the seat because they've had it for so long.
Right.
Well, Andy, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. I really encourage everyone, particularly in rural areas, sign up for your local indivisible team and talk about these kinds, uh, of strategies, uh, where you are locally and do you have any messages, Andy, before I let you go for how to do this, where you live?
Sure, sure. So there's a great. If you want to get involved and you want to feel hope, uh, the way to do it is locally because it's easy to doom scroll and see everything going on in Washington and feel like you have no power. But when you're talking to and trying to win a district with 15,000 voters, think how much more of an impact you as one person could have. And if you're interested in running for one of these offices, you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be an education expert or a water expert or, you know, whatever. You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be someone who cares about your community. Um, start going to school board meetings and listening in to see what's, what's going on. Start going to city council meetings. Um, listen to what's going on in your city or your town. And then if you're interested in running, I'm going to give a plug here. Um, go to runforsomething.net, it's a fantastic organization. They provide so much great support for people running for local office. There are hundreds of thousands of local offices up, uh, for election every cycle and every single one should have a progressive or Democrat running for it. And right now it doesn't. So, um, go to runforsomething.net and if you're curious to see what you can run for, there's a website called wherecanirun.org um, just all one word, wherecanirun.org, and you can put in your address and it'll list all your local offices. And that is something, it's so important to get involved. And once you realize what's going on in your town, you might become passionate about something besides immigration that you can't change and you feel helpless. But you could change housing policy in your town, you know, um, and where immigrants could live if they come to your town. So that, that's just a, like a couple of shout outs that I wanted to give they do great work. Um, run for something is, you know, fantastic.
So yeah, they are and thank you so much. Now give a shout out to yourself if anyone in San Diego area wants to support the East County Victory Pack. How do they do that, Andy?
Okay, you can visit ec victory.com. uh, the website's sort of in transition right now. I'm going to be putting up um, uh, profiles of the candidates we helped win in 2024 and ah, we are always looking for folks uh, who are interested in running in east county in north inland San Diego. It's a local pack but if this is something that if you're good at fundraising and that's your strength, maybe look around your local area and maybe you could start one for yourself. So. EC victory dot com.
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. Chair of the East county victory pack, Andy McNew. It was great to talk to you.
Thank you. Great to talk.
Everybody stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news everyone. Good news. And if you have any good news confessions, corrections. You want to play any of the guessing games for animals that we like to play? Like what the mutt, find the cat opine on the bovine, what the hecwine? What's the model of your axolotl? What the hell's in that shell? For some reason I can guess turtle breeds. Um, that's what we do. When you attach a photo of your pod pet to get your submission read on the air. Uh, also if you have a good news submission that is a shout out, whether it's to a loved one or a small business in your some great activism you're seeing around town, or a shout out to yourself or your small business or a shout out to a government program that's helped you or a loved one, whether it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care act, student debt forgiveness, anything like that, you can send it to us. Uh, attach your pod pet, pay your pod pet tariffs and if you don't have a pet or any of those other animals, you can just send an adoptable pet in your area. We also take bird watching photos which can be an actual bird, or you and your family and friends flipping off Trump and Musk properties. If you don't have that, baby pictures are also acceptable. Anything really. And we just will just flood us with your good news. Any simple happy thing, we have to microdose hope, right? That's what we're banking on. So send it to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. And today we want to give a special shout out to Signs of Justice. Uh, when they heard that a beans listener shouted them out on the show. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, Beth. They reached out to the show to coordinate a little good trouble giveaway. So follow Signsofjustice on Instagram. Three winners will receive 100 free postcards. Okay. To spread the word. So number one, follow Signs of Justice and MSW media pods on Instagram. In the comments, tag someone who inspires you to take action. Three community leaders will be selected to receive 100 themjority project postcards and mobilize your networks. Winners will be announced Monday, April 28 on an Instagram story. Um, and if you can't wait, you can print free postcards or order yours@signsofjustice.com tmp M. That's T as in what? I can never remember the phonetic Alphabet. T as in tango. Emma's in Mike. P as in papa. And, uh, join us in the next wave. So thank you so much to Signs of Justice. This is going to be fun and, uh, we appreciate them very, very much.
Love it. Um, this next one's short. We got a couple of them. This is Cindy B. She said Krissy Gnomes bag. Sounds like a lot like an escape bag. Where is she escaping and from whom?
A go bag. Right. I always think of a Breakfast Club where they dump out Ali Sheedy's purse. Yeah, like, why do you carry so much shit? And she goes, you never know when you might have to jam.
Yeah, love that movie. This is. Oh my God. I saw on Instagram was AI and it was all the Breakfast Club. Uh, actors as babies. And as much as I hate AI, they were the cutest things I've ever seen. This, uh, one's from Simon and Andrea. Uh, perhaps Kristy Noam's handbag was imported and the masked man rendered it to an El Salvadorian handbag prison.
Oh, perhaps, Perhaps. Yeah, very good point. Thank you for that. If you have any idea what was in Christy Gnome's purse, uh, you can send it to us daily beanspot.com click on Contact. Next up, from Kathy from Kansas. First, I want to say how much I enjoy starting my day with both of you. I would like to give a shout out to the staff of the Topeka, Kansas Social Security office. I'm retiring this year and was having a hard time figuring out when to file for my benefits. And who's to file for since I am a divorced wife. It depends on when your fra. Your full retirement age is and the date you were born. My birth date is the fourth, which falls on in an area not clearly stated. That's weird, since there are certain limited numbers. Like it's finite. Like how. How is it not clear. Anyway, when I called the Social Security office, they were able to answer my questions and look at widow's benefits. Since my ex is deceased by the end of the call, I had appointments to bring in documents and complete my application by phone. I also learned that I could start my widow's benefits now, uh, and switch to my own at age 70 for max benefits. Everyone was patient and helpful, treating everyone in the office. Office. Uh, the day I was there. With respect. So for podpet talks, here's my dog Ash, with his favorite carrot. Oh, this reminds me. That Kara Swisher photo of her holding that giant carrot. That's totally. This is so great. Kathy, I love this so much for you. Thank you for giving a shout out to a great government program like Social Security.
