Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 Today, Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking the bar association to launch an investigation into acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove; Trump abruptly walks back his directive to fire thousands of federal workers; Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger has filed a motion to stop the firing of 5000 USDA employees; the oligarchs on the Supreme Court have ruled that the EPA can’t impose clean water protections; Trump’s tariff wars threaten to sink the global economy; after a series of embarrassing outings, the Republican Party has decided to cancel all in-person town halls; a judge has issues a permanent injunction keeping Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris in her job; it’s time to use frozen Russian assets in the European Union to fund Ukraine; the Pentagon is gutting the office that helps minimize civilian deaths; Democratic Attorneys General are set to begin a series of town halls; a bill to ban trans athletes from girl’s and women’s sports fails in the Senate; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
Wednesday, March 5th, 2025
Today, Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking the bar association to launch an investigation into acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove; Trump abruptly walks back his directive to fire thousands of federal workers; Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger has filed a motion to stop the firing of 5000 USDA employees; the oligarchs on the Supreme Court have ruled that the EPA can’t impose clean water protections; Trump’s tariff wars threaten to sink the global economy; after a series of embarrassing outings, the Republican Party has decided to cancel all in-person town halls; a judge has issues a permanent injunction keeping Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris in her job; it’s time to use frozen Russian assets in the European Union to fund Ukraine; the Pentagon is gutting the office that helps minimize civilian deaths; Democratic Attorneys General are set to begin a series of town halls; a bill to ban trans athletes from girl’s and women’s sports fails in the Senate; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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No more in-person town halls, NRCC chief tells House Republicans - Live Updates - POLITICO
Pentagon moves to gut operations focused on reducing civilian harm | The Washington Post
Supreme Court strikes down EPA rules on discharge of water pollution - The Washington Post
Is It Time to Transfer Frozen Russian Assets to Ukraine? Calls Grow Louder. | New York Times
Bill to ban trans athletes from girls' and women's sports teams fails to advance in Senate | AP News
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Um, MSW Media Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, March 5, 2025. Today, Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking the Bar association to launch an investigation into acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Beauvais. Trump abruptly walks back his directive to fire thousands of federal workers. Special counsel Hampton Dellinger has filed a motion to stop the firing of 5,000 USDA employees. The oligarchs on the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot impose clean water protections. Trump's tariff wars threaten to sink the global economy. After a series of embarrassing outings, the Republican Party has decided to cancel all in person town halls. A judge has issued a permanent injunction keeping Merit Systems Protection Board member Kathy Harris in her job. It is time to use frozen Russian assets in the European Union to fund Ukraine. The Pentagon is gutting the office that helps minimize civilian deaths. Democratic attorneys general are set to begin a series of town halls. And a bill to ban trans athletes from girls and women's sports fails in the Senate. I'm Allison Gill.
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
Hey, Dana, we've got a mixed bag today. Happy taint of the week.
Yeah, we sure do. Happy taint to you.
Yes. Now, uh, just everybody remember, there's a new episode of cleanup on aisle 45 out today. We do a deep dive into Hampton Dellinger and the ruling keeping him in his job and why. Judge Amy Berman Jackson believes that the statute that requires cause to fire the special counsel is actually constitutional. We'll see what the Supreme Court says. And, um, Dana, Sanctioned parking lot lawyer and admitted felon Alina Haba.
Oh, my God. I saw this clip and my blood boiled.
Yeah. She says that veterans fired from public service don't deserve to have jobs. Let's just listen. Starting to think about maybe some of.
Those veterans who worked for the federal.
Government and maybe what the administration can.
Do to at least help salvage their lives.
Well, as you know, we care about veterans tremendously. I mean, that's something the president has always cared about. Anybody in blue? Anybody that serves this country. Um, but at the same time, we have taxpayer dollars. We have a fiscal responsibility to use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work. Uh, that doesn't mean that we forget our veterans by any means. We are going to care for them in the right way, but perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment or not willing to come to work. And we can't, you know, I wouldn't take money from you and pay somebody and say, sorry, you know, they're not going to come to work. It's just not acceptable.
Yeah, I got a lot of special names for her.
Yeah. Maybe they're just not supposed to have jobs. Right. And fuck off. Yeah, like maybe you're not supposed to have a law license.
No, that was, uh. No. Jenna Ellis was the fart target. My bad.
Yeah, it's really hard to keep it straight when it comes to Rudy Giuliani. I'm sure every one of us is the fart target. We're just not in his, you know, sphere.
