M-S-W media. Listen to me, say the names in the news. Hello, and welcome to the Daily Beans for Wednesday, September 17, 2025. Today, Cosh Patel was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee and was just as unserious as you'd expect.
Mississippi communities are reeling after two hanging deaths. The UN's Commission of Inquiry has officially designated what's happening in Gaza as genocide. The Georgia Supreme Court officially disqualified Fannie Willis from the 2020 election re-go case. Judge Chutkin has ruled that she doesn't have jurisdiction to stop the deportees from being sent to Ghana.
Trump and some billionaires are taking over TikTok in the United States. Donald has sued the New York Times for $15 billion for alleged, well, I'm not exactly sure. A Manhattan judge has dismissed the terrorism charges against Luigi Mangion for lack of evidence. An appeals court has blocked Trump from firing Fed board Governor Lisa Cook.
Tim Walts announced he's running for a third term as Governor of Minnesota and a Florida restaurant tour offers their parking spaces for artists to color in after the state painted over the Pulse Night Club Memorial Crosswalk. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Dana Goldberg. Happy Wednesday, I guess.
Hello. I don't even know how to people anymore. Oh my God. Thank you, that was really funny.
Happy. Hello to you two, my friends. I know that people love when we laugh together. So hopefully that kick this episode off to a good start because Lord knows it's not all good news today because it hasn't been all good news in a very long time.
But we are in the middle of the week. I found a couple of good stories that we can share. And of course, we're going to have the good news at the end, which is always a wonderful way to microdose hope. So if you have a good news story, any little good thing that's happened to you ever, even if you want to make something up about something good that's going to happen to you in the future, I have to send it to us dailybeanspod.com and click on contact.
All right, we have a big show today because we have a ton of headlines. So we're going to split this up into two segments. Let's do some quick hits. All right, let's kick this off with Cosh Patel, taking questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It was a shit show. It was a little more than Republicans and Patel shoring up conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's shooter being a Democrat. So big thanks again to corporate media for running with the anti-transgender bullshit. That's their narrative now.
So Democrats did have some good questions. Adam Schiff asked about who had weaved, Gailene Maxwell's sex offender status, which Patel didn't take too kindly to. Let's listen. She's transferred to a minimum security prison, not suitable for a sex offender like herself.
Who made that decision and why? The Bureau of prisons. The Bureau of Decisions made it in prisons. The Bureau of prisons decided on their own without any consultation with Blanche or anyone else that they were going to suddenly after this interview, completely unrelated to this interview, completely unrelated to anything she said, move her to a prison not suitable for a sex offender.
You want the American people to believe that? Do you think they're stupid? No, I think the American people believe the truth that I'm not in the weeds on the everyday movements in me. What I am doing is protecting this country, providing historical for and combating the representation of intelligence by the likes of you.
We have countless proven you to be a liar in Michigan in January 6th. You are the biggest fraud to ever say the United States Senate who have displaced in this situation and an utter coward. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised. Continue to lie. From your perch and put on a show so you can go raise money for your charuis. You are political buffoon at best.
And, gosh, Mattel told Senator Kennedy, everyone's favorite senator, that there's no list of Epstein clients, Anna. There's no list Epstein only trafficked girls to himself. This one blew my mind and even Kennedy, who we do not enjoy was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Let's listen to that clip.
You're about the Epstein files. Have you, have you seen the Epstein files? I have not reviewed the entirety of it myself, but a good amount. Would it be fair to say that Mr.
Epstein trafficked young women, including in some instances, minors, for sex to himself? That was specifically the allegations in the 2018 indictment in this other district of New York. Who else did he trafficked these young women to? In terms of what the investigation, again, going back to 2008, Mr.
Acosta, who limited the investigation and limited the search warrants and limited the parameters of the investigation, the only thing we are able to speak to publicly because he was given a non-prosecution agreement by Mr. Acosta is that first time period from, I believe, don't call me on this 97 to 2001 issue. And then when the Trump administration creates a reopening, I'm going to run out of time. You've seen most of the files.
Who if anyone did Epstein traffic these young women to besides himself? There is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals and the information we have again is limited.
So the answer is no one for the information that we have in the file. In the case file. Okay. And then Senator Booker told Coshmottel he expects that Donald's going to throw him under the bus any day now.
