Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 Today, Senator Bob Menendez has been hit with a superseding indictment; Senator Kyrsten Sinema will not run again this year; the 11th Circuit strikes down Ron DeSantis’ Stop Woke Act; the Supreme Court Inadvertently revealed a confounding late change in the trump ballot ruling; the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing a controversial Texas immigration law to take effect. Plus, Allison and Dana deliver your good news.
Wednesday, March 6th, 2024
Today, Senator Bob Menendez has been hit with a superseding indictment; Senator Kyrsten Sinema will not run again this year; the 11th Circuit strikes down Ron DeSantis’ Stop Woke Act; the Supreme Court Inadvertently revealed a confounding late change in the trump ballot ruling; the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing a controversial Texas immigration law to take effect. Plus, Allison and Dana deliver your good news.
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Robert Menendez and Wife Are Charged With Obstruction of Justice
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/nyregion/robert-menendez-indicted.html
Federal appeals court to allow controversial Texas immigration law to take effect, if SCOTUS doesn’t intervene
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/03/politics/texas-immigration-law-appeals-court/index.html
Supreme Court Inadvertently Reveals Confounding Late Change in Trump Ballot Ruling
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/supreme-court-metadata-sotomayor-trump-dissent.html
Appeals court slams Florida’s ‘Stop-Woke’ law for committing ‘greatest First Amendment sin’
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/04/desantis-woke-law-court-00144801
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Hello, and welcome to the Daily Beans for Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Today, Senator Bob Menendez has been hit with a superseding indictment. Senator Kirsten Sinema will not run again this year. The 11th Circuit strikes down Ron DeSantis's stop woke act. The Supreme Court inadvertently revealed a confounding late change in the Trump ballot ruling, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing a controversial Texas immigration law to take effect. I'm Allison Gill.
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
Hey, Dana, happy Wednesday. How are you?
Happy, uh, Wednesday to you. I'm good. Getting through the week, getting ready to go to Ben for my show on Friday night. Uh, so if you're in central Oregon and you haven't gotten tickets, I hope you do. You can get them on my website, danagoldberg.com. And for those beans listener that already have, make sure you find me after the show. I would love to meet the people who support this podcast.
Yay. Uh, it's going to be such a good show. So is the one on March Twelfth at the Sunshine Cathedral.
April twelfth. Aging me early.
Did I say March twelfth? Shame.
That's all right. It's April twelfth.
April twelfth, your birthday show. Um, that is, uh, what, Fort Lauderdale?
Yeah, Fort Lauderdale. Beautiful cathedral. Actually, it's going to be in a church, so I may burst into flames, but we're just going to see how the night goes.
Yes. Just be careful. Watch out for lightning. Don't carry an umbrella or a large metal stick. Um, anyway, we've got some really good news before we hit the hot notes. And that good news is that Senator Kirsten Sinema, independent from Arizona, announced she will not seek reelection this year, avoiding an unpredictable three way race in the swing state that had many National Democrats worried about holding onto the seat. She said, I believe in my approach, but it's not what America wants right now. That's what she said in a video announcing her plans that painted a bleak picture for a dysfunctional political system that she no longer sees a part in. In her remarks, Sinema stressed several bipartisan accomplishments she helped broker during her time in the chamber, but said her deal making political style was no longer appreciated. In a world in which compromise is a dirty word, she said despite modernizing our infrastructure, ensuring clean water, delivering good jobs, and safer communities, Americans still choose to retreat farther to their partisan corners. These solutions are considered failures either because they're too much or not nearly enough, unquote. So she is out. Now it's Ruben Gallego going head to head with Carrie Lake, and he beats her by ten points. Yeah, he beats her in ten points, uh, in a head to head matchup in, uh, the polls. Now, of course, there's a lot of time between now and then, but, uh, if I lived in Arizona, I would be casting my vote for Ruben Gallego for sure.
I would, too. And it has to make me wonder if there was just a higher bidder for Kirsten Sinema to drop out. I just don't trust her motives. And you know what? If that's the case, they bought her in, we'll buy her out. I don't care. I don't care how it happened. But I'm glad there's only one Democrat running for that seat right now.
God help us if she ends up on a no labels ticket. All right, we have a lot of news to get to today. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot, uh, notes. All right, first up, from Benjamin Weiser at the New York Times. You weren't here, Dana, but guess what I said on Monday's beans about Senator Menendez, that there was going to be.
