UNBIASED - May 1, 2024: Your Questions About Campus Protests Answered, Biden Forgives $6.1B of Student Loans, States Sue Biden Admin Over New Firearm Regulation, and More.

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

1. Story Update: Implications of Potential Marijuana Reclassification (0:38)2. President Biden Announces $6.1B in Student Loan Forgiveness; Here's Why and Where the Authority Comes From (5:08)3. Your Questions About Campus Protests Answered: What's the Purpose of the Protests and Why Do Some Chants and Phrases Have a 'Double Meaning'? (8:56)4. Quick Hitters: Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene Says She'll Push Ahead with Motion to Oust Johnson; States Sue Biden Admin Over New Firearm Regulation; Manhattan DA Says Harvey Weinstein Will Be Retried (15:40)Get EXCLUSIVE, unbiased content on Patreon.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 Wednesday, May 1st, and this is your first daily news rundown of a new month. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever podcast platform you listen. And if you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that show a review on whatever podcast platform you listen. And if you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.

All of those things really help support my show, so thank you in advance. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. The first story is going to be a bit of an update from yesterday's story. So the last story in yesterday's episode, I talked about the DEA, or at least reports coming out that the DEA was going to recommend reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule 1 controlled substance to a Schedule 3 controlled substance. And I talked about why that recommendation wouldn't be much of a surprise, and I also talked about how a drugs classification is determined, but I didn't talk about arguably the most important aspect of the story, which is what effect a reclassification would have. So let's run through what would change if and when a reclassification rule is finalized. First and foremost, the making,

distributing, and possessing of marijuana would still be illegal at the federal level. A reclassification wouldn't come with broad legality because marijuana would still be a controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act. What a reclassification would mean is less restrictions because the lower the schedule number, the more restrictions a drug has. The higher the schedule number, the less restrictions a drug has. For instance, let's say if marijuana is reclassified to Schedule 3, certain penalties for some offenses would be reduced. And this is simply because you could no longer be charged with crimes that pertain to Schedule

1 controlled substances when it comes to marijuana charges. And those Schedule 1, you know, crimes or charges carry higher penalties. Instead, you would be charged with a crime that pertains to Schedule III substances, which just by their nature come with less serious penalties. So the penalties would change a bit for some offenses, but not all. Because when it comes to laws that specifically reference marijuana, rather than referencing drugs by schedule, those penalties wouldn't change. Now, from a business standpoint, moving marijuana to Schedule 3 would allow marijuana businesses to

start deducting business expenses on their federal tax filings. And they currently can't do that because Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits business deductions for businesses that traffic Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 substances. So once reclassified to a Schedule 3, a marijuana business would no longer fall under that prohibition and therefore be allowed to deduct business expenses on their federal tax filings. From a medical standpoint, the move to Schedule 3 would mean that marijuana could be legally dispensed via a prescription so long which the FDA has not done yet. But if the FDA did approve it, then medical marijuana could be legally dispensed, so long as there's a prescription for it. Similarly, kind of related to the medical standpoint, from a research standpoint, a

reclassification would mean less stringent regulatory controls, therefore allowing for more research. And then finally, another shift that we would see would be for those who use medical marijuana lawfully. So lawful users of medical marijuana would potentially, in some situations, be eligible to obtain public housing, obtain immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and purchase and possess firearms. However, that eligibility would not extend to recreational users of marijuana, and that's kind of obvious. But, you know, those are not, that's not an exhaustive list of the effects that we would see from reclassifying marijuana, but at least it

gives you an idea of what the change would entail. If you do want more information on the effects of a reclassification, I have two pretty helpful congressional reports that I have linked in the sources section for this episode. So you can, of course, always find my sources in each episode description, or you can just go to my website, jordanismylawyer.com, find today's episode, and all of my sources will be down at the bottom. So if you are wanting more insight as to what effects a reclassification would have, those congressional reports are in the sources section. In other news, President Biden approved another $6.1 billion in student loan debt relief, specifically for Art Institute students.