Mr. Patel, I think you're not going to be around long. I think this might be your last oversight here. Because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the Constitution of the United States of America, Donald Trump has shown us in his first term and in this term, he is not loyal to people like you.
He will cut you loose. This may be the last time I have a hearing with you because I don't think you're long for your job. So there's a lot of yelling and back and forth. They had to have grass like gavel of people to stop from yelling at each other quite a bit.
But I mean, Coshmottel just talked about his tweets and he was like, yeah, it wasn't a mistake. But I should have said a subject and not the subject. And one of the senators, like you said, we've got our man. That's not a mistake.
It wasn't a mistake. And it was just it was so ridiculous. His response was gobbledygook. We have to make sure that we had a lot of people who had nothing to do with this and request and I'm like, what, what, what?
It was just a shit show. Also yesterday, we talked about the African migrants that were deported to Ghana and then sent to their home countries. Well, Judge Chuckin has since ruled that she doesn't have jurisdiction to block those deportations, which is so unfortunate. But I also trust Judge Chuckin.
And she said, mostly because the Supreme Court hasn't been clear about the deference that must been shown to the administration over foreign affairs. Yeah, remember that when I saw that come out in the Supreme Court ruling where they said the government has due regard and deference. We have to have due regard and deference for the president when dealing with foreign affairs. I was like, that's going to come back and bite everybody in the ass.
Nobody's going to know what to do with that. So that's where we are from WLBT and Jackson, Mississippi on Monday to hanging deaths were reported in Mississippi, one in Vicksburg and the other on the campus of Delta State University. Around 7 a.m. The body of Trey Reed, 21, a black student at Delta State was found hanging from a tree on University campus.
And in Vicksburg, the body of Cory Zucatus, a white male and Brandon resident was found hanging in a wooded area near a casino. And according to the Warren County Sheriff, Zucatus was living in the wooded area where he was found he's unhoused and Zucatus' mother confirmed that with the Sheriff's Office. Investigations into both of these hangings are ongoing. And my dear friend, Melinda Hale, if you don't follow Melinda on Instagram, you showed she's an incredible activist.
She was talking about having a conversation with her black father who was around her in Jim Crow and they're saying this was a suicide. Of course they are. And everyone, not your friends, but the investigators, not my friends. He is saying, no, no, no, they said that was a, they've always said that.
They've always said it was a suicide, meaning in people in the past, this is, this looks like a lynching to them. Yeah. I'm glad that that's the way that this is being reported. It's just horrifying, terrifying.
And it brings up so much trauma. Generational for the people. Yeah. It was still alive during, when the, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Okay. This one's from Reuters. TikTok's US operations would be controlled by an investor consortium, including Oracle, Silver Lake and Anderson Horowitz under a framework of the US and China that they're finalizing. This is from the Wall Street Journal.
This is what they reported on Tuesday. A new company would be created to operate TikTok with US investors holding roughly 80% say can Chinese short holders owning the rest. This is from the report. The company would also have the American dominated board with one member designated by the US government.
Yeah. He's all is horrifying. Anderson is a tech billionaire that donated to the Trump campaign who said the universities will pay the price for D.I. While Elon Musk, as we know, is the most visible tech mogul in Trump's orbit until he's split and they broke up.
Now, Anderson has quietly helped shape the administration's hiring and policy decisions. Anderson described himself as an unpaid volunteer for the Department of Government Efficiency. And that's what he said in a December podcast episode with Barry Weiss. And as some of you know, she's actually about to take over CBS news.
And she also poses diversity, equity and inclusion. So this should scare people. They're going to start controlling what is released, what's not released on TikTok, who gets supposed, what's going to be seen, who's going to be shadow banned, it's going to be, it's going to turn into state-run media. Yeah.
So now they have TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, God. Yeah. Next up from the Associated Press, Georgia's highest court has declined to consider Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against Trump and like 17 other people. Citing an appearance of impropriety created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade whom she had hired to lead the case.
The Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue. That's pretty much going to be the end of this case. It's over because it's going to be put in control of that one guy who will either take it for himself or just cancel it. Now Harry Dunn and I are going to cover this more in-depth on next week's cleanup on all 45.
So now Michigan, that case is done. No, so the Wisconsin case is done. Arizona case is still going forward, but the Fulton County case is now probably done. All right.
