UNBIASED - FL Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Ban But Let's Voters Decide, Trump Posts Bond and Insurance Co. Speaks Out, Hunter Biden's Tax Charges Won't Be Dismissed, Israeli Airstrike Kills Aid Workers, and More.

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

1. Florida Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Ban; Says Recreation Marijuana Use and Abortion Rights Can Appear on Ballot in November (1:08)2. Trump Posts $175M Bond; Chairman of Insurance Company Speaks About Deal (6:58)3. Judge in Hush Money Case Expands Gag Order to Prevent Trump from Speaking About Judge & Family (9:10)4. Judge Denies Hunter Biden's Request to Dismiss Tax Charges (11:20)5. Israeli Strike Kills Seven Aid Workers in Gaza; What Role Does the Recent UN Ceasefire Resolution Play? (12:58)6. Clarifying Undocumented Migrants' Voting Rights in Federal, State, and Local Elections & Expanding Upon How Immigration May Indirectly Affect Federal Election Due to the Census (16:18)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024, and this is your less than 20-minute rundown of today's top stories. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen. Be sure to share the show with your friends, your family, whoever you feel might appreciate nonpartisan news. And of course, if you're watching on YouTube, please just go ahead

and hit that thumbs up button. All of those things really help support my show. Before we get into today's stories, I do want to announce that the winner of the referral contest is Hayden Sullivan. I've already emailed her. She received her gift card, and I really just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the contest. I loved doing it, and I would love to do something like that again in the future. So if you didn't win this time, not to worry. I'm sure there will be other opportunities down the road. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. A few things happened yesterday after yesterday's episode wrapped. For one, Florida's Supreme Court released some pretty important opinions. Donald Trump posted his

bond in the New York civil fraud case. He had a gag order against him expanded by another judge. And then Hunter Biden's request to dismiss his tax charges was denied. So we will briefly cover those stories. That'll actually take up the bulk of this episode. And then we'll talk about the Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers. And we'll finish today's episode rounding out our conversation from yesterday about migrants and voting and answering some questions that some of you had. At 4 p.m. yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court released three long-awaited opinions, one regular opinion and two advisory opinions. Basically, the difference there is that an advisory opinion does not adjudicate the facts of a specific case like an opinion does. So an advisory opinion just interprets law. Because remember, the judiciary,

our court systems, their role is to interpret law. And in doing that, they're either presented with a case, which is a dispute between at least two parties, right, where they're interpreting some law, or in the case of advisory opinions, the attorney general of a state can present a court with a question of law, but it's not a case. It's just a question of law. And the court will interpret it through an advisory opinion. So we got two of those and one regular opinion. The advisory opinions released yesterday specifically dealt with the constitutionality of two separate state ballot measures in the upcoming election. The decision, the regular opinion, on the other hand, dealt with a case called Planned Parenthood v. Florida.

So let's start with that decision first, and then we'll talk about the two advisory opinions very briefly. Planned Parenthood v. Florida presented the court with the question of whether Florida's 15-week abortion ban conflicts with the state constitution's privacy clause. And obviously, if it does, it's unconstitutional. If it doesn't, it's constitutional. Now, I know you've probably heard about the six-week abortion ban in Florida, and I will get to that in a second and how that sort of fits in here, but the Planned Parenthood case specifically dealt with the constitutionality of Florida's 15-week abortion ban. So what the privacy clause in Florida's constitution guarantees is that individuals in the state are left alone and free from government intrusion into their private life. Ultimately, what the Florida Supreme Court ruled is that when

the court analyzed the text of the privacy clause, the context of the clause, and the historical evidence surrounding the adoption of the clause when it was first adopted, the court said there's no basis under the privacy clause to invalidate the 15-week ban. And the court did also acknowledge that this ruling conflicts with its past rulings. So in its ruling, it wrote, quote, in doing so, we recede from our previous decisions in which relying on reasoning the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected, we held that the privacy clause guaranteed the right to receive an abortion through the end of the second trimester, end quote. However, here is why the court's ruling

gives way for the six-week ban to take effect. Essentially, the court's ruling was that the state can ban abortion without conflicting with the state constitution, no matter the gestational period, because what the court said is the privacy clause does not provide a right to abortion, similar to how the United States Supreme Court said that the 14th Amendment does not provide a right to abortion. Now, when Dobbs was decided in 2022 by the United States Supreme Court, Florida enacted this shorter six-week ban. And as per the law, the six-week ban would automatically take effect either 30 days after the state Supreme Court rendered a favorable decision for the constitutionality of abortion bans or 30 days after a constitutional amendment. So now that the former is satisfied and the state Supreme Court rendered said decision, the six-week ban will take effect 30 days from

yesterday. But with all of that said, the Florida Supreme Court did not stop there when it came to the issue of abortion. One of the court's advisory opinions dealt with the constitutionality of a ballot measure limiting government interference with abortion. In other words, will Florida voters be able to vote in November in the election whether to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution? And we just saw something similar in Ohio, and in this case, the Florida Supreme Court said yes. When it comes to evaluating the constitutionality of a ballot measure in the state of Florida, the court will look at three things. One, the proposed ballot measure must deal only with a single subject matter. Two, the proposed ballot title and summary has to meet the statutory standard for clarity.