In a superseding indictment.
Something about a superseding indictment. So put some beans on it. Probably well within 24 hours, Senator Robert Menendez and his wife Nadine, were charged with obstruction of justice in a new federal indictment on Tuesday, adding to the wide ranging bribery and corruption charges they already face. The charges returned by a grand jury in Manhattan, come just two months before Menendez, Ms. Menendez, and two New Jersey businessmen are scheduled for trial. All four defendants had pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges and are expected to appear for an arraignment on the charges soon. The indictment comes just days after a fifth defendant, Jose Uribe, another New Jersey businessman, pled guilty to seven counts, including obstruction, and struck a plea deal that he would cooperate with the government. That is why I thought there would be a superseding indictment. Menendez, who is 70, as a New Jersey Democrat, he was charged in September with accepting bribes, including cash, gold bars, and a Mercedes benz, in exchange for lucrative political favors and what prosecutors describe as efforts to derail criminal investigations. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have previously expanded the accusations by filing revised indictments. So this is a second superseder. In October, Mr. Menendez was additionally charged with conspiring to act as an agent of Egypt while serving on the chairman, as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And in January, prosecutors said he used his power to aid the government of Qatar, the tiny Gulf state major natural gas exporter. They hosted the World cup in 2022. That cutter. That is the cutter of which I speak. Uh, so, yeah, superseding indictments, individual counts of corruption, obstruction of justice. And these are the indictments for the cutter part, uh, of the, I, uh, guess, scheme, the bribery scheme, and foreign influence. Um, Fetterman's been saying that he needs to be excused, um, being receiving classified briefings, and I think that dude should just resign. He should resign. Of course. Andy Kim is running against him for Senate in the great state of Pennsylvania, and I'm rooting for him all the way.
Thanks so much, ag. This one's from CNN. A federal appeals court grants it a temporary stay of a lower court's decision to block the enforcement of a controversial Texas immigration law, paving the way for it to go into effect this week if the Supreme Court doesn't intervene. Last week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, blocked the state government from implementing Senate bill four, which would allow state law enforcement authorities to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally. Suspect, Judge David Allen Ezra wrote in his Thursday decision to halt the law that, quote, if allowed to proceed as before, would open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws. Texas appealed the ruling with governor Republican, as we know, Greg Abbott saying, quote, we will not back down in our fight to protect our state and our nation from President Biden's border crisis. Okay. Over the weekend, the fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of Ezra's decision, but, uh, puts its ruling on hold for seven days, allowing time for the Biden administration to go to the Supreme Court. The law remains blocked only until March 9 unless the Supreme Court keeps it on hold. It was originally set to go into effect March 5. The law, signed into law by Abbot in December, immediately raised concerns among immigration advocates of increased racial profiling. Duh, as well as detentions and attempted deportations by state authorities in Texas, where Latinos represent 40% of the population. El Paso county, which joined the Department of Justice in its suit against Texas, also claimed that enforcing SB four would strain its jail system with thousands of new arrests, and applauded Ezra's ruling last week to block the law. White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez. That's fun. Uh, called the law, quote, harmful and unconstitutional. In a statement after Ezra's decision last week. Texas, meanwhile, has argued that SB four is not in conflict with federal law and that the state is, quote, entitled to defend itself from an invasion. Stop it. You're not. The supreme Court in 2012 largely struck down a similar measure in Arizona dubbed, quote, show me your papers law. Jesus. The high court concluded the federal government had the power to block the law, but let stand a controversial provision allowing police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws if there is, and I quote, reasonable suspicion that the person is in the US illegally.
Reasonable? Uh. Uh-huh. Huh. So any reason I want, basically just whatever.
You don't look like you should. You don't talk like, you know.
Yeah, all those. That's not going to clog the court up at all. Uh, yeah, wonderful. Just so fucking racist to protect from an invasion. No, you don't. And there's no invasion like, what the fuck? These people. Oh, my God. Go. You know what? Do it. 40% of Texas Latino. Let's see Colin Allred beat Ted Cruz.
This time cannot wait. Let's see Texas, please get out and vote and take everyone you know with you. We're not joking about this one. We're not joking about any of them. But if you can get Ted Cruz out of a goddamn job. Uh, the celebrations we shall have.