Thanks, Allison. I do have a tiny bit of good news. We'll see if it stays good news, but this is from NBC. The panel of federal judges actually blocked Trump from removing Lisa Cook from the federal reserves board.
That was hours before she and other top officials are set to beginning meeting about whether to lower interest rates. This is a big deal and it's an important time. Of course, Trump's likely to appeal Monday's ruling to all the way to the Supreme Court. So we'll be following this.
Yeah, but the Supreme Court would have to intervene before the Fed Board meeting, which is already underway. Yeah, good. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.
This is from the Guardian. A new 72-page legal analysis from the United Nations Commissions of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories in Israel. Today, they came up with the strongest finding by part of the UN on Gaza to date. It accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, saying that it's offensive there has been waged, quote, with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethnic racial or religious group.
So they are calling it genocide. This commission was created four years ago by the UN's Human Rights Council and its staff by three independent experts. The commission does not officially speak for the UN because that's important to note that the UN has not yet officially used the term genocide itself. It's under increasing pressure to do so.
And this finding by the Commission, the UN's Commission of Inquiry calling it a genocide will put more pressure on the UN, I think, to use the term. Okay. And last in this section is from the Economist. The President's net approval rating is negative 17% down 2.6 points last week, 39% approval, 56% disapproval, four people, four percent of people.
We're not sure. We're not sure. Really? You're not fucking sure?
We figured out. The first time all the time, you have to decide. Yeah, you have to decide. We mean you're not sure.
For the first time, all demographics, including whites, are under 50%. Wow. The most important issues ranked are inflation and prices at number one, then jobs and the economy followed by health care, civil rights, taxes and government spending and immigration. So, underwater and everything.
Everything. This is lower than his previous lowest ever in history. So this is not a lowest in history. Yeah.
And when this happens in a normal quote unquote world, when we have free and fair elections in the midterms, this is when the presidency obviously stays the way it is, but the House and the Senate usually go very much to the party that is not in the White House when things are this bad. Very bigly, bigly with tears in its eyes. So let's keep hope alive, get out and vote. We're going to get back to that.
You know, we are. We're going to push the hell out of it over the next year and a half, but just pretend as if this is going to happen, as if the midterms will happen. Yes. Always vote.
Always. It's harder than ever. Yeah. Anyway, that is, that's the long story short.
We have a lot more to get to, but we have to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, everybody with school back in full swing week nights can be complete chaos.
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Everybody welcome back. It's time for the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up from Steve Benin, who writes for Matto blog, about a week ago for reasons that were not altogether clear, Donald Trump trend to sue the New York Times.
Evidently, the president wasn't kidding. I reported president Donald Trump on Monday filed a federal defamation lawsuit. Oh, it was defamation. Okay, I wasn't clear.
Okay, ready for what? Oh, against the New York Times for its reporters and Penguin Random House over coverage of his 2024 campaign. The suit filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, not the Southern District where Island Cannon is. That covers the area where Trump resides outside the White House accused the newspaper of attempting to ruin his reputation as a businessman, sink his campaign and prejudice, judges and juries against him in the coverage of his campaign.
The Republican and his lawyers are seeking no less than $15 billion. That's not a typo. In compensatory damages, as well as unspecified punitive damages. Among the defendants are Suzanne Craig, who is incredible Peter Baker, Michael Schmidt, each of whom has worked at one time as analysts or contributors for MSNBC or NBC News.
And a semicolor, and this is fun, in a semicolor at 232 word rant, published on his social media platform, the president described at times as quote, What If The Worst and Most Did Generate Newspapers of the History of Our Country adding that the outlet has engaged in a decades-long method of lying about your favorite president, me. Now right off the bat, it's important to know that describing the court filing as a lawsuit is itself generous. As writer Jesse Bernie summarized, the lawsuit is like an 85 page Trump truth social post. It's hilarious.
That characterization is more than fair. Reading it, I felt a little embarrassed for the lawyers who were responsible for producing it, especially after seeing random Trump-related images that seem to have been included in this dreadfully silly document for no apparent reason. There's no reason to think the case will succeed. For that matter, Trump's attorneys should hope they avoid sanctions for having filed such an absurdity in the first place.
