UNBIASED - Israel/Gaza Update, House Formalizes Impeachment Inquiry, SCOTUS to Hear Abortion Cases Re: Abortion Pill and Jan. 6th, FL Teachers Sue Over Pronoun Law, and More.

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

1. Mini Israel/Gaza Update: Biden Admin Delaying Sale of Rifles, Updated Death Toll, Protesters on LA Highway, Biden Warns Netanyahu May Lose Support (1:49)2. QUICK HITTERS: Interest Rates Kept Steady, New York Removes Medical Debt from Credit Reports, Facebook Employee Steals $4M, Election Interference Case Paused, Teachers in FL Sue Over Pronoun Law (5:58)3. CONGRESS: House Votes to Formalize Impeachment Inquiry Into President Biden, House and Senate Pass NDAA for FY2024 (12:47)4. SCOTUS: Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases Re: Abortion Pill Access and January 6th Law (26:00)5. NOT EVERYTHING IS BAD: Money Raised for Joe! + Amazon Resumes Holiday Tipping Program (33:34)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.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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You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Friday. I'm ready for the weekend. I hope you're ready for the weekend. But before we get into the weekend, let's go over some stories. The first thing I want to do is update you on some news out of Israel and Gaza. The next thing I want to do is go over some quick hitters. So five or six stories in the news, just touch on them really quickly. So you're in the loop. Then I want to talk about some congressional activity, specifically the House formalizing

the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, what that means, why they even formalized the inquiry, all that stuff, and also the National Defense Authorization Act that just passed the House and the Senate. Then I want to talk about the Supreme Court, specifically two cases that they agreed to hear, one being the abortion pill case, Smith v. Pristone, and another case dealing with January 6th and a law that a lot of the criminal defendants were charged with. Finally, I will get into Not Everything is Bad, which is my favorite segment.

That's where I tell you the good news so you can go into this weekend feeling a little bit lighter. Before we get into today's stories, let me remind you, as I always do, if you like what you hear today and you haven't already, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. And finally, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. last episode we talked about an emergency sale to israel consisting of some tank shells so that sale was able to bypass congressional authorization because the biden administration determined that an emergency existed so as to allow it. It was part of a bigger $500 million sale. But now the Biden administration is delaying a sale of more than 20,000 United States-made rifles. Why? Why would we send tank shells on

an emergency basis but delay rifles? The answer lies in the fact that tank shells are specific to military use, right? They're used by the actual military, whereas rifles can end up in the wrong hands. So here's what you need to know. There are two Palestinian territories that lie within or next to Israel, depending on how you look at it, one being the West Bank, the other being Gaza. In the West Bank, there are some Israeli settlers. Now, Palestinians will tell you that these Israeli settlers are illegal, they shouldn't be there, but nonetheless, the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians in the West Bank do not get along. And this violence has only gotten worse since October 7th. So the main concern from the Biden administration is that

these rifles that would be sold to Israel don't end up in the hands of the Israeli settlers and are, you know, be used against the Palestinians whom they share the West Bank with. A former United States official familiar with this sale said, quote, Some members of Congress reached out to the administration to demand they obtain assurances from Israel that the firearms will not go to settlers. The administration has been engaged with Israel in trying to get satisfactory assurances in that regard prior to formally notifying it. End quote. So perhaps if the administration is able to get the assurances that they need, whatever that looks like, then the sale can proceed. But for now, it has been delayed. Now, as to the death toll, as of Thursday, the spokesperson of the health ministry in Gaza said that the death toll had risen to 18,787, whereas the death toll in Israel stands at about 1,147. Now, a couple of pieces of news here

at home that pertain to Israel and Gaza, one being that activists from a Jewish group blocked a Los Angeles highway during Wednesday morning's rush hour, calling for a ceasefire. You may have seen some pictures from that. Basically, they lined up along the highway so that no cars could pass and held up signs calling for a ceasefire. Secondly, earlier this week, President Biden warned Israel that it risked losing international support over its, quote unquote, indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza. Specifically, he was speaking to Democratic donors in Washington, and he said that Israel has most of the world supporting it, but, quote, they're starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place,