Oh, just imagine.
Anyway, I am. I, uh, might need a limit alone, actually.
We'll, um, have a moment of silence for you.
Okay. No, it's not going to be silent, but go ahead.
Next up. This is so weird. I mentioned this briefly yesterday. This is from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate. The supreme Court's decision on Monday to keep Donald Trump on Colorado's ballot was styled as a unanimous one with no dissents. But the metadata tells a different story on the page. A separate opinion by the liberal justices is styled as a concurrence to the judgment authored jointly by the trio. But in the metadata of the link to the opinion posted by the court, this opinion is styled as an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, authored not by all three justices, but by Sonia Sotomayor alone.
How bizarre.
Even a tech phobic reader can discern this incongruity through careful copying and pasting, piercing the facade of unanimity that the conservative justices sought to present to us, uh, the public. What happened? Most obviously, the Supreme Court rushed out this opinion and forgot to check the metadata. Oops. The court, after all, scheduled the opinion's release only one day earlier, on Sunday afternoon, evidently to hand it down before Tuesday's. Colorado primary and Super Tuesday. That's not election interference at all. Moreover, the justices did not take the bench to announce the opinion as they usually do, probably because they had not planned to be in DC, further proving this was a last minute release. The deeper question remains, of course. Why was an opinion originally authored by a lone justice as a partial dissent transformed into a concurrence authored by all three liberals? M indeed. And this reminds me of when Manafort, uh, filed a bunch of stuff and redacted a bunch of stuff, but he redacted it by using the highlighter function with black so people could just remove it.
What a moron. Oh, my God.
Republicans can't tech. Um, he goes on to say, we cannot know with any real certainty what was going on. We may never, but we can certainly speculate. Yay. I love speculating. That's why I wanted to read this story. First, a recap. SCOTUS ruled that an individual state may not disqualify a presidential candidate from the ballot under section three of the 14th Amendment because that section three is what bars insurrectionists from regaining public office. All nine justices agreed with that bottom line. Five justices went further, however, declaring that only Congress can enforce section three against federal candidates. In a brief opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the court should not have reached that broader question about congressional authority. Sotomayor made the same point in a longer, more acerbic opinion, joined by Justice Selena Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson. Her opinion was styled as a concurrence, but we now know it was actually probably until late, the drafting process labeled a dissent. We also know that the opinion was originally ascribed only to Sotomayor. Now, the speculation, we can guess that the bulk of this opinion was authored by Sotomayor herself. It bears some of the justice's trademarks, including a real politic assessment of the majority's handiwork and stormy rhetoric about its consequences for democracy. In addition, during oral arguments last month, Sotomayor sounded the most skeptical of Trump and his vigorous legal theories. Perhaps after arguments, the court convened to vote on the case, and a majority settled on a sweeping rationale in Trump's favor. Sotomayor then moved forward with a dissent, faulting the majority's overreach by ruling that only Congress can fix this. And at some point, that dissent turned into the opinion concurring in the judgment that we saw on Monday. Which leads to the second question, why did a standalone sotomayor dissent transform into a three justice concurrence? Here, the most rational intuition is that Kagan and Jackson were keeping their votes fluid in the hopes of striking a bargain to avert a gratuitously broad opinion, effectively repealing the insurrection clause. This bargain may have been simple. The two justices might have joined with Barrett to seek a fifth vote for a narrow holding, presumably from Roberts. All the while, Sotomayor worked on a fallback option, a partial dissent chastising the majority's overreach. When Kagan and Jackson realized they couldn't nab a fifth vote for the narrow position, they teamed up with Sotomayor, making a few changes and signing their names as authors in a show of force and agreement with the progressive bloc. This is a parentheses here. The description of presidential elections as a great and glorious thing, for example, sounds like the work of Kagan or Jackson, not Sotomayor. Now broaden the scope of the potential negotiations, though, and things get more interesting. After aura arguments, many a smart court watcher amused that the justices might reach a grand bargain that tied this case to a separate dispute involving Trump's claim of immunity from criminal prosecution for election subversion. The liberal justices might agree to keep Trump on the ballot. If the court also refused to take up the immunity case, there would be an exchange of votes. Trump stays on the ballot but gets no immunity from prosecution. He could run in all 50 states, but would also have to contend with a criminal trial, and would likely that would conclude, probably before