UNBIASED - Judge Restricts Biden Admin’s Contact with Social Media Platforms, Twitter Sends Meta Cease-and-Desist, Japan’s Radioactive Release, OceanGate Suspends Business Activities, and MORE.

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

1. Breakdown of 303 Creative v. Elenis; Majority Opinion and Dissent; The Mystery Behind the Same-Sex Couple’s Wedding Website Inquiry (2:15)2. Judge Restricts Biden Administration’s Contact with Social Media Platforms; Administration Appealed (16:04)3. Fourth of July Gun Violence Data and Statistics; How Does This Year Compare to Years Past; Why We Need Transparency From the Media (23:53)4. Food Delivery Apps Sue NYC Over New Minimum Wage Law (36:13)5. Trump’s Aide, Walt Nauta, Pleads Not Guilty to Six Counts in Connection to Classified Documents Case (38:09)6. Japan to Release Treated Radioactive Water Into Pacific Ocean (39:15)7. JetBlue to End Northeast Alliance with American Airlines Following Judge’s Order. American Seemingly Not “On Board” ;) (41:12)8. OceanGate Announces Suspension of All Business Activity Following Titan Implosion (42:43) 9. Twitter Sends Meta Cease-and-Desist Letter Over New Threads App (43:23) 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, TikTok, and YouTube.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 hope you had a great 4th of July holiday and a great week so far. I'm here to make your week a little bit better with some news stories. As always, this is nonpartisan, no opinions. Actually, I do have one opinion this episode, but it's an opinion I've said time and time again. You'll find out what that is in a little bit. But anyway, the stories I have for you today are the case of 303 Creative, which the Supreme Court released

a week ago. I want to kind of break that down, talk about the majority opinion, talk about the dissent, and then kind of clarify this standing issue that has been circulating in the news a little bit. Then I'm going to talk about this lawsuit that Missouri and Louisiana filed against the Biden administration and an update on that case as it pertains to a judge restricting the communication the Biden administration can have with social media platforms. And the third story is going to be about gun violence following 4th of July weekend. We're going to talk through some numbers, some statistics, some data compared this year to last year, and then kind of turn that into a conversation about transparency and the media. And that's where you will find that one opinion this episode. And then I'll conclude with the new segment I introduced recently called Notable

Mentions. I have six notable mentions today. All of those are two minutes or less. Before we get into the stories, though, let me just remind you to please leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen on. Really helps support my show and lets other people know why they should also listen to my show. And then, of course, don't forget to share my episodes with your friends, your family, your colleagues, whoever it might be that would also appreciate nonpartisan news. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. It's been one week since the Supreme Court released its decision in 303 Creative. As I said,

I want to talk through both the majority opinion as well as the dissent, so we're all on the same page. Obviously, the dissent is not as important as the majority because the majority, of course, is what dictates the law, but the dissent is also important to talk through because the dissent also raises some very important legal issues and does have very valid arguments as well. So before we get into the majority and the dissent, let's give a little bit of background on this case. This case stemmed from a web designer in Colorado. Her name is Lori Smith. She wanted to expand her business into wedding websites, but she was a bit hesitant because there's this Colorado public accommodations law.

Most states have these public accommodation laws that say that you can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Now, here was Lori Smith's issue. She is a Christian. She doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. And she says that if she had to create wedding websites for same-sex couples, that would go against what she believes in. Therefore, she says the Colorado law violates her First Amendment right by essentially requiring her to create websites for those that she doesn't align with. This case was originally filed, obviously, at the district court level. The district court ruled in favor of the Colorado law. It then was appealed.