I mean, there's pictures of his book, there's pictures of him at a desk, like look at how great I am, I was on the apprentice. Stop it. Yeah, oh my God, it's so ridiculous. Benin continues, that doesn't mean the suit is irrelevant, though.
On the contrary, it's a reminder of sitting presidents overt hostility toward the First Amendment and the idea of a free press. Let's not lose sight of the recent pattern. Trump's case against the times comes on the heels of other civil lawsuits he brought against the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, ABC News, the Des Moines Register, and CNN, among others. The volume of cases might make it seem as if it's become routine, but the broader circumstances remain bizarre.
Americans have never had a president who, while in office, sued independent news organizations for publishing reports, the White House disapproved of. That's exactly what it's about. All right, God, it's so ridiculous. Maybe some of you see this next story's good news.
I happen to. This is from NBC, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Tuesday announced that he would seek reelection to a third term in 2026. He said, I want to make Minnesota a place where everyone has a chance to succeed in every corner of the state. This is what Walz said in an announcement video.
Minnesota is one of several states that allows incumbent governors to serve more than two terms. Walz, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in 2024, he joins Illinois Governor, JB Pritzker, also a Democrat that we love in seeking a third term in 2026. Several Republican candidates have already launched their campaigns, including Rep. Kristen Robbins and Scott Jensen, who was the 2022 GOP nominee for governor.
Walz was reelected two seconds term four years ago, beating Jensen by more than 7 percentage points. If you don't think it's going to be higher this time, you're smoking something. I'm surprised anybody's even bothering to enter this race. I know.
Two years later, then Vice President Kamala Harris carried Minnesota with Walz on her ticket in the 2024 presidential election, but by a slimmer margin of just over four percentage points. Minnesota has trended slightly more in favor of Democrats in recent years, though it has long had a reputation as a swing state. Walz rose to national prominence last year as Harris is running mate. We all fell in love with him in the presidential election jumping into the campaign in August after Joe Biden suspended his reelection.
But in July, since that campaign ended, the governor has fueled speculation that he could run for president himself in 2028 when a crowded field of ambitious Democrats is expected to seek the presidency. When the governor's announcement on Tuesday coincided with the date of a special legislative election to film Melissa Hortman's vacant seat in the set legislature after her brutal political assassination this summer. That's the proper use of the word assassination. Walz who worked closely with Hortman referred to her following her death earlier this year as a great leader and a formidable public servant who served with grace, compassion, tirelessness.
You know, we should have those special election results for you on tomorrow's daily beans. I'm glad Tim Walz is going to run for a third term. Me too. Same as JB Pritzker.
From CBS, the state terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione. That's the man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. We're dismissed on Tuesday as he appeared in court in New York City for pretrial hearings. Mangione walked into Manhattan criminal court shackled and wearing a tan prison jumpsuit or a top and I don't know if it's a jumpsuit or it says prison clothing.
This was shortly before 930 AM for the hearing on several pretrial motions. Members of the press and the public hacked the courtroom while crowds of his supporters carried signs and chanted outside. The 27-year-old faces both state and federal charges in the killing of Thompson, husband, father of two, last December outside of Manhattan Hotel. The 11-state charges include murder and terrorism and the federal ones carry the possibility of the death penalty.
His lawyers have been fighting to get the state charges thrown out completely, arguing the parallel cases amount to double jeopardy. In his written decision Tuesday, Judge Gregory Caro ruled against that request. The defense is also asked for the two terrorism charges to be dropped, arguing that they don't apply. Prosecutors, however, alleged Mangione's intent was to violently broadcast a social and political message to the public at large, but the judge said no and ruled to dismiss both terrorism charges.
Murder in the first degree and furtherance of an act of terrorism and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism. He said they were legally insufficient. Quote, there's no evidence presented of a desire to terrorize the public, inspire widespread fear, engage in a broader campaign of violence, or to conspire with organized terrorist groups. That's what the judge wrote.
Here, the crime, the heinous, but targeted and discrete killing of one person is very different from the examples of terrorism set forth in law. The defense also wants to suppress evidence for Mangione's backpack, including a gun and a notebook, claiming it was obtained without a search warrant. Prosecutors deny allegations and have asked the judge to force Mangione's lawyers to say whether they will pursue an insanity defense or introduce any psychiatric evidence. The defense also wants statements.