end quote. The day before that fundraiser, Netanyahu, who is the prime minister of Israel, acknowledged that him and President Biden do have disagreements about the future, saying, quote, yes, there is disagreement about the day after Hamas, and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well. That disagreement is in reference to the Biden administration supporting the idea of the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas governing Gaza once the war is over, whereas Netanyahu does not agree. So that's where that disagreement stems from. Now, the reason that this sort of break between President Biden and Netanyahu made news is because so far publicly they've sort of been on the same page, but this week is the first sort of signal we saw of them having disagreements,

if you will. That is what I wanted to touch on with Israel and Gaza. I just want to say, obviously, a lot has happened. Unless I do a dedicated episode, I just can't possibly cover everything. So I just hit on some things that I felt you should know from this past week. But all that to say, I certainly did not cover everything that has gone on. Now let's get into some quick hitters. Number one, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for the third straight time on Wednesday and signaled three potential cuts in 2024 and another four in 2025. The decision to keep these rates steady was the Fed's final policy decision of the year, and it actually led to the Dow closing at a record high on Wednesday of just over 37,000

points. The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said during this announcement that he is confident the economy isn't currently in a recession, but, quote, there's always a possibility that there will be a recession in the next year, end quote. Number two, New York removes medical debt from credit reports. The governor of New York signed a bill into law on Wednesday that takes unpaid medical debt off of New Yorkers' credit reports. The governor of New York signed a bill into law on Wednesday that takes unpaid medical debt off of New Yorkers' credit reports. New York was actually the second state to do this, Colorado being the first. This new law takes effect immediately, and it

essentially prohibits credit agencies from collecting information about or reporting medical debt. From the other side, the law also bans hospital and health care providers in the state from reporting medical debt to the agencies. So credit agencies can't collect information on this debt, and hospitals and health care providers can't report medical debt to the credit agencies. There are a couple of exceptions worth noting, though. One, the law does not apply to debt that is charged to a credit card unless the card was issued specifically for health services. And two, this does not apply to out-of-state health care providers. So if you are a New Yorker and you end up having to get health care in another state,

this would not prevent that health care from affecting your credit reports. Number three, a former Facebook global diversity strategist has pled guilty to stealing more than $4 million from Facebook to, quote, fund her lavish lifestyle, end quote. Barbara Furlough Smiles, who led various Facebook diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from 2017 to 2021, stole money through, quote, an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious charges, and cashbacks, according to the United States Attorney's Office in Atlanta. Basically, she would link PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to credit cards that were given to her by Facebook, and then use those accounts to pay friends, relatives, nannies, babysitters, a hairstylist, her tutor, and others for various

goods and services that were never actually provided to the company. So once those people received the payments from Facebook, they would kick back a percentage of the funds to her, but Facebook never actually received the benefit of what they were paying for. To cover it up, she would then submit false expense reports claiming that these people had in fact performed the work or provided the goods that they said they did, and therefore not, you know, set off any alarm bells. Her sentencing is scheduled for March. Number four, the judge overseeing Trump's election interference case has put the proceedings on hold while the appeals play out. So Trump's team considers this to be a win because

they are under the impression that Jack Smith is trying to bring this case to trial as quickly as possible in order to prevent Donald Trump from running in the upcoming election. So for them, this pause in the proceedings, which could cause a potential delay, is a win for them. If you are subscribed to my newsletter, you already know about this. But last week, the judge ruled that Trump does not have absolute immunity when it comes to the criminal charges against him. Following that, Trump appealed the ruling to the appellate court.