I love it, too. This one's from Kim. Hi, Lady Legumes. I'm a member, but I still wait until the next day to start my day with YouTube. The snort laughing cracks me up all the time. All day. Uh, a Pope is elected in a conclave. And I'm realizing that now because I actually watched the movie last, um, time I was in an airplane conclave. It was fantastic.
You should watch it.
Anyway, the Pope is elected in a conclave, a gathering of all the cardinals in Rome. It can take weeks while any cardinal who wants to be pope throws his hat in the ring. After that, it's what we called ranked choice voting until there's a win.
Wait, does the Pope actually. Do they actually throw their hats into the ring?
I think they should.
I wish.
They're big. That'd be fun. And their dresses. Uh, the Vatican emits black smoke. El fumo nero until a choice is made, announced by the emission of white smoke. The winner picks a new name, changes to a white robe, and greets his people. In the interim. There's a kind of substitute pope called a Kamerlinger who handles papal duties, people. Yeah, Papal duties, people.
You got it.
It is people. Hey, listen, I'm a Jewish person. It's papal duties until the new second paper. Papa. I think that's Papa. How come it's Papo but Papa, Papa, Papa.
I don't know.
Okay, until the second papa is that we're going with.
I don't know. That one. I don't know.
Can we get a Lot of corrections on these stories, please. Thank you. The whole thing is rumored to be pret. Pretty cutthroat. And if you watch Conclave, I'd agree. My pet tariff is my beloved granddogs Debo, who's the pittie m In the older one M. And River Heinz, 57 variety, age 7. Oh, got it. This is not the aged one. The age is one. The pig is, uh, one years old. River is seven years old. Both rescued by my younger son from bad situations. Like all good dogs, they've never looked back in. Every day is glorious new adventure. They're sure cute. And I'm sorry if that got very confusing, uh, about the papal and the papal and the papa. Uh, but watch Conclave. I think we have another submission about it. It's actually a really good, informative movie and it's actually a really great movie.
Yeah. And Kim, I'm going to ask about the buried lead here. What's going on with. Are those Hot Wheels on the wall on the pegboard behind these dogs? Is this, is this a. A mighty and like, incredible collection of Hot Wheels? I want to know about the Hot Wheels collection. Now. Do you have a popemobile hot wheel? Do they have a popemobile hot wheel? Anyway, that's fascinating. Yeah. Black smoke, white smoke, lots of pomp and circumstance. And I think it is interesting that I, I believe that, um, Pope Francis actually put 21 new card, installed 21 new cardinals in there. So maybe, maybe the next pope will be pretty woke. I'm all for a woke pope.
What Pope?
These dogs are adorable. All right, next up, Allison with one L. Fine, if you want to be one L'd about it. Regarding, uh, electing a new pope, I can't recommend enough to watch the film Conclave. See, it details what happens behind the scenes in such a scenario, as we're about to witness from afar, covers the politics that play out between hardline and more liberal factions within the cardinal ranks. Whether we like it or not, the Church has a long reach. And a very conservative pontiff can affect geopolitics. Yes, it can. And that's why I liked Pope Francis so much. I mean, as far as popes go. Yeah, he was a pretty woke Pope.
Yeah. And I also hope that Pope Francis put enough liberal ish Cardinals in and.
21, and he put in 20.
Maybe we won't get a super conservative pope.
Mhm.
You know, that would be my hope. We're gonna keep rhyming, that's my pope hope.
Is it a Pope hope, hope.
That's my Pope. Hope.
Should we call this episode Pope Paris?
I mean, maybe. I think it's pretty good. All right. This last submission, and I love this name, is from friendly quadriplegic pronoun. She and her. Hello, lovely ladies. I simply hope to provide some inspiration for hesitant introverts such as myself. I attended my congressman town hall on March 30 when he spoke about Medicaid, a program my family relies on. I made my husband raise my hand.
Oh, my gosh. Love that.
I spoke to put a face to Medicaid. I spoke about how Medicaid pays for my caregivers so my husband can work, which puts us in a position to pay taxes on my Social Security. My congressman's wife thanked me for speaking up and told me that they have a disabled son. I was featured on the local news, and people came up to my husband during the next week to thank me for speaking out and educating them for my POD pet tariff. I have included a picture of Tammy, our daughter's cat, and one of me from April 19's rally. This is so fucking cool. And I could not be more proud of you.
Okay. I love the cat. I love the rainbow comforter.
I love the sign is fantastic.
It's so bad. Introverts are here. You know what? I've seen this. This has made the rounds on the Internet. I've seen this sign, and I've seen you. You. That's incredible. Well done. Um, I love that so much. So thank you for doing that, uh, and thank you all, uh, for your good news. I really appreciate it. Also, don't forget, Kim, I need to know about the Hot Wheels collection. And, uh, everybody else, please send your good news to us dailybeanspod.com, click on Contact. Thanks for listening today. Thanks to Andy McNew for all the work she's doing, um, for the East County Victory Pack. And you can do that wherever you are. Remember, um, runforsomething.net, net is how you can go about it. So appreciate, um, all the taking the time to come and talk to us today. Do you have any final thoughts, my friend?
I do not.
All right, everybody, we'll be back in your ears tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family. I've been AG and I've been dg, 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 media.