Mangione made to law enforcement suppressed because his attorney's alleged, officers failed to marandize him and don't want non-I-witness identification testimony at trial, meaning someone who was not a witness to an alleged crime, who makes an identification from a picture or a video. Now, the judge didn't rule on any of those issues Tuesday, but said hearings on each will begin on December 1st. All right, thank you so much, Allison. And a little more good news.
I feel like this is the people showing up, certainly associated press, Orlando Restaurant Tour on Monday turned over 49 parking spots outside her eatery for artists to color as a protest against the state mandate removing rainbow color crosswalks and other art on Florida streets, including one outside LGBTQ friendly nightclub where 49 people were killed in 2016. Seven bytes owner, Trina Gregory, said she received 1,000 applications for the event dubbed in, I quote, parking space for pride, a rainbow connection. After she put outward, then, pan, oh man. After she put outward that the parking spaces would be open for coloring as a salute to diversity and artistic expression.
The parking spots are on private property and under no government control. It just makes me so proud to be part of a community that has allies like this, even if she may be part of the community, I don't know, regardless. The idea came in response to the administration of Republican Blick, the Santas enforcement of a state code which prohibits surface art on crosswalk sidewalks, intersections, travel lanes on shoulders. A memo issued by the way by the Florida Department of Transportation, just the summer prohibited surface art associated with social, political, or ideological messages or images that does not serve the purpose of traffic control.
It's a fucking rainbow. It's specifically against rainbow crosswalks. They could have just said no rainbow crosswalks, but they said they're like, no surface art that shows social justice or anything on any streets. Like, come on, come on.
It also warned that transportation funds could be held if they want to, if municipalities fail to comply. And I quote, art has always been a form of resistance and healing. This is from Gregory. She said, if they want to erase symbols of pride and acceptance, then we'll create even more of them.
This isn't just about paint. It's about community visibility and love. Other communities are using art to protest the new prohibition on street art. Members of the Harvest Sarasota Church in Sarasota on Sunday, they painted 500 feet of a rainbow colors between two buildings, Pastor Dan Meiner told reporters that the church members felt compelled to act once the crosswalk crackdown took off last month.
This is resistance. This is beautiful. This is Florida telling you it's not the state. It's the legislature.
It's some of the people. It's not all the people. No, exactly. Exactly right.
That's so wonderful. That quote is just so good. This isn't about, you know, it's a form of resistance and healing, right? Yeah.
It's not about paint. It's about community visibility and love. That's so great. All right.
Thank you for that. Good news. And let's get into a little good trouble. What are you guys doing?
Dana, the Department of Education is currently accepting public comments on a proposed rule change that would prevent thousands of public interest attorneys among many other public servants from receiving the public service loan forgiveness benefits to which they are entitled. Why? Because the Trump Administration has decided that if one's public interest work or the work of their colleagues conflicts with the Trump Administration's policy agenda, that their education should be entirely on their own dime. So they are now going to decide what kind of public service counts as public service for the program.
So there's an open comment period. It ends today at close of business. So we want you to head to the link in the show notes and make your voices heard by the end of the day today, if possible. So that's a good trouble.
Everybody stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody welcome back. It's time for the good news.
Well, I'm squinting in the near. Good news. And if you have any little bit of good news, a good news story, we would love to hear from you. Just send all your good news stories.
It can be something great that's happened to you big or small anytime in, you know, throughout your whole life. Or maybe some good news that's happened to somebody else that you want to share. It can be a shout out to a loved one, a family member, somebody in your community doing great work of nonprofit. You want to shine a light on, maybe a small business in your area that could use a boost.
A self shout out. We love that to your own horn, please. Shout outs to government programs that have helped you or a loved one or someone you know. And all you have to do to get your submission red on the air is pay your pot pet tariff, which means attach photo of your pet.
If you don't have a pet, you can send an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have that, really just grab any random photo of an animal off the internet that works too. Bird watching photos, which can be actual birds, or you and your family and friends flipping the bird to Trump properties, or Musk properties, or Senator Kennedy, family photos, baby pictures, your happy place, maybe your garden shows your garden shows what you're making or creating. Maybe you're knitting something or crushing something to a needle point quilting tons of makers and creators that listen to the show.