The appellate court also ruled in favor of the Colorado law, and then it made its way to the Supreme Court, which we obviously know how that turned out. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Lori Smith. And here is what the majority said. So this was a six to three decision along ideological lines. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. This opinion really focused on expressive conduct. And I quote, this was the exact holding. The first amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees. So you can see this holding is very narrow. This holding applies to website designers that are creating expressive designs, but not only expressive designs, speaking messages as well. This is important because I've seen a lot of mainly social media posts. I've seen the articles that are

circulating in the media get it right, but the headlines and the social media posts kind of take this holding out of context and imply that this holding means businesses can just outright discriminate, which is not the case. So let's talk a bit more about this. This holding really applies to businesses in the creative world, right? We're talking about artists, writers, designers, as was the case here. And it doesn't have to be a web designer. Maybe it's an interior designer, a director, maybe a movie director, an event planner could probably fall into this because event planners use their own creative talents for their work. So any profession which uses their own

creative talents and they're paid for it would fall under this holding. With that said, this holding does not apply to your typical businesses in the service industry. So this doesn't apply to restaurants. This doesn't apply to hotels. This doesn't apply to your accountant. This doesn't apply to your landscaper. So the holding doesn't mean that your landscaper can now stop servicing your property because you're black. This holding doesn't mean that your accountant can stop doing business with you because you're Muslim. This holding does not mean that a restaurant can turn you away because you're Jewish. So someone said to me within the last few days that what this holding means is that a Mexican restaurant can turn away white people.

And I said, no, actually, this holding doesn't mean that at all. Nothing about this holding allows a business to turn a customer away simply because of their skin color, their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, whatever it might be. That example that a Mexican restaurant can just turn away a white person is just not true. So I don't want anyone to think that what this holding means is that any business can just discriminate against someone because of their skin color or because of their religion. That's not how this works. One example I thought of where an issue could potentially arise is let's say a gay or lesbian person walks into a nail salon and they want the nail tech to paint a rainbow flag on their nails. The nail tech says no because maybe the nail tech doesn't believe in

homosexuality, maybe it goes against her religion, whatever, and her nail art could be seen as a creative work, right? Because that's how she expresses herself. However, note a couple of things. One, even in that instance, it may not fall into this holding because, again, it's not that speaking message that the holding specifically cited to. So don't forget this opinion and this decision out of the Supreme Court had two parts, expressive designs, and speaking messages. Now, also note that that nail tech could not turn away the customer strictly because of the customer's sexuality. The customer would have to be requesting a particular service, like painting a rainbow flag, which contradicts the nail tech's beliefs and or values. The second focus that the majority opinion had was on this idea of government intrusion. So the majority, you know, they were really reiterating that the government can't dictate what you can say or what you can't say. And the majority says, consider these examples. an unwilling Muslim movie director to create a movie with a Zionist message. Or by that kind of

same token, a Jewish movie director could be required by a government to create a movie celebrating the Holocaust. Another example the majority gave was a government could require a male web designer who is married to another man to design a website for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage. So they're really focusing on this thought, like think of these examples. Maybe you can, because obviously this issue is so controversial, what they were trying to do was kind of put this idea into another perspective and say, here's another perspective maybe you can relate to. And for those reasons, between the expressive conduct and the government intrusion,

the majority ruled in favor of the web designer. Now let's move on to the dissent. The dissent was written by Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson joined in. The dissent says the court actually got it wrong because the court should have never taken a free speech approach. Now, why do they say that? Well, what they say in the dissent is that the Colorado law targets discriminatory conduct, not speech. And discriminatory conduct has never been afforded First Amendment protections. So this actually wasn't a First Amendment issue at all. And to illustrate that this case was about conduct rather than speech, the dissent gave this example. So Lori Smith, who is the web

designer, you know, in this in this case, conceded to the fact that if a same sex couple came to her and said, hey, we saw this website in your portfolio, we would really love for you to recreate it for us. You know, all you have to do is change the names and the date, keep everything the same. The writing is the same. Literally all that's being changed is our name and the date. And Laurie Smith conceded that she wouldn't do it. And so the dissent is saying this is very clearly status-based discrimination, because this isn't about the message. The message isn't changing. The message is the same if a same sex couple uses the same template as an opposite couple. The message doesn't change at all. So again, the dissent is saying this is status-based discrimination. This has nothing to do with speech and everything to do with discriminatory conduct. Then Lori Smith