Simultaneously, Jack Smith, who appealed the ruling to the appellate court. Simultaneously, Jack Smith, who is the special counsel in the case, asked the Supreme Court to review this issue because ultimately this matter would likely end up in the Supreme Court anyway. So Smith thought, let's just go straight there. We'll bypass the appellate court and get an answer. Rather than continuing on with the proceedings at the district court level while these appeals play out, the judge said, let's just wait and see for these appeals to play out before we make any moves. This could potentially delay the start of the case, but also it could not. Time will tell. It just depends how long the pause lasts. And number five, three teachers from three different counties in Florida have sued the state over a new state law that prohibits employees of public K-12 institutions from providing students with their preferred pronouns if those pronouns don't match their biological sex. In other words, let's say a teacher is a transgender woman, goes by she, her. That

teacher cannot instruct her students to call her she, her. Rather, the students have to call her he, him because those are the pronouns that match the teacher's biological sex. So it doesn't matter what the teacher prefers to be called, the students have to call the teacher by their biological sex pronouns. If a teacher fails to abide by this law and asks the students to call them by their preferred pronouns, they can lose their job. So the teachers argue that this law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Specifically, what the lawsuit says is this. The new law, quote, and contractors on the basis of sex by prohibiting them from using the titles and pronouns that express who they are. The law requires the teachers to, quote, shed their titles and pronouns at the schoolhouse gate because they are not the titles and pronouns that Florida prefers for the sex it deems them to be. Now, this lawsuit was filed against the Department of Education, who is responsible for carrying out the law, but no one at the Department of Education had any comment when they were reached out to. So this is a fairly new lawsuit. You know, it's got to play out at all the levels. This looks like a lawsuit that could end up in the state Supreme Court and possibly even the

Supreme Court. But of course, we know that takes that takes quite a long time to play out. So that's what's going on with that. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about what's going on in Congress, as well as some Supreme Court announcements. And my favorite The House passed a vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Wednesday. This vote was along party lines 221 to 212. I have had, I was planning on covering the story anyway, but I have had some of you message me on Instagram wanting some clarity on it, so let's do it. The first thing I want to mention is that the vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry is separate than an actual vote to impeach. Procedurally, the vote to formalize the inquiry comes first, and actually, a vote to formalize an inquiry doesn't even have to come. Typically and historically, an inquiry is just launched by the Speaker of the House, and that's where all of the evidence is gathered. And then

once all of the evidence is gathered, would come the vote to impeach. And that vote is, of course, based off of all of the evidence available. If the vote to impeach passes, the President is officially impeached. From there, it would go to the Senate, where the Senate votes to either convict or acquit. If convicted, the president is removed from office. If acquitted, the president stays. So that's the procedure. Now, the inquiry launch or the vote to formalize an inquiry is at the very beginning of the impeachment process. And you might be wondering, didn't House Republicans already launch an investigation? Why do they need to formalize it? Well, for one, there's a bit of

confusion. And this has all really happened in the last five years, maybe less. So for one, nothing in the Constitution requires a vote to formalize an inquiry. Because of that, it has been argued by legal experts whether a vote is required. In the past, and as I said, historically speaking, the Speaker of the House themselves would declare a launch of what would be considered an impeachment inquiry, and that was that. That's when all the evidence would start to be gathered. But then in 2019, when Speaker Pelosi was the Speaker of the House and President Trump was president, Speaker Pelosi announced the launch of an investigation into Donald Trump. There was not a vote on the launch. She just announced that there would be an impeachment inquiry. And at the time, the Trump administration argued that this launch was invalid because no vote was had. And in 2020, the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Trump administration's DOJ released this opinion that said that impeachment inquiries by the House are invalid unless a formal vote has been held to authorize it. This is when the debate

starts as to whether a vote is necessary to launch the investigation in the first place. So when President Biden's impeachment inquiry was announced by former Speaker McCarthy in September, Speaker McCarthy didn't hold a vote either, which actually threw some people off because just a week and a half before that, he said that if the House moved forward on an impeachment inquiry, a vote would be had, and it wouldn't be decided by one person. The House would vote on it and they would go from there. But when the inquiry was launched, it didn't go that way. Speaker McCarthy just announced it. So actually, when the inquiry was launched, a reporter said to McCarthy that he was, quote unquote, confused, given McCarthy's