And this is actually not the first time Art Institute students have received forgiveness. So let's talk a little bit about what the Art Institute is and where the authority for this forgiveness comes from. The Art Institute's system, which I will actually refer to as AI going forward, just so you know, was a private for-profit system of art schools that was created here in the United States in 1969. Originally, AI was owned by Education Management Corporation, but it was later sold in 2017 to the Dream Center Foundation, and then sold again in 2019 to the Education Principal Foundation, and ultimately closed all of its doors in 2023. But it was when the original owner, Education Management Corporation, ran it that

AI had some pretty significant issues. And without getting too into the weeds of the legal battles that AI faced, the school was essentially using deceptive marketing tactics to entice students to enroll. AI would underestimate program costs and overestimate job placement figures for students once they were done with their program. That way, students, as I said, were more inclined to register with the school. Eventually, in 2013, the Department of Education first placed AI under heightened cash monitoring. In 2016, many of AI's campuses were placed on probation by their accreditor. By 2018, more campuses had lost their accreditation and didn't inform the students of it. And then in 2019, it was determined that $9 to $13 million of federal funds, which were

meant for student stipends, were missing. Teachers weren't being paid, and it really just continued to go downhill from there until all of the campuses were officially closed in September of last year. In 2022, though, there was a class action lawsuit brought by a group of more than 200,000 student borrowers from more than 153 institutions across the country, not just AI. And these students in their class action lawsuit claimed that they had been defrauded by their school. The settlement in that lawsuit was approved later that year in 2022. And the case actually ended up before the Supreme Court. The settlement was challenged, but in April of last year,

the Supreme Court rejected the challenge and said the settlement could proceed. So what that meant is that the AI students that were a part of the bigger class action lawsuit had their debt canceled. As for the other AI students that were not a part of that lawsuit, specifically students who attended AI between January 2004 and October 2017, this new debt announcement that President Biden announced today applies to those students. And the basis of the cancellation stems from what is called the borrower defense to repayment, which is this legal ground for discharging federal loans. So under this law, if you were the subject of your school's misconduct, you can actually object to the repayment of your loans by filling out a form and telling the government about the school's misconduct. And it's ultimately up to the Department of Education to determine whether an institution engaged in such misconduct so as to warrant the cancellation of your debt. And that is, of course, what happened here today. In total, the relief will

impact roughly 317,000 AI student loan borrowers, amounting to roughly $6.1 billion in forgiveness. So that's what's going on with the debt relief. Now for this last story, before we finish the episode with quick hitters, I wanted to talk a little bit about the conflict and protests that we're seeing on university campuses across the country, because I've reported on some of the developments, some of the arrests, as well as some of the negotiations. But I think the part that most of us are interested in knowing is why these protests are happening and what some of the truth is when it comes to the protests. Like, why do some see the protests as warranted but not others? Why do some see the protests as

anti-Semitic but not others? That's what I want to answer for you because I think that's the part, as I said, we're all most interested in, but it's also the part that's not being talked about as much. I will say, if you want a very deep explanation of the history of the conflict, that being the Israel-Gaza conflict, I released an episode on October 12th. It's my most downloaded episode to date, and it'll really give you a ton of history behind this conflict between Israel and Gaza. But for purposes of this episode, I'm going to give you a very, very short synopsis, which is almost impossible to do, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that is that Israelis and Palestinians each feel that they are entitled to the land on which

they sit. So the land that makes up Israel and Gaza, Israelis and Palestinians both feel that that is their land. And this sort of sense of entitlement has led to many, many conflicts over the years. But fast forward to present day, Israel has erected a border wall on its side of the Israel-Gaza border, as well as an underground defense system, and Israel has a lot of control over what goes in and out of Gaza. Palestinians call this an occupation by Israel, whereas Israel says that this is necessary to preserve the safety of the people in Israel because of the repeated attacks from not only Hamas, but prior leaders and governments as well. And again, I want to stress that it is nearly impossible to give you the broad scope of this conflict in just a few short sentences.

So if you have not listened to that October 12th episode, please go ahead and do that. But to bring it full circle, those who support Palestine, they want to end that occupation. They want to free Palestine. And then, of course, you have the more extremists that just want to see the end of the state of Israel and the Jewish people completely. Those who are against Israel's continued military action are calling Israel's action genocide. However, those who support Israel say this is not genocide, it's self-defense because we keep getting attacked and we have to, you know, defend ourselves. So it's really complicated. Even though there are people who are committed to one side or the other that will tell you this is not complicated at all, it is. Specifically, as it pertains to the college campuses, a lot of these universities and honestly just a lot

of entities in the United States generally have ties to Israel through investments. And pro-Palestine supporters argue that these investments are directly and or indirectly supporting Israel's actions in the war, and therefore these institutions need to divest accordingly. That is the purpose of the protests. That is the ultimate goal of these protesters, to get their institutions to divest. Now, as for the chance, the reason I wanted to talk about the chants is because we're seeing a lot of narratives as to whether these are anti-Semitic or they're not anti-Semitic. So I wanted to give you some examples of a few of the chants and run through what each side says about them and where these conflicting narratives are coming from. Because these chants range from