We would love to see what you're up to. Send it all to us dailybeanspot.com and click on contact. Our first submission is from anonymous, pronounced in her fellow queens beans. No queen beans.
Excuse me, I love that. I'm a new listener and now a very dedicated listener. And I would love to share with you an amazing event, our grassroots community organizations, Abington for Peace and Abington Pride, our planning coming up in October. The event Respect and Protect Rally to support the trans community will have speakers and performers from the trans community and their allies.
We're thrilled to bring this program to our neighbors with the hope that it creates awareness and empathy for the constant barrage of threats to trans folks are experiencing due to our current regime. As the mom of a trans child, this is very close to my heart. And as an activist, it has given me a positive goal to work towards. We must continue to do everything we can to support the trans community and push back against the harmful rhetoric the right wing has been spewing.
To end on a positive note, I'm forever grateful to my friends who are always there when I come up with an idea. They get on board to bring it to fruition. I'm attaching a photo of the graphic for the event. And of course, my pot pet tariff is our good girl, Luna.
Look at all this beautiful. Luna, I love this Respect and Protect. That's a beautiful flyer. Yeah, it is.
Abington Pride and Abington for peace. Thank you so much. This is Natalie Pronoun. She and her.
Hi, lovely peonies. I listen to your pot every morning because I know that I can trust that you ladies are giving me the real news. And that fact, that is delivered with swearing, makes it even more sweet. There are a few of my birdie pics from a trip to Miami.
Keep up the good work. I also threw in a picture from Rep. Tyler Ricos. I hope I said that right this time.
Tyler Ricos kick off for Senate run in Round Rock from last week. He is a hometown hero and a favorite around these parts. And crowd was huge, the biggest ever, some say the biggest in the country. Natalie, these are great.
And I saw a video of Tyler Ricos, by the way. He said he's not going to take any money from a pack. He's not going to take money from a pack. And that what's happening in Gaza is an atrocity.
And so I think he's just a real bright light, I think. So we'll see how all of that turns out. Because he brought up. And Dana, you know, I've talked about this.
That what baby Netanyahu is doing is actually really dangerous for Jews in his world and around the world. And so is Trump's rhetoric about it. His little Riviera in the Middle East. Not even caring about the humans.
The humans on both sides is making it more dangerous for Jewish people in this country. Yeah. So anyway, I like this Tyler Ricoh kid. Next up from Karen, not a Karen.
Dear bad ass bitch and beans queens, sending you some good news. Our postcarding group received last week. The campaign director of our newly elected Virginia State Congressman James Walkenshaw reported the results from their voting analysis of our last very targeted postcard campaign. We were asked to spend a few weeks writing postcards to Democratic leaning registered voters who had received an absentee ballot for his special election, but had not yet returned it in the mail.
The results didn't sound too impressive. They found that one out of every five people that received a postcard reminder actually did return a ballot. But then we were told that out of all the absentee ballot recipients who did not get a postcard, only one in 10 sent them in. So our postcarding doubled the likelihood of a ballot being received.
This was a real morale boost for the group. And the Walkenshaw rep said they were going to share this information with the Spanburger campaign. We've been stockpiling cards for this November's elections ever since the spring primary. So here's hoping we can help create enough momentum to turn out the vote and keep democracy alive.
Do you hear that everybody? It doubles the chance that people will send their ballot in. That's amazing. For Pod Pet Tax, there's a photo taken of some of our postcarding group taken at the No Kings Rally in DC.
My grand cat, Bean, and my grand niece, the world's most adorable baby for data. Thanks for having in there for all of us. The baby. Oh my god, it's so good.
This is one of the best baby photos I've ever seen. This is awesome. I got to tell you. Thank you for this.
All right, this is her mat pronouncing him. Hey, Matt, hey, Beanz, I'm nearly 60 year old straight wide guy and recovering evangelical. And I am so thankful for your podcast. When you two dive into the news, I can actually listen without the urge to throw a speaker into the wall.
That's gonna be our tagline. It really should be. You won't want to throw a speaker into the wall. No, I'm giving up mainstream sites.
So thanks for helpful filling that void. I want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to two wonderful women, both retirees, who are tireless advocates for the two SLGBTQIA plus community here where I live in Washington state. And if some people don't know what the two assets, it's too spirited. And that has been around much longer than most people know.