previous statement about there being a vote, and McCarthy actually responded, quote, sorry you're confused. Were you confused when Nancy Pelosi did it? End quote. So if you're confused, you are certainly not alone. This has never really been entirely clear. But to put this as simply as possible, the House makes the rules. The House does what it wants. They govern their own chamber. Because the Constitution doesn't have any rules as to how they handle impeachments, they are free to make their own rules. Similarly, when we saw former Speaker McCarthy get removed and Speaker Johnson ultimately took over, but it took a very long time, the Constitution also doesn't

govern that either. So in that situation, the House was governing their own chamber as to what to do. You know, could Patrick McHenry, who was the Speaker pro tempore, could his powers be extended? That was something the House would have had to vote on themselves. So we see this in certain cases where if the Constitution is not clear, the House can make their own rules. Naturally, if the House can do what it wants, the question becomes, okay, so if the House says that a vote isn't necessary, and they subsequently launched an inquiry without a vote, why would they vote now? Well, according to House Republicans, a formal vote will give them more subpoena power. So the House has already received around 40,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, as well as hours of testimony from various witnesses.

But there hasn't yet been hard enough proof to impeach President Biden of profiting from his son's business dealings while he was vice president. Because of that, House Republicans want more, right? They want more testimony for the Biden family. They want more records. They need to find that proof that will get them the votes they need to impeach him. So they subpoenaed those things. They subpoenaed the testimony from the Biden family. They subpoenaed more records. And in November, a White House attorney responded to these requests arguing that the investigation into President Biden was illegitimate because the House hadn't formalized the impeachment inquiry through a vote. So House Republicans say, okay, let's take this to a vote. So that's kind of when this whole vote to formalize started, and that's what they did.

They took it to a vote so that the White House would comply with the request and wouldn't have this illegitimate argument. In a nutshell, the formalization gives them greater subpoena power. But that's it. It doesn't change the scope of the inquiry outside of subpoena powers. The inquiry will go on as it otherwise would. The House will continue gathering any and all evidence. If some sort of hard evidence is produced, articles of impeachment will be brought if, as I said, charges are warranted against the president, and the House

will vote accordingly. But as far as this vote to formalize, the things you need to know is one, it's not necessarily required. It's been hotly debated. Two, they did it so that they could subpoena more things and not get the argument that it's illegitimate. And three, I guess, would be formalizing this inquiry doesn't really change things outside of they have greater subpoena power. So that's what you need to know about that. Let's move on to the National Defense Authorization Act. Both the House and the Senate approved the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024. What this means is that this $886.3 billion bill will now go to the president to be signed into law. A couple things I want to mention right off the bat. This is an

annual bill, so every fiscal year there is a new National Defense Authorization Act approved. And it basically lays out the format for how the Department of Defense can spend their money. It doesn't necessarily allocate the funding for everything, but it gives them sort of a guideline. One other thing I want to mention is that the House and the Senate both draft up their own versions, and then they come together and negotiate on a final version, and that final version is what we are talking about now. That final version just passed both the House and the Senate, and that's what will go to the president for his signature. Unfortunately, because this bill is over 3,000 pages, I can't go over

every aspect of it, but I can certainly summarize some of the main points. So there's about eight or nine different points I want to mention. We'll go through those. Some are shorter than others. First one being that this package authorizes $28 billion more in defense spending than the previous year. So that would be equal to about a 3% increase from last fiscal year. Second thing is that this package provides a 5.2% increase in service member basic pay, as well as a monthly bonus for junior enlisted members. This is actually the biggest raise for service members in about 20 years. There's also some other bonuses thrown in there to help service

members better afford housing and help low-income, you know, service members with their families, things like that. The third thing along similar lines, there's money in there for new family housing, child care centers, as well as new barracks and renovations to old barracks. Number four, it authorizes the Department of Defense to fund clinical trials using psychedelic substances and cannabis to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. Number five, to counter Chinese aggression, the bill authorizes $14.7 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and extends that initiative through fiscal year 2024.