And three, the proposed measure cannot be facially invalid under the federal constitution. So obviously the court weighed those three factors and ultimately found the proposed abortion ballot measure was in fact constitutional. Then in its second advisory opinion, the Florida Supreme Court applied the same analysis in approving a ballot measure that will determine whether adults have a constitutional right to use recreational marijuana. So in November, Florida voters will vote on a constitutional right to abortion, as well as a constitutional right to use recreational marijuana. So then, shortly after those opinions came out of Florida late yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump's attorneys filed paperwork with the court in New York confirming the posting of his $175 million bond. This paperwork shows that

the full amount was, or the full bond, was underwritten by an insurance company based in LA called Knight Specialty Insurance Company. The chairman and majority shareholder of this insurance company, his name is Don Hanke, he spoke with CNN following the announcement or the court filing, I should say, and he said that the deal came together pretty quickly and that Trump posted all cash as collateral. Originally, Trump was discussing doing sort of a mix and doing 20% cash and the rest in investment bonds, but he ultimately did all cash. Now, notably, court bonds are not the specialty of this insurance company. The insurance company is actually known for providing subprime auto loans to people with

weaker credit scores. But Hankey says he reached out to Trump when he heard Trump was having a hard time putting a bond together for the full judgment amount of $464 million. And apparently at that point, him and Trump's team were sort of trying to figure out how they would put a bond together for such a high amount. But when that bond was reduced for $175 million, Trump's team reached back out to Hankey and they got the deal done. So the posting of this bond now means that one, this appeal can proceed, and two, Trump's properties are protected from any sort of seizure, at least for the time being, while this

is on appeal. And something I did want to clarify from last week is that the judge reducing the bond amount to $175 million does not mean that the judgment is also reduced, right? So the judgment amount stays at $464 million, and that is what Trump will be required to pay if he loses on appeal or if the judgment amount is not reduced at some point in the future for being egregious or something. So the bond amount being lowered doesn't affect the judgment amount. I just want to make that clear. It only affects how much money has to be posted in a court account for this appeal to move forward. In some other news around that same time that Trump posted bond, the judge in Trump's hush

money case expanded a previously issued gag order against him. So here's what happened. Last week, the judge overseeing the hush money trial issued a gag order, which prohibited Donald Trump from making any statements about witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff, or any of as an FYI, typically the higher profile the case, the more, you know, media attention a case might get, the more likely a gag order will be imposed for everyone's safety and well-being. And especially in a situation where you have someone like Trump who does post a lot on Truth Social, he does have a track record and a past of making comments about his cases and the people that are involved in those cases. So the gag order is not a crazy thing here. Trump's attorneys have contemplated appealing it, but as we know, in recent past, Trump's gag orders have stood. But anyway, the initial gag order was issued. Trump then shared some posts related to the judge's

daughter. One of the posts that he shared was a post from an account that used to belong to the judge's daughter, but apparently no longer does. And it was a picture posted to that account of Trump behind bars. So when Trump reposted that, he wrote, quote, so let me get this straight. The judge's daughter is allowed to post pictures of her dream of putting me in jail. The Manhattan DA is able to say whatever lies about me he wants. The judge can violate our laws and constitution at every turn, but I am not allowed to talk about the attacks against me, end quote. So that post, along with a couple of others, led the Manhattan DA to ask the judge to clarify that the previously issued gag order encompasses the judge and the judge's family as well. And yesterday, the judge granted that clarification and issued that clarification. So that is the deal with that.

Then, also last night, a federal judge denied Hunter Biden's request to dismiss his nine tax charges. So Hunter Biden had filed eight different motions to dismiss, all for different reasons. He was trying to get these tax charges dismissed, and the judge, as I said, ultimately denied it. There were multiple arguments set forth by Hunter Biden. The main one was that the indictment was politically motivated. And ultimately, the judge wrote in his ruling that the motion to dismiss is, quote, remarkable in that it fails to include a single declaration, exhibit, or request for judicial notice. Instead, defendant cites two portions of various internet news sources, social media posts,

and legal blogs. These citations, however, are not evidence, end quote. And the judge also denied the other seven arguments, which consisted of, you know, the statute of limitations had run on one of the charges, special counsel David Weiss was improperly appointed, that Hunter Biden had immunity from the previous plea deal that ultimately fell apart, that his due process rights were being violated based on outrageous government conduct, that the government had failed to state a claim, and that the indictment lacked specificity. So as I said, there were eight different arguments that Hunter Biden had put forth as to why his charges should be dismissed,