says, well, no, because I still offer my services to gay people. I'll make a website for, you know, a gay person's business. There's no problem there. I just won't do their wedding website. And the dissent says, and I quote, this argument would be amusing if not so embarrassing, end quote. And the dissent actually compares Lori Smith to Ali McClung. Ali McClung actually, so he had a restaurant and he would serve black people takeout at the restaurant, but wouldn't let them sit at a table inside. And the dissent is basically making the argument like this is what you're doing. You're offering some services to gay people and not other services. So then after that, the dissent gets into an argument

about social contracts and basically just says there's this implied social contract. If a business decides to do business in a particular state, that business has to abide by the laws of the state, including business has to abide by the laws of the state, including their anti-discrimination laws. And because Lori Smith wants to conduct business in the state of Colorado, she has to abide by Colorado's laws. And the dissent finishes by quoting prior Supreme Court precedent saying, quote, for the promise of freedom is an empty one if the government is powerless to assure that's circulating in the news. Many people have been saying that the Supreme Court didn't actually have standing to hear the issue because this woman, the web designer, made up the story about the same-sex couple wanting a wedding website. So I'll give you the short version. The story goes

that Lori Smith received a request from a couple named Stuart and Mike in September of 2016. Stuart actually contacted Lori Smith about his wedding. They were supposed to get married early 2017. And according to the inquiry, Stewart wanted design work for their invitations and their place names, things like that, and said that they might stretch to a website. And he left his email, his phone number, his name, and his personal website URL. But here's what's interesting. That inquiry wasn't actually included in the original lawsuit that was filed with the district court by Lori Smith. According to a filing at the appellate level, Stewart's inquiry was received one day after the original suit was filed with

the district court. A bit of a coincidence. So that's what the story was up until about two weeks ago. Then two weeks ago, someone from this outlet called New Republic reached out to this Stewart guy to ask about his inquiry. And I have this article linked for you where the person who reached out to Stewart, you know, wrote up what happened. But allegedly, Stewart said, yeah, that's my name. That's my phone number. That's my email address. That's my website, even on the inquiry form. But I didn't send that. And at the time that this form was allegedly sent, I was married. I was married to a woman. And he allegedly told the reporter, I wouldn't want anybody to make me a wedding website. I'm married. I have a child. I'm not really sure where that came from. But

somebody is using false information in a Supreme Court filing document. So that's where the mystery lies. But the whole issue becomes if Lori Smith made up her story, she arguably didn't have standing and therefore this case should have never been heard. So what is standing? Standing is the ability to file a lawsuit. And to kind of put this simply and as directly as possible as it pertains to this case, Lori Smith had to show that there was a credible threat in Colorado that would require her to speak in a way that she didn't want to. And the majority opinion briefly talks through the issue of standing, but it doesn't really go into huge detail, which means that standing wasn't really in much of an issue at the Supreme

Court level. And the dissent actually doesn't mention it at all, which is pretty telling because the dissent will always bring up an issue if they disagree with it, especially if it's an issue like standing. So for instance, in Biden versus Nebraska, the student loan forgiveness case, the dissent really talked about standing and why they thought that the states didn't have standing to bring the lawsuit. Standing is a big deal, so it should be talked about. And so the fact that it wasn't talked about in this case leads me to believe it really wasn't an issue. But anyway, the majority really just points to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals because the 10th Circuit, who, again, ruled in favor of the Colorado law when they heard this case,

went through the standing analysis and determined that she did, in fact, have standing. So at the Supreme Court level, they just basically pointed to that analysis and they said, look, this is what the 10th Circuit found. They found there was a credible threat for these reasons. Therefore, you know, we agree there is standing here. And that was the extent of the conversation. That was it. However, there are legal experts that are saying, you know, if this was made up, she didn't actually have an injury because in order to establish an injury, the injury has to be a result of the actions of the law.