Yeah. And I think that's who's actually the admitted felon. I don't. I don't know if Alina Hobb has pled guilty to anything. Probably not. Uh, but that's true as well. Have so self. Quick self correction. I was like, oh, no, wait, that's Jenna Ellis. Yeah, I can't keep my idiot Barbie lawyers felons straight. So, anyway, sorry about that, everybody. We have a lot of news to get to today. Uh, so let's do some quick hits. And to make a long story short. All right, first up from Hannah Rabinowitz. Senate Democrats are urging New York legal authorities, the bar, to investigate whether acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Beauvais engaged in professional misconduct by engaging in a supposed quid pro quo to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Hint he did. The complaint sent to the Attorney Grievance Committee in New York, the investigative group that scrutinizes potential misconduct by lawyers who are licensed to practice in the state, is signed by the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including their top member, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. It is at least the third complaint made to the New York committee about Bove's efforts to drop the Adams indictment.
Boy, oh, boy. All right, this one's from Politico. The chair of the House GOP's campaign arm told Republican lawmakers Tuesday to stop holding in person town halls because they have been a fucking disaster. Amid a wave of angry backlash over the cuts undertaken by President Donald Trump's administration, Rep. Richard Hudson, he's a Republican in North Carolina. He's also the NRCC chair. He delivered the message inside a closed door meeting of House Republicans. And that's according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private remarks. Now, why would you have to do that? Trump says these are just paid actors. These are just paid Democratic actors.
Yeah. Huh? Uh-huh. That's totally not true. Yeah, what a shit show. Yeah, it's been real bad for them, so I can see why they'd want to tuck tail and run. Also, a judge has issued a permanent injunction returning Merit Systems Protection Board member Kathy Harris to her job. Full disclosure, she was my lawyer and my wrong. Wrongful termination from the first Trump administration.
Nice.
Um, yeah, she's awesome. Uh, she had to step off my case. She had to, like, quit being my lawyer because Joe Biden appointed her to the Merit Systems Protection Board. So, um, congratulations on this. This is a permanent injunction. So I want to talk about that just briefly, because some of the other stuff we've seen, like Hampton Dellinger, that's a preliminary injunction. But here, the judge consolidated her motion for a preliminary injunction and her motion to hear the merits in the case. The judge consolidated those into one thing and treated the back and forth by the parties as cross motions for summary judgment. So he granted summary judgment to Kathy Harris. That permanently reinstates her job. Now, Trump can come back and fire, try to fire her for cause, and then she can sue again and say it's not true or whatever. But this isn't a temporary fix. She's back in her job now. And we'll discuss this in depth on the next cleanup on aisle 45. Not today's.
All right, sounds good. Uh, this next one. Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres, and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, they're all going to hold the first community impact hearing in a national series of town halls hosted by attorneys general to hear from the public about the impact of federal firings and doji funding freezes across the country. That means they're open to all constituents and they're going to be able to hear everybody's voice. The first community impact hearing will be in Phoenix on March 5th. So if you're in Phoenix, make sure you know we're going to have a link in the show notes where you can RSVP to this town hall with the attorneys general. Go make your voices heard.
Yes, Be loud and shout out to Daily Beans. Be like Daily Beans wants to know why Doji sucks. But, yeah, that's tonight. I think it's at 6pm local time. So again, we'll have a link to the RSVP in the show notes. And Hampton Dellinger, who I just mentioned, has filed with the Merit Systems Protection Board to stop the firing of 5,000 probationary employees from the USDA. While his last petition to the Merit Systems Protection Board to block the firing of six federal workers from multiple agencies went to Biden appointee on the mspb, Raymond Limone. This one has landed on the desk of Kathy Harris. So we're going to have more on the next cleanup and breaking news. And I'm going to cover this in, uh, the next segment. Trump has abruptly walked back his directive to fire thousands of probationary federal employees. In an OPM memo that went out, they said, we're just kidding. Um, probably because of what some of uh, judges are ruling and what the Merit Systems Protection Board is doing.
And it's been highly illegal.
Mhm.
Yeah, all the firing is highly legal. All right, last in this segment. This is from the Post. The Defense Department is moving to dismantle efforts focused on reducing civilian harm and US Military operations. That's according to three defense officials, part of a Trump administration shift to scale back protections of innocence so commanders can focus more on lethality when conducting military strikes. Pentagon leaders have decided to shutter civilian protection efforts across the agency. That's according to to the officials. On the chopping block is a broad cross command effort known as the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response, which includes dozens of staffers worldwide who work alongside commanders to refine targeting operations, along with a center oversee by the army that outlines best practices and training for military leaders to follow. That seems kind of important.