and those arguments were all denied. And what that means is that Hunter Biden's trial for the tax charges specifically is set to move forward in June. However, as we know, a lot of things can happen in the meantime. So we'll see if there's any sort of delays or anything like that that would postpone that start date. The last sort of news story I want to talk about before we round out yesterday's conversation about migrants and voting is this Israeli airstrike. So around 6 p.m. Eastern time last night, an Israeli airstrike killed seven team members from the World Central Kitchen in Gaza. Those lost were from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom. There was a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, as well as Palestine. So the World Central Kitchen released a statement that read in part,

quote, the WCK team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle. Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the warehouse where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route, end quote. The statement also said that the World Central Kitchen would be pausing operations in the region immediately, and that it would work to kind of figure out its future plans. Following the strike, Israeli's military spokesperson said he spoke with Chef Jose Andres, which is the founder of the World Central Kitchen, to express Israel's condolences and stress that Israel would review the incident at the highest

levels. Prime Minister Netanyahu then made remarks of his own as he was getting ready to leave an Israeli hospital after a scheduled surgery, and he said in part, quote, unfortunately, in the last day, there was a tragic incident where our forces unintentionally struck innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war, and we are thoroughly investigating it. We are in contact with the governments, and we'll do everything to prevent such occurrences in the future, end quote. Now, some of you may be wondering, because we just talked about this last week, what happened to the ceasefire resolution that was just passed by the UN Security Council, because I had said that it's binding. Here's the thing. Those resolutions, as per the UN's own policies, specifically Article 25 of the UN Charter,

are binding on members of the UN, and Israel is a member of the UN. However, when it comes to actually enforcing these binding resolutions, it's a little more complicated. In fact, not even all of the countries were on the same page that it was binding. So after the resolution was passed, member countries were disagreeing as to whether it was binding. And again, this is despite the UN's own policy stating that it is binding. The United States said it wasn't binding, whereas China and Mozambique said it was. So as per the UN Charter, if a UN Security Council resolution is ignored, the council can then vote on a follow-up resolution which would address the violation, and the follow-up resolution would then be a punitive

resolution. So it would, you know, impose sanctions or something, maybe even authorization of international action. But that won't happen here because the United States, for one, would likely never allow a punitive resolution against Israel. And Israel knows that. So again, although Article 25 of the UN Charter says these types of resolutions are binding, they don't really hold much weight. Okay, and the last thing I want to do is I want to kind of round out yesterday's conversation about undocumented migrants and voting rights, because I had clarified some misinformation going around and said that

undocumented migrants cannot vote in federal elections. And if you want to hear more on that, go listen to yesterday's episode. But after the episode, a lot of you reached out with a couple of related questions, and I was getting sort of the same questions. One, whether undocumented migrants can vote in local and state elections. And two, whether the surge in immigration that we've seen affects federal elections indirectly in the sense that it affects the composition of Congress and the electors. So as far as the first question goes, yes, undocumented people in some jurisdictions, some municipalities can vote in local elections, but no state allows undocumented people to vote in state elections. Now, how this works is that

so long as a state doesn't have a constitutional provision against it, local municipalities can give both non-citizens and undocumented migrants voting rights. Specifically in the United States, there are 13 municipalities that allow non-citizens and undocumented people to vote. And the difference there being that non-citizens include people that have legal authorization to live or work in the United States but are not citizens, whereas undocumented don't have that legal authorization. These 13 municipalities include 10 communities in Maryland that are within two counties of Washington, D.C., plus Washington, D.C. itself, San Francisco, and Oakland. Keep in mind that how these people are allowed to vote varies by municipality. So for instance, in San Francisco and Oakland, undocumented immigrants and non-citizens

can only vote in local school board elections, and that's only if they have children in school in that school board. However, D.C., on the other hand, allows non-citizens to vote for more, including the office of the mayor as well as referendum. So it really varies by municipality. But in no circumstance can an undocumented immigrant vote in federal elections. And as of now, they cannot vote in state elections either in any state, only local, and again, only in those 13 municipalities. Now, as for the second question, whether the surge in immigration affects the federal elections indirectly by way of the composition of Congress and electors, the short answer is yes, it does. And this is because the amount of representatives that each state has in Congress, and therefore the amount of electors

that each state has, is determined by the decennial census, which takes place every 10 years. And as per the Constitution, the census takes into account every person in the United States, regardless of citizenship. So if a state experiences a drastic rise in population, whether that be through immigration or something else, that state may be given another representative and elector after a decennial census, the next one being in 2030. So in a sense, yes, immigration could have an indirect effect on federal elections, but this upcoming election won't be affected because the congressional composition won't change. If it does change, it won't be until after the next decennial census. So I hope that answers your questions. That is what I have for you today. Have a great night,

and I will talk to you tomorrow.