So if she didn't really see any actions of the law, she didn't have standing in the first place. So let me give you an example. An injury as a result of actions of the law would be like she started designing wedding websites, she got an inquiry for a same-sex website, she turned it down, and then she got a complaint filed against her. And as per that Colorado law, either an administrative hearing was opened up or she had to pay a fine, some sort of injury. But the fact of the matter is, no matter which side you believe, whether you believe she had standing or not, it's important

to realize that this does not fall on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court bears no burden when it comes to confirming evidence in a case. The justices are given information and they roll with that information. They are not investigators. So even if, you know, this whole situation was made up by Lori Smith, it's not the Supreme Court's job to determine whether it was made up or not. The Supreme Court is basing its standing determination on what they know. And what they know is that Lori Smith was posed with a credible threat by the Colorado law. And that's it. So that's the standing issue in a nutshell. Let's move on to story number two, which is that on Tuesday, a United States district court judge prohibited

officials in the Biden administration, including the president himself, from meeting and or communicating with social media companies for the purpose of moderating content, among other things. The Biden administration, of course, appealed this injunction the very next day. That was to be expected. This order stems from a lawsuit filed last year by Missouri and Louisiana, and this lawsuit alleged in part that the Biden administration had worked with social media companies to suppress certain posts and label certain posts as misinformation. So you probably saw this a lot with the pandemic. There were a lot of posts that like had the information disclaimer or, you know, posts were being labeled as misinformation, things like that.

When I say the Biden administration, I'm talking about the entities within the Biden administration. So yes, the president himself is included in this, but it's certainly not limited to him. So the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Surgeon General, the press secretary, and many, many, many other entities and officials within the administration. Some of the specific acts that the complaint alleges were committed were suppression of speech surrounding the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election, suppression of speech regarding the lab leak theory of COVID, specifically that COVID was leaked from a lab in Wuhan, suppression of speech about the efficacy

of masks and quarantine, same with vaccines Suppression of speech about election integrity in the 2020 election. Suppression of speech about the security of voting by mail. Negative posts about the economy and negative posts generally about President Biden and his family. Now, you might be asking, how does the Biden administration have any say over this kind of thing? According to the complaint, officials from the Biden administration were not only making public statements and demands to social media platforms in order to get them to censor speech, but they were also threatening adverse consequences if they didn't. So things like Section 230 reform. You may have heard me talk about Section 230 before. Section 230 provides immunity for social media platforms for content posted on its platform. So if someone makes an outrageous,

outlandish, threatening post on the platform, Section 230 protects the actual platform from liability. But if Section 230 were to be reformed, then obviously that opens up these social media platforms to a lot more liability. So allegedly, the Biden administration was threatening Section 230 reform if these platforms didn't censor speech, you know, according to the administration's requests, and also allegedly threatening antitrust enforcement and increased regulations. So some specific examples of some moderation requests, according to the complaint. On January 23rd, 2021, three days after President Biden took office, a man named Clark Humphrey, who was the digital director for the COVID response team, allegedly emailed Twitter and requested the removal of an anti-vax tweet by RFK Jr. And the email read, hey, folks, wanted to flag the below tweet, and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP. He then sent a copy of that email to Rob Flaherty, who was the former deputy assistant

to the president and the director of digital strategy, and asked in the email to Flaherty if, quote, we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre, end quote. So it's things like this. The examples go on and on. If you want to get a sense of these specific examples for yourself, I do have the judge's order linked on jordanismylawyer.com. The order is 155 pages long, but the examples, the specific examples range from pages like nine to 86. So a lot of pages, but that'll give you kind of a more specific range of where to look. Now let's talk about the injunction itself. So this injunction was issued on Tuesday and it's a preliminary injunction. And let me just note that the injunction wasn't

issued because the court affirmatively found that the Biden administration committed the alleged acts. Even the order itself says if the allegations made are true, the case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in the United States' history. So it's not definitive, even the order saying if it's true. So now you're probably asking how or why would the court restrict the Biden administration from speaking with social media platforms if this hasn't been affirmatively proven? The answer really is just that it's a precautionary measure. So think of this kind of like when a temporary restraining order is granted, if someone is getting stalked or abused, it might not be proven through a trial yet, but the judge is still going to issue an order

for precautionary purposes. Now, a preliminary injunction differs from a permanent injunction. A preliminary injunction is to stop behavior generally until the end of a lawsuit, whereas a permanent injunction would be entered at the end of the lawsuit and it would stop the behavior indefinitely. So this was a preliminary injunction, so a temporary kind of hold. So what does this injunction prohibit? There are a few things, but basically certain members of the Biden administration and certain groups within the administration can't meet with social media companies for purpose of moderating any content, whether that be removal, deletion, suppression, reduction, etc. They can't flag content or forward content to