Yeah, lots, um, of civilians are going to be harmed. And keep in mind, a lot of people are like, well, maybe someone will take the United States to the Hague to the International Criminal Court. We're not a signatory in that court and can't be tried there. So that, that's probably, uh, not going to happen. So, uh, anyway, um, we have so much news to get to today, including um, the hot notes which we will get to. But we have to take a quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
We'll be right back.
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Thanks Alison. This one's from the Post. The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down rules regulating the discharge of water pollution, narrowing the landmark Clean Water act in an unusual case that pitted one of the nation's greenest cities, San Francisco, against the EPA. In a 5, 4 ruling, the justices found that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot this is mind blowing to me, by the way, cannot impose generic prohibitions against violating water quality standards. Maybe someone can explain to me how this could possibly be a good thing. The ruling could affect businesses and other cities that sit on bodies of water, including New York, Boston and Washington. Washington San Francisco sued the EPA after the agency found the city in violation of the terms of a 2019 permit required to discharge pollution from its wastewater system into the Pacific Ocean. City officials argue that the EPA had exceeded its authority because the permit rules were so vague that it was impossible to know when they had crossed a line. Okay, I can buy that. Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court's three liberal justices dissented in part from Tuesday's ruling, arguing that the EPA had the authority to impose generic prohibitions under the terms of the Clean Water Act. That seems fair and I quote the concern that the technology based effluent limitations may fall short and on display in this case. Discharges from components of San Francisco's sewer systems have allegedly led to serious breaches of the water quality standards, such as discoloration scum, floating material. Can imagine what that is, including toilet paper, and that's in Mission Creek, barrett wrote, citing the EPA's case against San Francisco. San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar blasted the city Tuesday for bringing the case against the epa. Quote, it's deeply troubling to see San Francisco, a city known for its environmental leadership, play a significant role in weakening the very protections that safeguard our, uh, water and natural resources. That's what she said in a statement and went on to say this decision aligns with President Trump's broader rollback of environmental regulations. I don't get it, Alice.
I guess clean water sucks for some people who are trying to be polluters and make money.
It's literally, it's literally trying to impose rules on how much sewage can be dropped into water. Into the water.
Mhm. Ugh. Uh, yep. All right, next up from the Times, President Trump's rancorous threat to abandon Ukraine is stoking support for a long debated proposal to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine and finance its reconstruction. We have been screaming about this for how long now, Dana? Like, unfreeze these frozen Russian assets? The money, roughly 300 billion owned by Russia's central bank, was frozen by the United States, the European Union, Britain and others after Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The aim was to punish President Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked attack and cut off funds that he could use to wage war. As the war grinds on into its fourth year, a growing number of officials in Europe and elsewhere have been calling for the money to be released directly to compensate Ukraine. The idea has picked up momentum recently as President Trump vowed to quickly broker a deal to end the war while threatening to slash US Aid to Ukraine. Enough talking. It's time to act. That's Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, and he posted that on Twitter last month, saying, let's finance our aid for Ukraine from the Russian frozen assets. Hear, hear. Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have joined the call. Quote, the time is ripe now to take the next step. Marcus Tushanka, the Foreign Minister of Estonia, he said that last month after submitting a discussion paper on the subject to the eu. Philip D. Zelikow, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a former diplomat who's been studying how to transfer the assets to Ukraine, said this issue is now front and center. He pointed out that American banks held only a small fraction of the frozen assets. The bulk of the funds, about 250 billion, are in financial institutions in the European Union, Canada, Britain, Australia, Japan and Singapore. And that's according to an analysis by Mr. Zelikow. That means a bloc of nations could move to use them even if the United States doesn't go along with the plan. Whether to turn over the Kremlin's money to Ukraine instead of just barring Russia's access to it, though, has remained contentious. Legal experts and government officials, including some who worked for Joe Biden, warned that confiscating the money could violate international law and undermine confidence in Western financial institutions. And there was concern that America and European assets held in other countries might be more at risk in the future if a dispute arose. France, Belgium, and Germany have resisted the idea in the past as well. When President Emmanuel Macron of France visited the White House last month, he reiterated that Russia's assets, quote, are not our belongings, so they're frozen. And Belgium, which is holding the biggest single chunk of Russian money, for instance, they're worried about potentially damaging legal and financial fallout of transferring the funds to Ukraine. I say it, do it, guys like, what could be worse than the financial and legal fallout of what's happening in the Trump administration? Under pressure from supporters, though, the EU convened a working group to study the proposal. And last summer, Europe and the United States agreed to issue a roughly $50 billion loan to Ukraine that would be repaid by interest and profits from the frozen Russian assets. Last week, Rishi Sunak, a member of the British Parliament and the former prime minister, weighed in on behalf of a full transfer. He said we must find ways to get more resources to Ukraine. He wrote that in an essay published in the Economist, arguing that frozen Russian assets could be used to rebuild Ukraine and establish armed forces that can deter Russia. Once transferred to Ukraine, this money can be used to ensure that the country can not only recover from war, but also prevent a repeat of it. This past weekend, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and Mr. Zelensky agreed to a $2.8 billion loan for Ukrainian military equipment that would be paid back using profits from the Russian assets. On Thursday, leaders of European Union nations are set to meet in Brussels for a special summit on defense in Ukraine. Several legal experts and former government officials, including Lawrence H. Summers, a former treasury secretary, Robert B. Zelich, a former president of the World bank and US Trade representative, and Lawrence Tribe, we know him, professor, law professor at Harvard. They've argued that both the legal and financial hurdles of transferring the Russian funds to Ukraine can be overcome.