the election. That, of course, did not happen. The court sided with Trump on the ballot issue and took up the immunity case in a less than speedy timeline, helping him run out the clock to November. But maybe Kagan and Jackson were working behind the scenes to strike this grand bargain. Maybe they were withholding their votes in both cases, scrambling to find two conservative justices who would rule narrowly for Trump in one case and swiftly against him in the other. If so, that didn't happen. But it would still make sense for Kagan and Jackson to withhold their votes in both cases until they got confirmation that no compromise lay on the horizon in either dispute. Then there's the least interesting possibility that Sotomayor's opinion was going to be a partial dissent until Robertson Barrett prevailed upon her to call it a concurrence in a bid to look unanimous and to, quote, turn the national temperature down, in Barrett's words. It's frankly difficult to see Sotomayor, an independent minded and principled jurist, buying into this stratagem if she got nothing out of it. And this theory doesn't explain why the two other liberals signed on as authors, apparently so late in the game. M but there's always another bargain to seek, another compromise to pursue. Who knows what these three justices might have received in exchange for removing the word dissent from this opinion. Maybe they need to call the opinion a concurrence to wrench a separate opinion out of Barrett, one she might not have offered otherwise. Criticizing the majority, Barrett strived to frame the outcome as a reflection of a friendly unanimity. Perhaps she threatened to paper over her disagreement unless the liberals dropped the word dissent to keep up the facade of cross ideological agreement. Or maybe Barrett was on the fence about whether to grant Trump a full stay in his immunity case and push that case to next term's docket instead of hearing it on a marginally expedited basis this term. If so, perhaps the concurrence language was the price of her vote there. And, Dana, that's what I think it is. I think the bargain was that they would hear the immunity case this term, and they needed Barrett's vote to do that. So anyway, he goes on to say whatever the liberals were able or not to eke out of the conservative justices. It appears to have been thin gruel indeed. Such guesswork, ultimately somewhat of a fool's errand. But it's irresistible when the Supreme Court leaves such a big clue dangling in the metadata. I asked the court for comment on Monday, the reporter says, but have not heard a response. Whatever happened behind the scenes, the final product is plenty fractured on its own terms. The liberal justices can call their opinion whatever they want. At the end of the day, it reads exactly like what it is, a furious and fearful.
Just, just wow. Ag. Thank you so much for that story. This one's from Andrew Attterberry at, uh, Politico. Florida is legally blocked from enforcing a key portion of the high profile 2022 law restricting what Governor Rhonda Santis has called woke workplace trainings about race after federal appeals court ruled Monday that the policy, and I quote, exceeds the bounds of the First Amendment. Not surprising, a, uh, three judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a blow to the DeSantis administration by deeming one of the republican governor's signature laws the, quote, stop woke act. It should have been just fucked from there, by the way. Stupid name. Anyway, they deemed it unconstitutional, upholding a previous ruling that prevented it from taking hold. DeSantis officials, meanwhile, disagreed with the decision. Of course they did, signaling that the governor could ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, quote, by limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive. The act targets speech based on its content. That's what Judge Britt Grant said. By the way, Judge Grant is an appointee of former President Donald Trump wrote that in opinion went on to say, and by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints. The greatest First Amendment sin. Florida's republican led legislature passed the, quote, anti woke legislation, which is, uh, Florida's HB 722 R, or the Individual Freedom act. In 2022. With the backing of DeSantis, it expanded Florida's antidiscrimination laws to prohibit schools and companies from leveling guilt or blame to students and employees based on race or sex, taking aim at lessons over issues like, quote, white privilege by creating new protections for students and workers, including that a person should not be instructed to end, I, quote, feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress due to their race, color, sex, or national origin. A group of businesses, honeymoon registry technology company Honeyfund.com and Florida based Ben Jerry's Franchisee Primo Tampa, along with workplace diversity consultancy collective concepts and its co founder Shavara Orrin, combined to the challenge the anti woke workplace policies in federal court. All of them challenge this idea. Attorneys for the companies, which are being represented by protect democracy and the law firm ropes in Gray, contend that the policies force them to censor themselves on important societal matters and, quote, from engaging employees in robust discussions of ideas essential for improving their workplaces. The DeSantis administration, though, pushed back on the appeals court, claiming that the court