social media companies for the purpose of moderating. They can't engage with social media companies in any way for purposes of moderating content. So they can't be sending emails, texts, letters. They can't be making phone calls to these social media companies, nothing like that. And they can't notify social media companies to be on the lookout for posts containing protected free speech. And there are a few other specific acts that are prohibited. There are 10 total, but that's pretty much the gist of it. However, the order was also clear as to specify acts that are not prohibited. So the order was very clear that the administration and these certain officials can still inform social media companies

of posts involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies. They can still notify social media companies of national security threats, extortion, criminal efforts to suppress voting, efforts to provide illegal campaign contributions, foreign attempts to influence elections, or cyber attacks against election infrastructure. They can also notify social media companies if there are threats that threaten public safety or the security of the United States, and they can still use the platforms for their own government speech. And again, there are a few others, mostly in regard to voting and elections, but that gives you the general gist. As a side note, in conjunction with the request for an injunction, the states also asked for class certification. So certification

to make this a class action lawsuit. The court denied this. So there are certain factors that the states, specifically Louisiana and Missouri, would have had to prove in order to get class certification, but they weren't able to prove them. The court didn't find that those things existed. So the court denied class certification. As expected, as I said, the day after the injunction was granted, the president and the rest of the defendants filed their notice of appeal. So that appeal will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and that court will make a decision on whether the preliminary injunction can stand.

Let's talk a little bit about gun violence over the 4th of July holiday and also make this a conversation about media transparency. If you follow me on social media, you probably know where I'm going with this, but I wanted to include it as a story because I do think it deserves to be talked about in more detail. And on social media, I have limited time. On my podcast, I have a lifetime. So I want to preface this by saying that any gun violence is bad. And I know there are people out there that say there's no such thing as gun violence, that it's people violence, and that the people just happen to be using guns. It's not the guns that are the problem. Just like there are people out there that say, I am a gun-loving Republican for even speaking up about this issue in the first place.

The truth is, no matter what, there's going to be people on both sides that take issue with the words that i utter and that's just the reality of my situation but i want to clarify that gun violence is wrong in no way is this story meant to justify it and i am going to talk about how this year we saw a drop in in numbers as far as gun violence goes over the July 4th holiday. But in no way am I implying that just because there's been a drop, it diminishes the value of the lives that were lost. Absolutely not. With that said, I posted to social media a few days ago a video about how I woke up the morning after the 4th of July, and I saw a headline that said, 4th of July overshadowed by 16 mass shootings. And I saw this and I thought to

myself, you know, this is weird. I didn't hear anything so absolutely out of the ordinary, such as the Highland Park parade shooting that we had last year. So I thought maybe I missed something. So I look into it a little bit. And the first couple articles I read, I see 15 dead and 94 injured as a result of 16 mass shootings that took place over six days. And I thought, obviously, this is tragic. Anytime anyone loses a life, it is tragic. It's the only word to describe it, an absolute tragedy. But when I saw the numbers, I thought these numbers felt lower than what we've seen in past July 4th. So, and I believe these numbers have gone up, by the way. As of Thursday, it was 20 dead and 126 injured. And again, this is deaths and injuries from mass shootings specifically. Mass shootings are defined as four or more

killed or injured in one incident, not including the shooter. And I know that these numbers are going to go up because not all of the singular incidents are accounted for. But in saying that these numbers felt low, I said, okay, let me go ahead and look at previous years. And what I found was that numbers in previous years were significantly higher than the numbers this year. And the whole point of my video was like, look, I think 100% the shootings need to be reported on. We need to, you know, bring awareness to the situations. These lives deserve to be honored. Yet at the same time, I feel the media has an opportunity to ease our concerns, reduce our fears a little bit surrounding shootings like this. And if you have a year or consistently year