Thanks, Alison. Last in this segment. This is from the Associated Press. Uh, legislation that aimed to bar transgender women and girls nationwide from participating in school athletic competitions designated for female athletes failed to advance Monday night in a divided Senate as Democrats stood united against an issue that Republicans leveraged in last year's elections. A, uh, test vote on the bill failed to gain the 60 votes needed to advance in the chamber. As senators stuck to party lines, 51 to 45 vote tally, the bill sought to determine Title 9 protections, quote, based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth. The vote came as Republicans have homed in repeatedly on the social cause. I wouldn't say social cause. Casting it as an issue of ensuring athletic fairness for women and girls. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month giving federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title 9 in alignment with the administration's view, which interprets, quote, unquote, sex as the gender someone was assigned at birth. Which is just stupid because those are two different things. I can't still. Republicans in Congress have set their sights on enshrining that policy into law by amending the 1972 Title IX law, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. The House had already passed similar legislation with only two Democrats in support. But the setback for the bill in the Senate showed the steep climb for any legislation that targets LGBTQ people. Democrats slammed the bill as both a distraction for more pressing issues and a federal overreach into local school decisions. Quote, what Republicans are doing today is inviting a problem to stir up a cultural war and divide people against each other. That Senator Brian Schatz, he's the Democrat in Hawaii. That's what he said on the floor speech. In Minnesota Monday, the State House braced for a, uh, similar debate on a GOP backed bill that would apply to primary and secondary schools. Ahead of the debate, several dozen supporters rallied on the steps of the state Capitol in St. Paul, framing the bill as protections for opportunities and safety for girls in sports and ensuring that they have a level playing field. I know. Following the Senate bill's failure, Kelly Robinson, my dear friend, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement, quote, every child should have the opportunity to experience the simple joys of being young and making memories with their friends. But bills like these send the message that transgender kids don't deserve the same opportunities to thrive as their peers simply because of who they are. Now, this whole fucking thing in Minnesota, going all the way back to primary and secondary schools. Think about primary schools. These are literally kids that are just playing out on the playground. Like in primary school. You don't even necessarily have division of gender in sport when they're playing.
No. The greatness of America can only be realized if we separate the boys and the girls when they're playing. Heads up 7 up M. That's the eth. That's the warrior ethos.
Yeah. It's just absurd. And. And if we go back, it's actually sort of funny because if you go back to primary school, like, this is pre puberty, girls often have an advantage over their boys until puberty is hit. A lot of girls are faster than the boys when they're younger. It's just the whole thing is ridiculous. I'm so glad this happened, but I gotta say something on this account. And this is from my dear friend and friend of the podcast, Charlotte Clymer. It does look like a win, and we're going to take all the small wins we can. This does look like a win for trans rights, but what Charlotte pointed out is that most of the Democrats voted against this because it was hurting and was going to hurt Cisco children and CIS girls more than anyone else. Okay, so the GOP is going to try it again. They're going to try it some other way through some backdoor legislation. They're going to attach to something. I am grateful for the win. We are celebrating the wins. But I really wish they would actually be standing up for our trans community instead of just saying, oh, this is going to hurt CIS girls more.
Well, why can't you. Yeah, why can't you just vote against this? Because it's fucking bigoted and idiotic.
Yeah.
