UNBIASED - May 2, 2024: What You Need to Know About the Antisemitism Awareness Act, Possible Plans to Bring Palestinian Refugees to U.S., Military Admits Mistakenly Killing Syrian Civilian, and More.

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

1. House Passes Antisemitism Awareness Act; Here's What You Need to Know (0:07)2. Biden Administration Discusses Options for Bringing Palestinian Refugees from Gaza Into United States (6:31)3. Quick Hitters: Arizona Set to Repeal Abortion Ban, UMG and TikTok Reach Deal After Three Month Stand-Off, U.S. Military Says It Mistakenly Killed Syrian Civilian, Second Boeing Whistleblower Dies (10:29)4. Not Everything Is Bad: Good News of the Week (13:26)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 Thursday, May 2nd. This is your final news rundown of the week, and we're doing things a little different today and just jumping right into the first story, which is that last night, the House of Representatives passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act was first introduced in October following sort of the beginnings of the war-related issues on campuses. You may remember the Congress had that anti-Semitism hearing with some of the deans of some universities.

That's when this bill was first introduced. The vote last night was very much bipartisan. It was 320 to 91, and it'll now head to the Senate. But here's what you need to know about it. In 2019, former President Trump signed Executive Order 13899, and this executive order extended discrimination protections under specifically Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to people subjected to anti-Semitism on college campuses. Under the order, federal agencies, when enforcing Title VI, were directed to consider the definition of anti-Semitism as set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. So that definition, which we'll talk about in a minute, is the definition that the Department of Education and other agencies were instructed to use when evaluating whether on-campus discriminatory

behavior was considered to be anti-Semitic and therefore a violation of Title VI. But the executive order also directed agencies to consider what are called contemporary examples of anti-Semitism to the extent that any of those contemporary examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent. And these examples were also set forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or the IHRA, as you'll hear me refer to it as. Now, here's the thing, and this is where most outlets are kind of like not really going too much into detail, they're failing to mention this, an executive order is binding on federal agencies. So since 2019, the Department of Education and any other executive department have been obligated to use the definition of

antisemitism set forth by the IHRA when investigating violations of Title VI. Where things differ, though, with this new law is that the new law would require executive agencies to consider those contemporary examples of anti-Semitism not just as evidence of discriminatory intent, but as actual anti-Semitism. In other words, these contemporary examples of anti-Semitism would now fall under the definition of anti-Semitism for purposes of Title VI if this law is enacted. So in a way, it's the law is broadening or the potential law is broadening the scope of the definition of anti-Semitism. So naturally, we have to talk about how the IHRA defines antisemitism as well as some of these contemporary examples that the IHRA gives. The definition is this,

quote, antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and or their property toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities, end quote. Then, as I said, the IHRA gives these contemporary examples of antisemitism, and that's really where this bill adds to things. So here's a list of some of the contemporary examples of antisemitism according to the IHRA. Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective,

such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government, or other societal institutions, accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews, applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel. And of course, that is not an exhaustive list of these contemporary examples. I do have them linked in the sources section of this episode, but that is the general idea. So again, under this Antisemitism Awareness Act that just passed the House, and if passed by

the Senate and signed into law, what it changes is the fact that these examples that we just went over are now to be considered part of the definition of anti-Semitism rather than just mere evidence of discriminatory intent. To give you sort of a real world example, if someone at an on-campus protest were to say, let's say Jews control the media, and someone, a Jewish person, files a Title VI complaint. Under Trump's executive order, the Department of Education would use that phrase, Jews control the media, as evidence of whether that person was intending to be discriminatory. Now, under the potential law, that phrase, Jews control the media, may automatically fall under the definition of anti-Semitism and therefore be a violation of Title VI. So hopefully that difference makes sense and sort of the change

that would happen makes sense. Opponents of the law, such as the ACLU, say this bill is not necessary given the fact that federal law already prohibits anti-Semitic discrimination by federally funded entities and that all this law would do is, quote, chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism, end quote. The lawmakers that oppose the bill say that this bill sweeps too broadly, and that speech that is critical of Israel alone should not and does not constitute unlawful discrimination. So now you have a better idea of what the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is. Let's now move on to a related topic, but switching gears a little bit, which is that you may or may

not have heard that the Biden administration is considering bringing certain Palestinians from Gaza into the United States as refugees. But I want to talk about the story a little bit and and distinguish between the facts and fiction just by talking about the facts as we currently know them and what we do know, because what we do know is really not a lot. What we know is that CBS News obtained internal government documents, which allegedly show that in recent weeks, officials within the Biden administration across various agencies have been discussing the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members that are either American citizens or

permanent residents of the United States. According to some of the discussions, and again, all of this is what we know according to CBS News, Gazans would be required to pass a series of eligibility medical and security screenings and also prove that they're fleeing persecution before they're able to obtain refugee status. And it's not clear exactly what that screening process would look like or if the government officials have even outlined that process at this point, but refugee status, if granted, would come with certain benefits like permanent residency, housing assistance, and also a pathway to citizenship. According to CBS, one proposal outlined in the documents involved using the United States

Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with United States ties who have already managed to enter Egypt from Gaza. For those who have not yet made it out of Gaza, there was another option discussed which involved coordinating with Egypt to manage the departure of those individuals who do have American relatives and would be eligible for the program. According to the Department of State, the United States Refugee Admissions Program is, quote, for individuals with humanitarian protection needs who have left their country due to persecution on account of a protected ground, cannot safely return home, and require permanent resettlement to a third country because they are unable to remain in the country where they

currently reside. End quote. The Immigration and Nationality Act, which defines refugee, defines refugee as an individual who is outside their country of nationality, or if no nationality, Now, President Biden has expressed his desire to just generally increase refugee settlements here in the United States as compared to administrations before him, not just the Trump administration, but other administrations as well. In fact, President Biden set the total admission ceiling for refugees for fiscal years 2022 through 2024 at 125,000 refugee admissions per year. So this was the highest target in decades. This particular refugee resettlement, though, would mark a departure from usual policy, given that the United States has only accepted less than 600 total Palestinian refugees in the last 10 years. Since the 1980s, the United States has resettled Palestinians on a very small scale.

Those opposing the potential plans say it could pose a significant national security risk, while those that support the potential plan say that it's necessary for the safety and livelihoods of Gazan civilians that have been displaced due to the war and have nowhere to go. So now let's move on to a few quick hitters before we end with not everything is bad, which is my good news segment that we all love. The first quick hitter being that the governor of Arizona is set to sign a bill that repeals a more than 100-year-old abortion ban after the state Supreme Court issued a ruling just a-year-old abortion ban after the state Supreme Court issued a ruling just a few weeks ago allowing the ban to be enforced.

The issue there, and if you've listened to past episodes, you know this, but the issue there was that the ban was never officially repealed by Arizona's legislature. And consequently, when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, pro-life advocates fought for enforcement of the ban and following and they won. But following the state Supreme Court's ruling, the House then attempted twice to pass a bill that would repeal the ban, but they failed. Finally, on the third attempt, the bill did pass the House. The Senate then passed the bill last night and it went to the governor's desk for signature. So when and actually I should just say when the governor signs it, because the governor will sign it, this means that the more recent 2022 15-week

ban will take effect in the state. However, the residents of Arizona will be voting on a constitutional right to abortion up until the point of viability in November. In other news, Universal Music Group announced a new licensing deal with TikTok yesterday, which will allow songs for UMG artists to return to the app. Songs from UMG artists have been off the app for nearly three months because UMG was unable to reach a deal with TikTok or, you know, TikTok was unable to reach a deal with UMG and that whole ordeal was over artist compensation and the use of AI. So finally reached a deal and those artist songs will now be available on the app again. The United States military announced

today after nearly a year of speculation that it did in fact mistakenly kill a civilian in Syria after misidentifying him as a member of Al Qaeda. Following the May 3rd, 2023 strike, the man's family insisted he was not a member of al-Qaeda, but instead a farmer and father of 10. Eight weeks later, the United States launched an investigation after it was ordered by the United States Central Command. That investigation concluded in November, but the Central Command just released the findings today, almost exactly a year to the day. The report did not detail exactly what went wrong, saying that many of the facts remain classified, but did say that the investigation revealed several issues that could be improved. Another Boeing whistleblower, Joshua Dean, died earlier this week after suffering from breathing issues, which led to his

hospitalization, where he then got pneumonia and then a bacterial infection. Dean's death comes just weeks after another Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, was found dead in his car in Charleston, South Carolina from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was in Charleston being deposed about one of the Boeing factories. Now let's finish with not everything is bad so we can end this week of, you know, our news rundowns on a positive note. The good news story of the week is about a man who's been battling cancer for eight years that just won the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot. Chang Saifan, hopefully I'm pronouncing that right, but he goes by Charlie, immigrated to the United States in 1994. He attended high school here in the United

States, graduated in 1996, and has lived in Portland for the last 30 years. Eight years ago, he was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer. He bought a ticket with one of his friends. Him and his wife went in on a ticket with a friend. And in the weeks leading up to the drawing, he would write out the numbers for the game on a piece of paper, and he slept with it under his pillow. And he told reporters that he would pray that he won so that he could do something for his family before he dies. The day before the drawing, Charlie's friend sent Charlie a picture of the tickets, jokingly

writing, were billionaires. But the next day, they would find out that they did actually win. Charlie, his wife, and their friend opted for the lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes. Charlie and his wife will take half, their friend will take the other half. And after winning and coming forward and speaking with the press, he said that he'll now be able to provide for his family and his health and be able to find a good doctor for his cancer treatments. Talk about someone that is incredibly deserving of that money. That is what I have for you today. I hope you have a fantastic night and a fantastic weekend. I will be back with you on Monday.