over year, you see a drop in numbers, the media should report that rather than putting out these headlines that say, you know, 4th of July overshadowed by 16 mass shootings. But my whole point in that video was like, these headlines are not, I feel like they're heightening our fears rather than taking up an opportunity to actually, yes, acknowledge what happened, but also ease some of our concerns. So anyway, let's talk about the data. I look into, you know, the numbers and I see in 2015, over a three-day period, keep in mind that this year's

numbers were over a six-day period. 2015, over a three-day period, 107 were killed, 283 injured. The reports this year over the six-day period, again, I'll just remind you, 20 killed, 126 injured. So then 2020, a bit more recently, 314 killed, 751 injured. This is over a four-day period. 2021, 233 killed, 618 injured. Again, four-day period. 2021, we saw a 26% drop from 2020. 2022, just last year, 220 killed, 570 injured. Let me remind you, the numbers from this year were 20 killed, 126 injured, a fraction of those numbers. And yes, I'm well aware that the reports so far this year are specifically in regard to mass shootings. So I want to focus on mass shootings because of that, because I want to compare the most similar circumstances we can. So Forbes actually puts out this article, which I'm going to use as the example, because when I saw the

headline, I thought this is exactly what I was hoping for from these other outlets. And Forbes, kudos to them, specifically compares this year's mass shootings to years past mass shootings, like number to number, so we can see a trend. And the headline of the Forbes article says, July 4th mass shooting hit lowest level since 2019 despite above average year. So, okay, great. You're giving us two different facts here. This year has been above average as far as mass shootings go, but this July 4th was the lowest level since 2019. Okay. So I felt that that was a great headline because it got multiple points across and there wasn't any unnecessary fear mongering. So I opened the article. And again, as I said, very informative. So according to this article, it says there were six mass shootings this year

on July 4th on the particular day of July 4th. So not including the days leading up to July 4th, just on the day of the holiday. Six mass shootings this year. The last time the number was lower than six was 2019. In that year, there were four on the 4th of July. 2020, there was nine shootings on the 4th of July. 2021, there was 11 shootings on the 4th of July. And 2022, there was 10 shootings on the 4th of July. Again, this year, six. Now, the Forbes article does a great job at pointing out the fact that these numbers could have something to do with the fact that this year and 2019, which happened to be the lowest numbers, fell on weekdays. So 2019 was on a Thursday. This year was on a Tuesday.

So that could have something to do with it because mass shootings tend to happen more often than not on the weekend. So that could explain why in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the number of mass shootings on the 4th of July were higher. But my point is the media can say all of this. Forbes did a great job, and I just feel like all of the other outlets can do the same, but it just seems like they're all so worried about pushing their own narrative that they cater their facts to that narrative. And I just feel like we deserve more than that. Another thing that the Forbes article did that was very informative and very

helpful was provide data as it pertains to the weekend leading up to the holiday. So obviously the holiday this year fell on a Tuesday. So it compares the stretch of Friday to Tuesday of this year compared to Friday to Tuesday of years past. So what it says is that this year, the stretch from Friday to Tuesday, there were 18 mass shootings in total, 19 people were killed, 102 were injured. However, these numbers are slightly down from last year. Last year, that same Friday to Tuesday stretch, there were 23 mass shootings, 22 people were killed, 128 were injured. In 2021, during that Friday to Tuesday stretch, there were 22 mass shootings, 18 were killed, 96 were injured. And in 2020, during that Friday to Tuesday stretch, there were 29

mass shootings, 27 people were killed, 128 were injured. So from that article alone, we know that the number of mass shootings on the 4th of July this year is lower than the past few years, but that could be because of the weekday holiday. We also know that compared to the Friday to Tuesday stretch in years past, there were five less mass shootings this year than last year, four less mass shootings this year than 2021, and 11 less mass shootings this year than 2020. Forbes did an incredible job at reporting on this year's mass shootings, the fatalities, the injuries, which is so important to talk about. But at the same time, Forbes also

gave us enough information to know so much more than that and provided so much context and so much information without the unnecessary fear mongering. My point is that it's possible to report on all sides of the facts. Doing so is certainly not diminishing the value of the lives lost. I cannot stress that enough. It is absolutely terrible that lives are lost to gun violence. I feel for the families completely. But at the same time, you know, because this is such a tragedy, does that mean we have to stay silent and let the media control the narrative?