So, uh, there's only two kinds of apples, Dana. Red and green. That's it. There's no other kinds of apples. Don't put pink and yellow apples in the bowl with the other apples. But.
But there's several different kinds of red apples.
But, sir, there's a pink apple right here. It's not pink. It only thinks it's pink. Put it away. Throw it away.
We're not minimizing it, everyone. We're just trying to. It's just the hypocrisy, the. The maddening of all of this. And such a small community, percentage of people in this country that identify as trans and you are focusing on them instead of doing what you can to make this country better. It is.
And to insinuate they don't exist.
I can't. You know, it makes me so angry.
That's like. That's. It's. There's nothing like it. It is. It's what it is. It's its own worst metaphor. Like, uh, I don't.
I remember the whole thing where they're like, you can't say trans, but, uh, we're going to say this bill on transgender. Wait, you Just said you can't say trans. So are you allowed to say trans or you're not allowed to say trans?
I thought they didn't exist.
Banning them.
Uh, I thought they didn't exist. Why are you worried about them playing sports in school? They don't exist. I. It's just the. It's.
Yeah.
Maddening. Um, and I'm with you. I understand that you want to protect cisgender girls, but that we should want to protect our trans, uh, folks and trans community. Full stop. Just full stop.
Yeah. And by the way, they're protecting cisgender girls from predators and genital checks. Banning trans girls from sports. Do not protect CIS girls.
Just so you know, there's probably some creepy priest at a school who's like, all right, I'm going to check everybody's genitals now to protect you. You know, like, that's.
Matt Gaetz is going to apply for that job. He's out of Congress right now. I'm the new genital checker at the high school in Florida. That's what I do.
He's the female body inspector. That.
That's right.
He long joked about douchebags throughout his career. All right, everybody, it's time for some good trouble. What are you guys doing? All right. Following Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's transparent sucking up to President Trump and a change in content moderation policies across Meta platforms that allow for what is pretty unquestionably hate speech against marginalized groups, lots of people are looking for ways to part with the social media giant. You can count on John Oliver as being one of them. And on Sunday night, the host of Last Week Tonight spent more than a half hour laying out all the ways that Meta is actively harming people and armed users with a way to make themselves less valuable to the company if they stay on the platforms.
Now, Oliver covered a lot of ground over the course of the segment, ranging from how Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar to election misinformation, all, uh, while sprinkling in his standard tangential asides and analogies because he's brilliant. Like saying Zuckerberg looks like, quote Eddie Raid Redmayne. Like Eddie Redmayne was cast to play Ice Cube and White Macklemore.
He also gave viewers one call to action. Make yourself less valuable to Meta. The theory is pretty simple. Meta generates 98% of its revenue through advertising, driven by a powerful ad platform that allows companies to micro target people based on massive troves of data collected by tracking you and your online activity. So to cut into Meta's revenue cut off its ability to track you across the web.
Now this is a quote they would probably not want me to tell you that you can change your settings so that Facebook and Instagram cannot profit as much from your data anymore. This is from Oliver before directing viewers to a guide set up in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier foundation on how to prevent Meta from tracking you. And I quote, if you'd be interested in a step by step guide on how to do that, simply visit John Oliver once your rat erotica.com.
John Oliver wants your rat erotica.com we'll have a link for you in the show notes. It's a great step by step guide get, you know, I mean if you're going to stay on Meta, if you're going to stay on Insta, that that's the way to make.
I'm going to follow with opinion too.