Like me, they come from conservative Christian backgrounds, but when two of their own kids came out to them as members of the queer community, they not only decided to love and not judge them, they also founded an organization to build bridges between faith communities and queer folks. This is a partial statement to the queer community from their website. It says, the truth is that you belong and you have a right to be embraced as a child of God and participate in the life of the church as your authentic selves. Neither the church nor the world is complete without you.
Oh man, that's beautiful. The organization provides resources for both queer folks and their friends and family to help build bridges of healing. They table at most local pride events, displaying a big sign that says hurt by the church, sincere apologies here. Whoa, wow.
As I have a trans brother myself, I was so impressed by what they were doing. I decided to volunteer for them as their graphic designer and tabling helper. I can say I feel more joy being with these two brave women than I ever did at any church. They're also involved with making good trouble as they welcome 10 local school board meetings and speak out for all marginalized kids and push back against the Christian nationalists who have sadly become quite prominent during the citizen's comments section of the meetings.
These women are now my good friends and fellow advocates for justice. They fund everything they do with their own money and no doubt they have worked thousands of hours to make our little section of the world a better place. They are truly living the spirit of the beatitudes. I have attached a photo of a bar owl.
I encountered last fall at a local college campus. Wow, this owl is beautiful. It was perched down the open and an old sign holder and didn't seem to mind my presence. Every time it turned its head away from me, I would take a couple steps closer.
Pretty soon I was only eight feet away and then I got the fabulous shot. You sure did. This whole submission is a fantastic map. Thank you for bringing all of these people to light.
And I love that you were part of this family. Mm hmm. That's amazing. That's community, right?
Sure is. So important. All right. Next up from Dr.
Angie Pronouns, she and her hello, the Gomonade Queens. I'm a practicing emergency physician. And in my spare time, the host and co-director of the Skeptic track at DragonCon, which is one of the world's largest pop culture conventions, takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, every Labor Day weekend. The Skeptic track, you can search YouTube for DragonCon, Skeptic track.
And you should see our little green dragon mascot. It addresses claims of all kinds of eracity, including such wide-ranging subjects as alternative medicine, cryptids, moon landing denials, and anti-vaccine nonsense. So this year, as we were getting ready to set up and commence the wild rump at Rumbus, we heard about the walkout at the CDC. My friend, Celeste Jaward, host of Squaring the Strange podcast.
My friend, Margaret Downey, founder of the Free Thought Society. And I knew we couldn't let this opportunity go. We fortuitously ran into some folks with poster boards and markers. You just run into people with poster boards and wires.
And by the way, she says, I swear this kind of thing happens all the time at DragonCon. And hustled ourselves down to the CDC to join the protest with our signs. If you know anything about the Atlanta traffic, you can guess how long it took us to travel the four miles to the CDC. By the time we got there, we turned out to be the protest.
There were several news crews there still doing our stand-ups and a reporter from the economist interviewed us. Celeste Jaward had the best line, quote, have you seen movies where no one listens to the warnings from the scientists? Does it ever go well? Cars honked for us.
We felt like we did what we could to express our outrage and anger over the irresponsible and reckless behavior of RFK junior. Margaret signs says save lives, fire, RFK junior. Celeste just signs says care, care, care of a brainworm. RFK, the worm is more qualified.
And mine says I went to medical school. RFK went to Facebook. I am, of course, also wearing my Starfleet medical shirt because DragonCon. I'm also including a bonus bird watching salute picture.
I travel for work and have to seek a stop. Barbie. Every time I go through the Atlanta hearts field intergalactic spaceport and I give her my traditional salute. Thank you for the pod news and news needs more cussing these days for fucks sake.
Thank you. Look at this. Love it. I went to medical school.
It's so good. And that's a bird watching photo with Kristi. No, I think that's our first Kristi Noem bird watching photo. No.
Fantastic. Everybody. Thank you so much for your good news. I really needed it today.
And we'll be back in your ears tomorrow. There's a brand new episode of Clean Up On Al 45 out if you want to catch that. Dana, do you have any final thoughts? No, not today.
All right, everybody. We'll be back in your ears tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourself, take care of your planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family. I've been a G.
I've been a G. And I've been a G. And I've been a G. And I've been a G.