has held that companies have a right to indoctrinate their, um, employees with racist and discriminatory ideologies. The state is, quote, reviewing all options on appeal going forward. He is really a piece of shit. Quote, we disagree with the court's opinion that employers can require employees to be taught as a condition of employment that one race is morally superior to another race. That's from Jeremy Redfern. He's the press secretary for DeSantis. That's what he said in a statement, and his statement is complete bullshit. But he went on to say the First Amendment protects no such thing, and the state of Florida should have every right to protect Floridians from racially hostile workplaces. Attorneys for the state and DeSantis have argued in court that anti woke law restricts no speech and only regulates that employers can't force employees to listen to certain speech against their will at the risk of losing their jobs. The appeals court disagreed, going into detail in the 22 page ruling about potential faults in that law. The panel of judges suggested that under the proposed policies. A, uh, government could ban writing on a parade float if it did not agree with a message on the banner. Quote, we cannot agree and we reject this latest attempt to control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct. That's what Grant wrote, remember, that's the judge who was joined by judges Charles Wilson and Andrew Brasher. Quote, florida may be exactly right about the nature of the ideas it targets, or it may not. Either way, the merits of these views will be decided in the clanging marketplace of ideas rather than a codebook or a courtroom.
Wow.
Mhm. The Monday ruling was heralded as, quote, a major victory for free speech in the workplace by the group suing the state and their attorneys. Speech codes have no place in american society, and elected officials have no business censoring the speech of business owners simply because they don't agree with what's being expressed. This is from Shalina goal Agarwal, and she's with protect democracy that she's part of their council. That's what she said in a statement and went on to say, barring employers from engaging in speech that powerful politicians don't like is a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook. It is indeed a similar lawsuit surrounding how the Stop woke Act applies to lessons on race in higher education that's still being played out in the federal court in the same fashion. This portion of the law was blocked through a preliminary injunction and is awaiting hearing scheduled for June. I have a feeling the same thing is going to happen with this. Um, I just don't see it falling under the first Amendment. I just don't. I think they're going to block this as well.
I think so, too. But as with anti trans bills, anti LGBTQ plus bills, all, uh, of these bills, they really were never designed to go into law. No, they were designed to piss, to create hate and stoke anger and encourage othering of, uh, people and marginalized communities. That's what their main goal is. The cruelty is the point.
Yeah.
All right with that. Thank you for that story. We have some good news that we want to read to you, but we need to take a quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody, it's ag. And if you're like me, you've tried several different meal kit options over the years with nothing really standing out and everything tasting kind of the same. Well, I've just discovered home chef. It's been the shining star. Head and shoulders above the rest. It's what we've been looking for. And home chef takes meal kits to the next level, a high quality brand at an economical price that you will be thankful to have shipped right to your door. Home Chef provides fresh ingredients and chef designed recipes conveniently delivered to your doorstep to simplify your cooking experience. Get 18 free meals plus free shipping on your first box and free dessert for life@homechef.com. Dailybeans Home chef gives you 30 different options every week, covering a variety of dietary needs so you won't have to stress about what to make ahead of time. They have classic meal kits with pre portioned ingredients and easy instructions. They have speedy recipes that are ready in under 30 minutes, oven ready kits with pre chopped ingredients and even quick microwave meals that are ready in no time at all. My first meal with home chef was their creamy tuscan yellowtail. I love yellowtail. It's keto friendly. It was a fine dining experience from the comfort of my home. It was easy to make completely delicious. The mushrooms, chive and broccoli were perfect delicious. They were fresh, cream topped dish. It was amazing. I loved it. I can't wait to try the rest of my selections this week. And on top of that, if you've been stressed about rising prices at your local supermarket, home chef isn't just convenient, it's also easy on the wallet, with the average home chef customer saving $86 a month on their grocery bill. So now you and your entire family can be covered for the best, most delicious meals without the extra hassle or cost. For a limited time, home chef is offering the daily beans listeners 18 free meals plus free shipping on your first box and free dessert for life. That's at homechef.com dailybeans. That's homechef.com dailybeans. For 18 free meals and free dessert for life. Must be an active subscriber to receive the free dessert. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
Everyone.