Mm mhm. It's gonna be awesome. All right, everybody, we have another story which is the fact that Trump has abruptly walked back his directive to fire thousands of federal employees. We're gonna get to that, plus the good news right after this break. Stick around, we'll be right back. Hey everybody, welcome back. All right, I have a special story today. Uh, this is from the Huffington Post huffpost, and it's, uh, Jennifer Bendery and Dave Jamison. The headline is, Trump abruptly walks back his directive to fire thousands of federal employees. His administration is suddenly changing tactics after a federal judge ruled that its mass firings of probationary workers were probs illegal. So President Donald Trump on Tuesday abruptly walked back his directive to federal agencies to fire thousands of probationary employees. A ah, change driven not by a desire to preserve people's jobs, but in an attempt to comply with the judge's ruling that the way in which he's been carrying out mass firings is likely illegal. In revised guidance issued to the heads of federal agencies, the Office of Personnel Management, that's basically the human resource agency for the federal government, is trying to rewrite history by claiming it never actually ordered agencies to fire probationary employees. Those are people who generally have held their jobs for a year or less. Instead, OPM claims it's been up to each agency all along to decide who to fire. And now that it's clear, OPM says individual agencies have until September 13th to submit their plans to OPM for firing probationary employees. Quote, please note that this memorandum. But by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance based actions regarding probationary employees. That's what the updated OPM guidance says it goes on to say agencies have ultimate decision making authority over and responsibility for such personnel actions. The revised guidance is a direct response to U.S. district Judge William Alup ruling last Thursday that OPM had no authority to order agencies to fire thousands of probationary workers and that its actions were probably illegal. So what OPM is doing here is putting it on paper that it's up to the agencies to decide who to fire and not OPM in order to avoid more lawsuits. Underscoring that this move is more about the Trump administration covering for itself than preserving essential government jobs, OPM's guidance doesn't say anything about federal agencies being encouraged to rehire all the people who were fired. Everett Kelly of the American Federation of Government Employees, which brought the lawsuit in Alsup's court, said the new guidance shows that the Trump administration knows that what it's been doing is illegal. Quote, OPM's revision of its January 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees, which aligns with Judge Alup's recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings. That's what Kelly said in a statement, went on to say every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired. For the moment, it appears that federal agencies are no longer being ordered to fire probationary employees until at least September 13th. It is not clear what OPM's new guidance means for the thousands of employees already fired, but the judge's ruling last week has resulted in some federal agencies scrambling to rehire people they just fired. National Science foundation, for example, is trying to reinstate 84 employees it fired as part of OPM's directive. One of those 84 people told HuffPost on Monday that he and several of his colleagues learned they were getting their jobs back not from nsf, but from other co workers via the press. Quote, what a joke finding out from colleagues and online and not directly, said the employee who requested anonymity so he doesn't get fired again. Federal labor unions have been filing lawsuits aimed at blocking the probationary firings and getting workers reinstated, arguing the White House has usurped Congress's control over spending and violated rules that govern federal layoffs. Julie Wilson, general counsel at the NTEU, that's the National Treasury Employees Union, told HuffPost on Tuesday that the probationary firings are indisputably a reorganization attempt and that the administration had failed to follow proper procedures, including giving workers notice. Quote, the government has not followed any of those rules in terminating employees to date to include the mass firing of probationary employees. Wilson said. And, um, something that's not in this article that I think is very important is what's going on with Hampton Dellinger, Office of Special Counsel and Merit Systems Protection Board. As we know, Hampton Dellinger, who is the special counsel at the Office of Special Counsel appointed by Joe Biden to a five year term, was fired by Donald Trump and then filed a lawsuit saying, you can't fire me unless you fire me for cause. And you didn't do that. And immediately a restraining order with temporary restraining order was issued reinstating his job. While the judge decided, Amy Berman Jackson decided whether or not she was going to file a preliminary injunction, which is an appealable and more permanent stoppage, ah, of his firing. She did that on Saturday, March 1st. And uh, he's been there since. But before that, while that was all going on after he was reinstated, I think it was on, um, the 23rd of last month, he uh, issued a request to stay the firings of six federal employees across six different federal agencies. And he said in his request that these were done illegally because this looks like a reduction in force and not the firing of probationary employees. And when you have a reduction in force, there are rules that have to be followed. You have to give notice. Like it said here in this article, um, there are appeals rights for those who have been terminated in a rif. And it's a lot harder to do these kind of reorganization efforts, these RIFs. And so they found. He found that they violated the law. And so he told the Merit Systems Protection Board who said, yeah, we agree. We're putting a 45 day hold on these six people. And that's why the news from today that he is asking for the same thing for 5,000 USDA employees filed for being probationary employees under uh, the exact same circumstances is so important. And I'm assuming that this, which has ended up with Kathy Harris, who was also wrongfully terminated by Trump and sued to get her job back and got that back today in a, in a permanent, permanent injunction, uh, she has received this request from Hampton Dillinger, special Counsel. I'm sure that she will apply the same rules and laws that Raymond Lyman