Why can't we do both? Why can't we talk about the tragedy and also say, hey, media, can you fill us in on everything we need to know? When I posted this video to social media demanding more transparency, I had one of my followers tell me that it's only a matter of time before me or someone in my family is a victim of gun violence and that he gives his condolences in advance. Why? What's crazy is that when I speak out against the media, I'm the bad guy to some people. And what's funny is that I know if I were to take a snippet of a Fox News article regarding, let's say, Donald Trump's

indictment, and I were to say, hey, here's what the article left out, and I rattled off a bunch more facts that weren't originally reported in the Fox News article, the same people that are coming after me for criticizing the media about how they reported on gun violence would be praising my efforts for giving more information about Trump's indictment. The transparency from the media should come from all outlets, both sides. It's a shame that it doesn't, and it likely won't change, but that's why I do what I do. And it worries me that people are so attached to the media and so quick to defend it when the media is so clearly in it for the money. They're not in it for us. This 4th of July, I was sitting on the beach, I was watching fireworks,

and I thought to myself, what would I do if a shooter walked onto this beach right now and opened fire? Would I run further down the beach or would I run up towards the buildings? And I don't mean to make this dramatic, but that's the reality we live in. And that's not the first time I've had that thought. And I'm sure you've had that thought at some point. But perhaps now that you and I both know mass shootings are trending downward, we won't have those same thoughts next year. And that's why I feel it's so important for all of us to know all of the facts. Let's close out this episode with some notable mentions. The first notable mention I have for you is that Uber, DoorDash, and other food delivery apps have filed lawsuits against New York City

wanting to strike down a new law which sets a minimum wage for drivers. The law is set to take effect next week, and it will require drivers be paid $17.96 an hour. Starting July 12th, apps that pay for all of the time that a worker is connected to an app, so like the time waiting for the trip offers, the trip time, etc., have to pay the driver at least $17.96 an hour, which the law says is equivalent to about 30 cents per minute, not including tips. On the other hand, if the app only pays for trip time, so the time from accepting a delivery offer to dropping off the order, the app will have to pay their drivers a little bit more. So roughly 50 cents per minute of the trip time.

The law also gives drivers other rights like drivers also have to be paid at least once a week and the apps cannot charge a fee to process payment. Apps will have to tell drivers the route details before a delivery is accepted. So this will have to include things like the details before a delivery is accepted. So this will have to include things like the pickup address, estimated time and distance for the trip, and also the tip if it's known at the time of order placement. So just keep that in mind. Some drivers in New York City might start to know how much you tip them before they pick up your order. There are additional rights that this law will give drivers. So if you're interested, I do have a fact sheet linked on JordanIsMyLawyer.com

from New York City. Some of the lawsuits say that the law is based on a misunderstanding of how the food delivery industry works. Another lawsuit, which was filed by a smaller food delivery company called Relay Deliver, says that the law will put it out of business unless it raises the fee it charges to restaurants. In a nutshell, food delivery companies do not want to pay drivers what's required under the law. The second notable mention is that Donald Trump's aide, Walt Nauta, appeared in a Miami courtroom on Thursday to plead not guilty to six counts in connection to the classified documents, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, false statements, and withholding and concealing documents. The allegations set forth in the indictment say that Notta was the one that moved the boxes of classified documents at Trump's direction and also communicated with Trump in

regard to concealing the boxes. Notta actually made his initial appearance in court on July 13th, but he didn't have a licensed Florida lawyer at the time. He had a lawyer. He just didn't have a lawyer that was licensed in Florida. And then his arraignment was actually postponed again a couple of weeks later for the same reason. But alas, he got an attorney licensed in Florida. His name is Sasha D'Don. He's a former public defender, and he was accompanied by both D'Don and Stanley Woodwardward who is a dc attorney and woodward is actually the one that entered the plea on behalf of nada but dadan was just simply present because he had to have a florida lawyer with him the third notable mention is that japan will begin releasing