Then good news, everyone. And if you have good news, confessions, corrections, you want to play what the fark is in your arc? You want to send some misheard song lyrics? Some daily beans, mondogreens, if you will. If you want to give a shout out to a loved one or yourself or a small business in your area or your small business, we'd love to hear that. I also love your dissertation and theses titles. Dana loves your baby pictures. So do I. Do. I do. Dana really loves baby pictures. Um, so send those to us. Um, and if you have, let's see, an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have pod pet tax to pay. And we also love your VA stories about health care that you've received at the VA, and of course, your student debt relief stories. Send it all to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. All right, so it's Super Tuesday afternoon as we record this. So we aren't going to have any Super Tuesday results for you this show, as you could have guessed by the first news block, by the a block. But we will be bringing that to you on Friday, uh, tomorrow, Thursday. I have an incredible interview with the founder of the Find out Pack and one of the women whose stories inspired the pack. And so you're going to really love that interview as well. All right, first up, from anonymous pronouns she and her. I am the director of a small nonprofit. We have a very part time employee who does custodial work for us. He works another full time job, but up until this month also qualified for Medicaid to pay for his health care. His earnings went up just enough, about one $200 in a year that he no longer qualifies for Medicaid. And he came to me earlier in a panic about what to do. Since then, we sat down and registered him on healthcare Gov and looked at his options. Took about 2 hours, but we found a plan that lets him keep his doctor pay for all of his medications with a low copay and the premium after the credit. Based on his income, he will pay $7 a month. Our health care system is broken and it needs major reworking, but I wanted to remind folks that Obamacare is still there and has made the health of countless Americans better. Thanks to Democrats for caring about people and working to improve lives. Vote blue. What a great, great story. Anonymous and yeah, anybody who has any wonderful success stories about any democratic government program, we would love to hear about it. Not just debt relief, but these kinds of stories are amazing as well.
Absolutely. Thank you so much. This next one's from Dee pronoun. She and her hello beans goddesses. I would like to give a shout out to my hubby. He supports me in so many ways and way more than I deserve. We recently lost his mom to dementia and our scottish terrier to brain tumor, all within a few days of one another. I'm so sorry. I was also diagnosed as an epileptic in September and have not been able to drive for the last five and a half m months. So he's had to be my chauffeur. He could tell I was struggling with my grief and gently encouraged me to seek therapy to work through it. So last week I had my first visit and I'm now able to see a path forward and even start working on some other issues from my childhood and bullying that has left me scarred to this day. He also encouraged me to start my own website to sell all my crafting things. My latest things I'm making are tote the vote and so far I have three different designs and would like your permission to sell a fourth one inspired by the two of you. Pics are attached. My website is bakefish fun.
Nice. I didn't know we had a, uh, neither.
I know. Bakedfishfish fun. I also have a vote shirt on there for podpet tax. I've included a pic of our sweet Gracie girl. I miss her terribly and I think of her every day, but know she's happy playing on the other side of the rainbow bridge. I have also included a cute Tyler pick for Dana. Thank you in advance. Uh, he can get this gigi to do just about anything he wants, and I love every minute of him and his six cousins.
Okay, first of all, look at the beautiful dog. Look at Gracie. And these vote totes are amazing.
And of course, fantastic.
Of course you have our permission.
Oh, my God. Absolutely. Ruthlessly. That is so good.
Mhm. Vote ruthlessly.
Uh, blue over q and take everyone with you.
And take someone with you. Vote blue over q and take someone with you. I, uh, love it. Take everyone with you. It says wonderful toddlers, of course. Please sell those. Sell away, my friend. Bakedfish fun. That's fantastic. Also, yes. This toddler is adorable. Look at that shirt, dude.
So sweet. I love it.
That's so great.
I probably also have that shirt or have in the past.
Thank you so much, Dee, for that submission. That was wonderful. Next up from Jody pronoun. She and her look at the baby in the basket. Mhm. Hello. From some blue dots in a scarlet red state. We love your approach to the news. You're both salty and tender, which is as tasty as it gets. My good news and shout out today is that my beloved husband George's 56th birthday is today the real reason? It's super. On this Tuesday, George was not feeling so hot before Christmas. So when we wound up at the ER after some shenanigans, we found out he had cancer. Kidneys in acute shutdown, four fractured vertebra, and you guessed it, fucking Covid. Jody said, effing I subbed in the swears after a rough spell. Our family is just so thankful to have him here with us on his birthday. And the best birthday gift I could give him would be a shout out from AG and DG. George.