Number six, the package prohibits funding for the teaching, training, or promotion of critical race theory in the military and includes a parent bill of rights. This basically gives parents of children that are enrolled in Department of Defense schools the right to review the curriculum, meet with teachers, provide consent before medical screenings, review books, instructional materials, things like that. Number seven, the bill requires the defense secretary to inform the 8,000 service members who are discharged for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine of the process they can follow to be reinstated. It also mandates that any lapse in service because of this type of discharge

will not affect future promotions. And these last two I'm going to go over were more of the controversial provisions, one that didn't make it in, one that did. So the one that didn't make it in was these two provisions that relate to abortion and transgender health care access. So these provisions would have prohibited the Secretary of Defense from paying or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services, hormone treatments, things of the like, and they were originally included in the House version of the bill, but taken out once both chambers negotiated the final version. And the other more controversial provision that did make it in was a short-term extension through April of a law that allows warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals. The law, which is known as Section 702

of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows the government to gather intelligence by collecting communications records of foreigners overseas who are using U.S.-based communication services. Now, the catch is that this is a warrantless search. So in short, the argument from the critics is that this type of warrantless search is affecting the communications of Americans as well, not just foreigners. This is also affecting Americans who have texted, called, messaged, or emailed any foreign targets because they're collecting intelligence on both sides of the communication. And what the critics refer to this type of search as is a backdoor search because warrantless search is against

our Constitution. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless search is against our constitution. Specifically, the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless search and seizure, right? So the argument is that these agents, whether it be the FBI or whatever, are using this backdoor tactic to conduct unconstitutional warrantless searches on Americans. Now, unless you're an American communicating with a foreigner who is a foreign target of the U.S. government, you have nothing to worry about. But nonetheless, you know, there are Americans who are entitled to the Constitution that are essentially being searched without a warrant because they're communicating with foreigners. Proponents of this law say the law is necessary to protect national security and that, you know, these agents need to be able to collect intelligence

without a warrant because it protects our country. So that's the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Again, it was allowed in. It was extended through April. Speaker Johnson did make mention of this. He said this just kind of gives us more time to overhaul the program, overhaul what Section 702 is all about. So potentially we see in the next five months or whatever it is, they're working to kind of change Section 702. Who knows? But all this to say it was included in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Again, there is so much more to this 3,000-page bill, but those bullet points at least give you an idea, right? House Republicans were disappointed at the final result because they had to drop a lot of their suggested provisions, but House Armed Chair Services Mike Rogers, who is a Republican, he said it well when he said, quote, I'll be the first to admit I'm disappointed we didn't get all the priorities we wanted. But you know what? The Senate is pretty disappointed they didn't get the priorities they wanted either. It takes compromise to move legislation in a divided government, and this bill is a good compromise. It's laser focused on deterring our adversaries, especially China.

And quote, moving on to the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court released some orders telling us what cases they have accepted, which, in other words, which cases they decided they will hear and which cases they denied and will not hear. that have made the news. The first one surrounds an abortion pill. So this will be the first time the Supreme Court weighs in on abortion since their decision in Dobbs last summer, which overturned Roe v. Wade. Let's give a little background. Number one, mifepristone is a commonly used abortion medication. It is taken in conjunction with another pill as well. But basically, you take these pills and you can have a medically induced abortion by way of taking the medicine. So a group called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine brought a lawsuit against not only the maker of mifepristone, but also the FDA. Basically,

what the Alliance said was that the FDA improperly approved a change in the conditions of use for mifepristone in 2016 and 2021. Specifically, in 2016, the gestational period in which mifepristone could be taken was increased from 7 to 10 weeks. Then, in 2021, mifepristone was allowed to be dispensed in the mail. It no longer had to be dispensed in person. So the alliance said that these actions were improper. They need to be rolled back. Once these lawsuits were filed by alliance, a group of doctors and medical groups challenged the FDA's original approval of Mifepristone back in 2000. All of these lawsuits were consolidated and a district court judge in Texas ruled that the FDA had, in fact, improperly approved Mifepristone back in 2000, and therefore the FDA approval should be revoked entirely.