applied, who is another member of the Merit Systems Protection Board when he reinstated, uh, those six folks and put a 45 day temporary halt on the probationary employees. And Hampton Dellinger said in his statement, hey, these are six people. But we're working on a way to get this to a Broad swath of probationary employees that were illegally terminated. Um, and we're working on that so that we don't have to have every single individual file with the Office of Special Counsel. Uh, so that is where we are. And now we have Donald Trump walking that back, and the Office of Personnel Management saying, we never told you to fire everybody when they totally did. Uh, and the judge found that as well. So that is what's going on. Really, really big story. We're going to go over the Kathy Harris reinstatement order issued by the judge on the next episode of cleanup on aisle 45, because it's really, really well written. And, um, I'm looking forward to talking about that as well as an in depth look at the, uh, stay request from Office of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger to the Merit Systems Protection Board, Kathy Harris for these 5,000 jobs. Uh, though it might be moot now that Donald Trump is taking this all back, but we'll keep an eye on it for you. Thank you so much, everybody. We've got a lot of good news that we got to get to, but we have to take one more quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back, everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news? Everyone? Then good news, everyone. Good news. And if you have good news, confessions, corrections. You want to play any animal guessing game, like, what the mutt, uh, what the hell's in that shell? Find the cat. People like to send us their photos and say, do you see the cat? They're hard to find sometimes. Opine, uh, on the bovine. What the heck? Wine. What's the model of your axolotl? Uh, you can send those to us. Any shout outs you have, whether it's a shout out to yourself or a loved one or a small business in your area or your small business, or a shout out to a government program that's helped you or a family member or a loved one. Whether it's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care act, student debt forgiveness, great VA health care you've received, SNAP, WIC, Head Start, Section 8, anything like that, send that to us@dailybeanspod.com click on contact. All you got to do to get your submission in is pay your POD pet tax. And you can do that by attaching a photo of your pet. And if you don't have a pet pet, attach an, uh, adoptable pet in your area. We'll see if we can find them a home. If you don't have that, just find a photo of an animal on the Internet, we especially love baby animals. I'm a big fan of capybaras and frogs and secretary, uh, birds. Love them. Uh, and uh, that harpy eagle is pretty cool too. And pygmy marmosets. So just, you know, a few ideas. If you don't have any of those, you can attach your baby photos.
I love when you nerd out. It makes me so happy.
I live 10 seconds away from the San Diego Zoo and I'm a member, so I'm there all the time. Um, and if you don't have any of that, you can also attach a bird watching photo which we'll be doing for the foreseeable future, which is either an actual bird, like the secretary bird for example, or the harpy eagle, or, uh, a photo of you and your friends and family flipping off Trump and Musk properties. So that's how you do it. Dailybeanspod.com Click on Contact first up, anonymous pronouns he and him. Good morning ladies of the beans. I heard you talk about the U.S. postal Service and Elon Tesla getting into electric vehicles. It's probably not Tesla, but Rivan, which Amazon and Bezos has ownership of. They produce all the electric vans that Amazon uses. Okay, second, please warn people not to drive or eat while listening to charismatic megaplastics. That's our, uh, most listened to most downloaded episode of the daily beans from January 5, 2021. Uh, some bad news. A dear friend of ours had the worst day as a grant that a grandparent could have. In January he lost his four year old granddaughter and his mother in an accident. And it's been a hard time for friends and family. So please tell your loved ones you love them and hug them. Now some good news. My wife was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in December of 2022. Two years of tests and scans. The cancer has not returned. So we just celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. Thanks for the hard work you do to help us through this difficult time. The pet tax are three loving cats. The tortie is Pepper and she loves sleeping in your lap and eating the blend. Me too. Anonymous the black on white with the white on the nose is Vader because he's both sweet and mischievous. And lastly is Vader sweet. Uh, and lastly is Autumn. She's 13 and she's very set in her ways and must be the center of attention. Oh, I have a cat like that too. Oh, look at the sweet tuxies and the tortie. Thank you so much Anonymous for this. This, uh, good news and um, that information on the Elon Tesla electric vehicle postal service fleet.
All right, this one is from Beth Case scenario. I love that pronouns he and her and I know you know this person. Hi, AG and dg. I wrote in before with a correction during the Murfreesboro debacle. And I literally shrieked when AG said I love Beth Case scenario, which was obviously in the context of enjoying my excellent hand, but it still counts. Love you too, ag. Uh, but that's not the good news, which causes me to write in. Now, my YouTube is primarily cooking shows, political commentary, random music videos. However, a couple of days ago, the algorithm, out of nowhere, decided to suggest the most delightful channel. And it brought me so much joy in this world of horrors we seem to find ourselves in. It's sweet, funny, and utterly ridiculous. The League of Pigs is a channel with commentated pig racing. They're cute, obviously well cared for little pigs running a wee racetrack to get to their food through, uh, their food trough before each other. It is just what I needed and I hope you find it as delightful as I did. We're going to have a link in the show Notes, by the way to League of Pigs for you all. Her pod pet tax, my goodest of girls, Lily and Saga. Saga. The floof monster is a bit of a hell demon, but she's so cute she gets away with it. Lily is an angel who will happily be the little spoon in bed. Neither belly is a trap. Thanks y'all for all you do. I hope adorable running pigs will sil with silly commentary in the style of F1 racing will give you a bit of joy. I am going immediately to the site after we're done recording.