treated radioactive water into the pacific ocean 12 ago, there was this earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima that damaged its nuclear plant's power supply and cooling systems. This caused the reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the plant with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors, but at the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, which has created even more radioactive wastewater that has to be stored and treated. However, they're running out of space. They need to do something with the stored radioactive water. So how this works is that the water is treated at a facility where all of the radioactive materials are allegedly filtered out except for tritium, which is a hydrogen isotope that cannot be taken away. So the tritium will

remain. The water is then stored and much of it will be treated a second time. Then the water is diluted and it's diluted to 1500 becquerels of tritium per liter of water. Now this is well below Japan's regulatory limit, which is 60,000 becquerels of tritium per liter of water. Now, this is well below Japan's regulatory limit, which is 60,000 becquerels of tritium per liter of water. It's also less than the World Health Organization's limit, which is 10,000 becquerels of tritium per liter of water, but not enough to meet the United States' limit of 740 becquerels of tritium per liter. So it's diluted and it's in accordance with some regulatory limits, but not our limits here in the United States. But then eventually, once it's diluted, it's discharged into the ocean by way of an undersea tunnel and third party agencies will monitor the discharge. This has

been met with criticism from some to be expected. Others say there's not much to worry about. Look, at the end of the day, is this going to change your life? No. Is it good to know? Yes. Could it potentially affect your sushi? Maybe. The fourth notable mention is that JetBlue will end its alliance with American Airlines. You may remember on May 23rd, I reported on the judge ruling against JetBlue and American Airlines, ordering them to stop their Northeast alliance. This Northeast alliance was between the two airlines, and it was meant to coordinate flights and pool revenues in the Northeast region.

So specifically Boston Logan, Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK. And following that ruling that they had to stop, it was unclear whether there would be an appeal. It seemed as if American wanted to appeal it, but JetBlue wasn't so eager. And now we know that that was in fact the case because on Wednesday, JetBlue said that while it strongly disagrees with the order, it would abide by it and end the alliance. But American said that it did still plan to appeal. The thought on JetBlue's end is that if they agree to terminate the alliance and abide by the judge's order, it will allow them the ability to move forward with its merger with Spirit.

So JetBlue said that terminating the alliance renders moot the DOJ's objection that led to the DOJ filing suit to block the merger deal with Spirit. While JetBlue's CEO Robin Hayes said in a memo that the decision to stop the alliance will enable JetBlue to focus even more on their combination with Spirit, it's unclear whether terminating the alliance will actually have any effect on the issue over the Spirit merger. Some legal experts say that JetBlue will still have an issue with the Spirit merger, but of course only time will tell. The fifth notable mention is that OceanGate announced on Thursday that it is suspending all business operations following the Titan implosion. So OceanGate is obviously that company that owns or owned Titan. They do the deep sea explorations to the Titanic. And of course, we know that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush

was one of the five that was tragically killed on the Titan. But the announcement came via a banner at the top of OceanGate's website, which just reads, quote, OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial activities. Nothing else has been mentioned. The company has been reached out to for comment by various outlets, but they haven't responded. The sixth and final notable mention is that Twitter has sent a cease and desist letter to Meta. Sources say that Twitter has sent Meta a cease and desist letter over Meta's new Threads app. The letter was apparently sent by Twitter's legal team on Wednesday and accuses Meta of misappropriating Twitter's trade

secrets and hiring former Twitter employees who had proprietary information. The cease and desist letter reads in part, quote, over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees. Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter, that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information, that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter, and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices. With that knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop, in the matter of months, Meta's Copycat Threads app, with the specific intent that they use Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate

the development of Meta's competing app, end quote. Elon Musk took to Twitter to write, competition is fine, cheating is not, and a spokesperson for Meta said in a post on Threads, no one on Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee. That's just not a thing. That concludes this episode. Don't forget to leave me a review, share this episode with your friends, and don't forget to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter. The next one is going out tomorrow on Saturday. It's another source of nonpartisan news to get you caught up on trending lawsuits, trending stories, and there's even some humor thrown in there, so you don't want to miss it. I will talk to you next week.