Meanwhile, in a different court in Washington state, literally within minutes of the Texas ruling, the judge in Washington state ruled the opposite. It was a separate case, coincidentally, and the judge in Washington state ruled the opposite. It was a separate case, coincidentally, and the judge in Washington state held that the FDA rules must remain in place. In other words, the drug can be taken up to 10 weeks and can be dispensed through the mail. So you have these two conflicting rulings. And the Texas case gets appealed. On appeal, the appellate court says, look, we're not going to revoke FDA approval entirely. That was too long ago.

The challengers are too late. You know, this was 23 years ago. But we are going to roll back the 2016 and 2021 changes. Therefore, Mifepristone can't be taken after seven weeks, and it can't be dispensed through the mail. It has to be dispensed in person. So from here, the Biden administration and the maker of through the mail. It has to be dispensed in person. So from here, the Biden administration and the maker of Mifepristone appeal to the Supreme Court,

and that is what the Supreme Court will weigh in on. Were the 2016 and 2021 changes to Mifepristone permissible? Can Mifepristone be taken at 10 weeks? Can it be dispensed in the mail? And furthermore, can the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine even bring this challenge at all? Do they have standing to challenge the FDA's changes? Now, one thing I do want to note before we move on to the next case is that the justices declined to hear the appeal from the doctors and medical groups that were challenging the original 2000 approval. So the appellate court decision on that issue will stand, which means that the FDA approval cannot be revoked, the FDA approval back in 2000 was fine, and that won't be affected. So this issue will focus solely on the 2016 and 2021

updates. And it'll likely be argued in early 2024, the decision will come out sometime towards the end of the term, likely the end of June, beginning of July. It could always come out sooner, but as I've said before, the more controversial decisions are always released at the very end of the term, and I imagine this will be a pretty controversial decision regardless of which way it goes, just because abortion is one of those topics. Next case I want to talk to you about. Actually, the only other case I want to talk to you about is Fisher versus the United States. Joseph Fisher is a man who entered the Capitol building on January 6th and brought this lawsuit after being charged under multiple laws, but one in particular that makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding. Now that law is what Donald Trump

had a charge brought under. 325 other people had charges brought under this same law. So this is an important law for that reason, and I'll get into that more in a little bit. But basically, Joseph Fisher asked the district court to dismiss that charge because what he says is that law, which was enacted in the wake of the Enron collapse, was only intended to apply to evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding. It was not intended to apply to entering the Capitol building. The district court agrees and the United States appeals it to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Court of Appeals reverses the district court decision and reinstates Fisher's charges.

What the court said was, quote, all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, other than the conduct that is already covered by the evidence tampering provision, end quote. Now, on the flip side of that, there was a dissenting opinion from one judge on the appellate bench that said the court's interpretation would render it, quote, improbably broad and unconstitutional in many of its applications, end quote. So Fisher takes this to the Supreme Court. He says, hey, guys, I need you to determine this issue. And the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Now, the reason that this is news, like I said, is because Donald Trump was charged under this law as well and 325 other people. And just a few days ago, we saw that special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to determine the issue of Trump's absolute immunity, presidential immunity.

So let's say hypothetically, even if the Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution, he does not have absolute immunity. If the Supreme Court rules that this law is unconstitutional or applied improperly, Trump could have his charges under this particular law dismissed. That doesn't mean all of his charges would be dismissed, but it would definitely impact his charge under this particular law. The Supreme Court didn't say anything about Trump specifically when they agreed to take up this case, but the case would obviously have implications on Trump's election interference case. Now, another potential implication that this could have is that Donald