I am adding this to my lineup. I have to watch flow first, though. I hear it got the academy award for best animated. Oh, yeah, uh, and we've been talking about that a lot. And the good news next up from mo pronoun, she and her. This is my wobby. I stole it from my son when he was in the national Guard. He is under strict instructions that this will go to a nursing home with me and I will take it to my final resting place. I also have a wubby jacket that is the best jacket ever. My pet tax photo is our beagle McLovin.
Oh, my God.
He's 14 years old now and there's a lot of 14 year old dogs running around named McLovin. I bet he, uh, slowed down quite a bit, but he still likes his Budweiser. All right, thanks for all that, both of you. Do I have a great appreciation for women that can swear at my level. Level Mo. You are welcome. There's a woobie and a beagle in you. Uh, know how they do those?
Oh, my God.
It's very cute in the, like, the general's uniform. This is adorable.
Very cute.
Thank you so much for this.
All right, this next one's from I'm still fucking here. Elon Pronoun. She and her. Hey, awesome beans, ladies. I'm a new listener. Recently finding y'all after all the fuckery started a few weeks ago and was almost pathologically relieved to find podcasters that quote unquote, get it. I work for a small, little known federal agency that does a lot of help to, um, for farmers and small business owners all around the country. And I want to give a shout out to two people who are leaving federal service this week. I'm trying to keep this as anonymous as possible, so I'll call them. B and P. These are two of the most dedicated civil servants anyone could ask for and they had been fighting for years to improve a complicated and frustrating process that led to long delays for our customers. Finally, finally, the Biden administration listened and BNP spent the last year spinning up an entirely new division and bringing on 30 plus motivated and highly skilled staff all across the United States. Things were looking up. Response times were much better. Now, a month in, all of the new people have been illegally fired and BMP had their remote work agreements revoked and had to decide to move to D.C. or take the fork offer. They took the offer. I don't blame them. But I know this is not how they wanted to end their careers. I grieve for them and for all of the people affected, including thousands of customers whose grants and loans are now in limbo. I wish them the best in retirement and I hope they know how much their work and dedication have meant to all of us who were privileged enough to work with them. They deserved better than this. My pod pet tax. I'm submitting a picture of Merlin. He's a rescue pup, supposedly half Doberman and half standard poodle, which is what I would have guessed. Just kidding. His name is Merlin because he can somehow open locked doors and make entire sticks of unsupervised butter disappear. So we're pretty sure he's a wizard. Thank you so much for everything you do. You've been. You've both been a lifeline as I've tried to navigate the last few weeks, and I've always feel a little bit better after listening to you. Merlin is adorable.
There needs to be more of these dogs. Doberman poodles.
Yeah.
Doberdoodles.
Derba Doodles.
Doberdoodles in the world. What an adorable baby. Um, by the way, it looks an awful lot like, um, my friend Ben Folds his dog. So good taste, good taste. Thank you so much for that and thanks for the shout out to bmp. Bmp. Thanks for your service. I'm so sorry this is happening. I got, I got the letter. Um, when my remote work was revoked and I had to move to D.C. or I didn't get the fork, I just was fired. So it's just a fucking nightmare. So, um, hats off to you and we're all sending our love. Next up, Patricia from NC North Kakalaka. Hi. I want to thank you both for the great work you do and making me laugh with Dana's pronunciation mishaps. I wanted to share that I did my homework yesterday and submitted the Heritage foundation survey. Of course, I answered everything the opposite than what they wanted. But the best part was when I got to add my name and email. I went by Donald Duck. So I got a message that said, thank you for completing our survey, Donald. Now will you join the fight to end wasteful government spending? Question mark. Oh, uh, thanks, Patricia. Thanks for doing the good trouble. And thanks to everybody for sending in your good news. If you have any, send it to us dailybeanspod.com click on Contact. Um, do you have any, uh, final thoughts for this taint of the week?
I do not. I'm just happy we're, we're getting past it.
Yeah, but which direction are we going? Front, back? None of it's good.
Around. I'm going around, you're going around.
All right, cool. Sounds good to me. Everybody will 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.