Happy birthday, George. Happy birthday.
For thesis tax, I have an MFA in poetry, and my thesis was titled Baby Jesus and Loretta. Let's just say I didn't quite fit in when I was earning that degree. For baby tax. For DG, I have attached a photo of our youngest, who's about to graduate high school. Uh. Aw.
Babies in a basket.
Always. Baby in a basket is the best. Thank you. Thank you. And George, happiest of happy birthdays to you, sir.
I concur. All right. This is from Jack. Pronouns he and him. Hi, beans, Queens. I'm a relatively new listener who's so excited to have found a pod and community like yours to share the humor and frustration of the past few months. Few months, Jack, your blend of snark and compassion and the perfect complement to my three hour commute. My good news is that after a gorgeous winter wedding earlier this year, this month, my wife and I are headed to our honeymoon to resort in Mexico, where we plan to enjoy a week of not following the utter nonsense going on right now. I love that idea. Jack, unplug. While we are there, we hope to see the attached creature. My submission for what the fark is in that ark. These cuties travel in family packs and are essentially adorable raccoons, but we still love them and hope to see them again on our trip. Until then, I'll keep starting each morning with my daily beans and your wonderful energy. Thank you both.
I'm in Mexico right now, and that's a kuwati. Or Kuwati. Kuwati mundi. And I have seen several of them, Jack, along with some iguanas and some little adolescent raccoons as well. But, uh, yeah, these guys are friggin adorable. Look at them. Look at their little.
Love it.
Look at their little tail. Remind me of lemurs. Yep, there we go. Kawadi. Or Kawada Monday. I took these photos years ago on our last trip to Mexico. Thank you so much for that. Enjoy your time in the beautiful Mexico country. It's amazing. Jack, as you know, nice, because. Job, you have Kawadi's photos. All right, Patricia, Patty, cookie, take your pick. Pronoun. She and her. Hello, girls. On March 10, my wife Katie and I will celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary.
Congratulations.
We actually met on Craigslist. We, uh, are living proof that not everyone on that site is a serial killer, rapist, or looney tune. Well, we may have been a bit loony. We had our first date August twelveth 2007. Two weeks later, we decided to be exclusive girlfriends. I guess we were going steady. Six months after that, we tied the knot. My family was not amused. My daughter stopped speaking to me and kept me from seeing my grandson for over four years. We were basically shunned by my mother and sisters for ten years. This is all water under the bridge and we all have a decent relationship now. I would do it again to prove my love for this incredible woman. Over the years, we've both been teachers and students for each other and I want to tell the world how much I love and respect my Katie doll. I've included photos of the day we got hitched and what we looked like today. We adore your podcast and both of you are beautiful women. Hope to meet you someday when you come to Portland, Oregon. I'll be there at Polaris. Peace and love. Patricia, Patty, cookie, take your pick. Look at this beautiful couple.
Oh, man, I love these. Like before. Um, and now picks 16 years ago. And now I don't want to say before and after because there's no after for you all. It's always going to be now.
Mhm. Absolutely beautiful. Love glasses. Frames are on fleek. Those are rats.
So good, right?
Did I just say on fleek?
You did. And you know what? We're just going to let go.
Thank you. And then, of course, I bring it up again.
Okay, I was going to let it go and you're like, did I just say something? Yep. No, no, everything's fine.
I'm all about holding myself responsible for things that I say. Oh, man. Uh, well, everybody, congratulations. Happy anniversary. Happy trip to Mexico. Happy birthday, George. Thank you all for your photos and your wonderful stories. Um, just keep sending us your good news. Everybody get out. And know I might as well. Just everything. Like, do I have any final thoughts besides what's in my closing sign? Uh, off statement? I don't know. Maybe. But do you have any, Dana?
I do not. I'll miss you all tomorrow because it's a pre recorded show, but I'll be back in your ears on, yep, yep. We will be back on Friday and.
We'Ll discuss what happened on Super Tuesday, which is George's birthday, which is why it's super. Until then, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, take care of your family.
Vote blue over Q and take everyone you know with you, says the tote bag. 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 Joel 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 Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com.