Trump's attorneys could now argue that the start of the election interference case should be delayed because the Supreme Court took up this issue and it could affect, you know, Trump's case. It's not necessarily a basis for delay, but his attorneys could certainly argue that. So the election interference case, as I mentioned, is currently paused. But if they wanted to, they could probably bring this up as an argument to delay it again. Now, the judge doesn't have to delay the case because of this. Just because the Supreme Court agreed to hear an issue that could affect a portion of Trump's case doesn't mean at all that the judge has to delay the case. It's just a potential argument that Trump's attorneys could raise. So that's what's going on with that. And

now it's time for my favorite segment, which is not everything is bad. And I'm especially excited about this one because I have a personal story in here of my own, which wouldn't have been possible without your guys's help. So let's talk about that, but also just another feel-good story. Number one is about my landscaper, Joe. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw this, but I posted a GoFundMe link for my landscaper, Joe. My landscaper, Joe, is the hardest working man, one of the hardest working men I know. He's also the sweetest, kindest, just, he's amazing. He had a battle with cancer. I didn't include that in my GoFundMe because it's not necessarily relevant to what's going on. But anyway, he came to my house the other day to do my landscaping, and he was apologizing because he didn't have any of his

tools. He was explaining to us how all of his tools got stolen. So he was apologizing because he didn't have any of his tools. He was explaining to us how all of his tools got stolen. So he was working on another house and he was in the backyard. And when he came back to his truck, every single tool got stolen. And he only had the one that he was using at the time when he was in the backyard. So, you know, Joe is a one man show, right? He runs a small business and he has a family and he has kids. And like, I know that this hit him hard, right? So finally, a couple of weeks go by and he comes to the house. Meanwhile, this whole time, like, what can I do for him? I really want to help. And I knew I had this platform and I could use it for good. But I didn't know exactly what he was going to do about his tools. So a couple of weeks go by, he comes back over. And he tells me how he managed to get new tools.

And he tells me he had to spend $3,200 on all of these tools. And he showed me the tools. I could see they were new. And I just felt so bad because you know what? $3,200 is a lot of money to spend on an unexpected business expense, especially when you're a small business owner. And given that it's the holidays and I know he has a family at home, I just, it absolutely broke my heart because I know he could use, you know, he could use every dollar he makes. So I went to Instagram and I asked my followers, you know, I told them the story and I said,

let's raise some money for Joe. And in less than 24 hours, I believe it was somewhere around 12, maybe 15 hours, something like that. After I launched the fundraiser, the goal was to get 3,200 to cover the cost of his tools. We raised $4,579. And I cannot, I mean, this just happened. So I haven't, he hasn't come back to the house yet. I haven't been able to give him the money, but I absolutely cannot wait to see his reaction. And it just reminded me that, you know what, a lot of bad things happen out there. But also there are some really good people out there. And I appreciate every single one of you. And I just want you to remember that, that there are good people that, you know, in a world that seems

like everything's going to shit, there are still good people and good will always outpower the bad. So just remember that. And that's my little personal anecdote today. The second thing I want to tell you about is another way that you can help other people and it costs you absolutely no money at all. So Amazon started doing their annual holiday tipping program for drivers. They've been doing this at least for the last few years, I know. But I want to tell you about it in case you weren't aware, because as I said, it costs you no money. So the next time that you get an Amazon delivery, you can either tell your Alexa device to thank your driver. So you say, Alexa, thank my driver to your Amazon Alexa device. Or if you don't have an Amazon Alexa device, you can just

open up Amazon's website or their app, whatever you use to shop on, and in the search bar type thank my driver. Now if you do it on a website or an app, it'll automatically pull up a list of products, but right above those products, so right under the search bar, you'll see a box that says thank my driver. All you have to do is click that. For the first 2 million thank yous, Amazon is automatically sending $5 to your most recent driver. So it costs you nothing. It doesn't charge you $5. It doesn't take $5 out of your Amazon account, nothing.

It's completely free. It gives your driver $5. And then after the first 2 million thank yous, Amazon will simply just send your driver a little thank you note and say that you sent them some appreciation, not necessarily any money, but again, just a little show of appreciation. It's the little things we can do. So even that is great. But that is a very easy way for you this holiday season to just give back without it literally costing you anything.

So again, next time you get an Amazon delivery, you either say Alexa, thank my driver, or just type in your Amazon app, thank my driver, and click on that thank my driver button and automatically it'll go to your driver. So that's just something else you can do this holiday season. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great weekend and I cannot wait to talk to you on Tuesday.