peaceful to anti-Semitic. And honestly, you may find some people who tell you that all of the chants are anti-Semitic, but that's just not true. And I'm Jewish, okay? That's me telling you not every chant is anti-Semitic. There are some people out there that are peacefully protesting the continued military action of Israel and the killing of Gazan civilians while also wanting Jews to live in peace and the state of Israel to exist. Just like there are Israel supporters out there who agree with Israel fighting back against Hamas, but don't necessarily agree with the killing of so many Gazan civilians. You can't just take out two buckets and throw people into one of the two because of one particular belief

that's held by any given person. That's just not how it works. That's how we are here in America, too. There are people all across the political spectrum. So let's give some examples of some chants and the conflicts behind them so that you have a bit more awareness. Let's first take the most innocent phrase, which is free Palestine. Standing alone, this is not anti-Semitic. Again, it speaks against the occupation that pro-Palestinians, you know, view as an occupation. The chant from the river to the sea. This is more controversial depending on who you ask. Some pro-Palestinians simply say it's a call for humanity. It's a call for freedom for Gaza. However, with that said, Hamas adopted this phrase from the river to the sea as a call for a single Palestine state on the land that is occupied by Israel and Gaza, meaning the extermination of the

state of Israel and all who live there. And don't forget, it's a known fact that Hamas's charter actually called for the extinguishing of Jews in Israel. So that is a bit of a history of the phrase from the river to the sea. The same sort of double narrative applies to the phrase intifada. Pro-Palestinians call intifada a resistance movement against Israel's occupation, but throughout history, intifada has led to the killing of many Jewish people. And for that reason, pro-Palestinians see it as simply a call against the occupation, whereas pro-Israelis see it as a call for killing the Jews. Then you have phrases like final solution, which really cannot be interpreted as any

other meaning anything other than something anti-Semitic. Final solution was the phrase that Hitler and the Nazis used to refer to their plan to kill off the Jewish people. And some students have been walking around campus carrying posters and wearing headbands that say final solution. So whether or not these people understand the context and history of the phrase, that's not for me to say. But this is one of those phrases that one can confidently classify as anti-Semitic,

whereas the other phrases, they have other meanings and they can be interpreted differently depending on who you talk to. So there is a lot going on. That is the best way to put it, but I really hope that that discussion sort of answered some of your questions and maybe even answered some questions that you didn't even know you had. But before we end today's episode, let's touch on some quick hitters. For those that might be new here, quick hitters are short stories, bullet points, if you will, that happened over the course of the day that I think you should at least be aware of, but may not necessarily require a full-on story. Starting off with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that she will move forward with her effort to oust Speaker Johnson from his speakership,

despite Democrat leaders coming out yesterday saying that they would fight back against such a motion, and ultimately, if they fight back, that motion would fail. But Marjorie Taylor Greene has been pretty steadfast on removing Johnson from the chair due to his tendency to work with Democrats on certain matters. Gre Green says that Johnson is not the right person for the job and he has repeatedly betrayed the GOP caucus, most recently with his avoidance of a government shutdown, his efforts to pass a FISA extension, and his recent efforts to pass the foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. So Green says she will trigger a vote regardless of the support from the Democrats

on her motion next week. More than 24 states sued the Biden administration today over its recent final rule requiring gun sellers to obtain licenses and conduct background checks when selling guns at gun shows and online. I originally reported on this new rule a few weeks ago when it was announced. That is in my April 11th episode, so go check that out if you want to hear more about it. But between the three lawsuits, the various states allege that the administration's new rule exceeds its authority, violates the second, fourth, and fifth amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Constitution's separation of powers clause, and should be declared void due to the Constitution, as well as the Constitution's separation of powers clause,

and should be declared void due to the rule's vagueness. This is called void for vagueness. These cases will likely end up before the 5th and 11th circuits and potentially in front of the Supreme Court in its next term. And finally, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said today that it would retry Harvey Weinstein following the state's high court ruling overturning his rape conviction. This is an update to what the DA's office previously said, which was that if the victims wanted to come forward again, then the DA's office would ultimately retry the case. Today, obviously, the update is that the DA's office will retry the case. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, I hope you have a fantastic night and I will talk to you

tomorrow.