UNBIASED - State of the Union/Republican Response Fact-Check, New Gaza Port, Israel/Hamas Ceasefire Controversy, Biden's FY 2025 Budget Plan, New UFO Report, and More.

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

1. DEEP DIVE: State of the Union Address and Republican Response Fact-Check (1:45)2. SHORT STORY: Biden Releases FY2025 Proposed Budget Plan (12:14)3. QUICK HITTERS: U.S. Announces New Gaza Port (17:29); 'Ceasefire' Controversy Explained (22:55); Six Appropriations Bills Signed Into Law Avoiding Partial Shutdown (26:29); Congress Receives Volume One of UFO Report (28:21); Air BnB Bans All Indoor Security Cameras (30:05)4. SINCE WE LAST SPOKE: Sweden Joins NATO (34:10); Alabama's New Law Protects IVF Providers and Patients (36:00)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Watch this episode on YouTube.CLICK HERE TO ENTER REFERRAL CONTEST (CHANCE TO WIN $200).Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, March 12th, 2024. This episode was recorded last night around 6 p.m. Eastern time. Here's the layout for today's episode. First, I'm going to do a relatively quick recap of the State of the Union address, which will mostly entail a fact check. So I'm not going to go over everything President Biden said. We'd be here forever. But I do want to touch on a few things and add some context and color. And I will, of course, do the same thing with the Republican

response, which was given by Senator Katie Britt. I will then touch on President Biden's budget plan for fiscal year 2025, which was just released yesterday. We'll get into quick hitters and we will finish with a new segment, a special segment called Since We Last Spoke. Now, the reason this is a special segment is because this only happens when I skip an episode and it's essentially a way for me to catch you up on a couple of important matters that I would have covered in the last episode had it not been skipped. If you don't follow me on Instagram, just an update, I wasn't able to post an episode on Friday because I did have to go in for a somewhat last minute medical procedure. But no worries. All is good. I'm back. I'm here. I'm

healthy. We're good to go. So with that, let's get into today's episode. And actually, you thought I forgot and I did for a second. Of course, if you love what you hear today and you feel more informed after listening, you know what to do. Please show this show some love. Show this show some love, whether that's by leaving a review, hitting the like button on YouTube, leaving a comment, whatever it is. Thank you in advance for that. Now, without further ado, let's get into today's stories. So the first story is, of course, that President Biden addressed the nation on Thursday night in his third State of the Union address. He touched on all of the points that you would have expected, the economy and

inflation, crime, reproductive rights, clean energy and climate change, immigration and border security, prescription drug costs, all the things, you name it, they were covered. But most importantly, he said that the state of the union is strong. Now, as I said, this discussion will not focus on everything that was said during the hour-long speech. Instead, I will be touching on some claims from both sides, both from President Biden and Senator Katie Britt, which could use some color and context. So first, let's start with President Biden's claim that inflation has dropped from quote, nine to three percent, the lowest in the world, end quote. Yes, inflation has dropped from, quote, nine to three percent, the lowest in the world, end quote. Yes, inflation has dropped from the June 2022 rate of nine percent down to three point one percent as of

January, but it's not the lowest in the world. We do have a lower inflation rate than the good majority of the world, including the UK, which reported a four.2% inflation rate in January, but Canada, for example, reported a 2.9 inflation rate in January, 0.2 percentage points below ours. Additionally, December data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that Italy had a year-over-year inflation rate of 0.6%. Other countries with lower inflation rates as of December include Denmark, 0.7%, Lithuania, 1.2%, and Belgium, 1.4%. When President Biden said he cut the federal deficit by over a trillion dollars, some added context there shows that the declining deficits have been mostly due to expiring emergency pandemic spending rather than Biden's own policies. Biden also said he's created a record 15 million new jobs.

And while his 14.8 million new jobs is a record for any president in a single term going back to 1939, let alone the first three years of their term, a little bit of context is needed here. When you account for population and job growth over the years, the 14.8 million added jobs represents a growth rate of about 10.3%, but other presidents have increased job growth by more than that. So President Jimmy Carter, for example, despite adding only 10.1 million jobs in his first three years in office, which is of course less than Biden's 14.8 million, job growth under Carter increased by 12.5%, higher than President Biden. President Lyndon B. Johnson, same situation, only added 9.9 million jobs, but increased job growth by 12.1%

in his first three years. So Biden wasn't wrong when he said he's created a record number of jobs. He has, that is true. It's just not a record increase in growth from a percentage standpoint when you take into account population size and things like that. Biden also said his policies have attracted $650 billion in private sector investment in clean energy and advanced manufacturing. That number, that $650 billion number includes also intentions to invest as well as actual investments. So just something to note, intentions to invest doesn't always mean that those investments happen. Biden also said that the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state.

We know this is not true. If you listen to this podcast, you're very well aware that the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. And while this is certainly, you know, it certainly triggered some facilities to pause fertilization of embryos while they sort of assess their potential liabilities under the ruling, the Supreme Court did not make IVF treatments illegal. Biden made mention that he established the first ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White House, which is very true. Meanwhile, he said his predecessor, Donald Trump, told the NRA he's proud he did nothing on guns when he was president. Biden followed that up and said, quote, after another shooting in Iowa recently, when asked

what to do about it, he, referring to Donald Trump, said, quote, just get over it. For some color, here is Trump's full statement. Before going further, I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa. To the entire community, we love you, we pray for you, and we ask God to heal and comfort really the whole state and the pain, the pain that you have. This is something that's very unique to your state. We're really with you as much as anybody can be. It's a very terrible thing that happened.

But we have to get over it. We have to move forward. We have to move forward. We have to move forward. But to the relatives and to all of the people that are so devastated right now, to a point they can't breathe, they can't live, we are with you all the way. We're with you and we love you and cherish you. And finally, President Biden said billionaires pay an average federal tax rate of 8.2%, which he says is less than that of the rate paid by a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse. Adding color there, that 8.2% number is a calculation by the White House that factors in earnings on unsold stock as income. Now for Senator Katie Britt's

response. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address and focused mainly on border securities and the issues that have stemmed from current border policies like, you know, fentanyl, crime rates, things like that, including the recent murder of UGA student Lakin Riley. She also touched on Bidenomics, the economy generally, the release of funds from South Korea to Iran and how that has fueled things in the Middle East, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, China, and TikTok, and much, much more. But unlike Biden's hour-long address, her response was just under 18 minutes.

So here are a few claims that also need context. First, Senator Britt claimed that within minutes of taking office, Biden suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border we add a little bit of context here, the day President Biden took office, he issued an executive order which outlined his administration's approach to immigration policy. That memo said in part, quote, the policy of my administration is to protect national and border security, address the humanitarian challenges at the southern border, and ensure public health and safety, end quote. That very same day, the acting secretary of homeland security issued a memo, and that memo ordered a, quote, 100-day pause on certain removals to enable focusing the department's resources where they are needed most, end quote. So that memo did not suspend all deportations as Britt stated. And it came with exceptions for situations in which deportations would not be paused as well.

Those exceptions included threats to national security, people who had entered the country within the previous three months time, those who had voluntarily waived any right to stay in the country, as well as people who the director of ICE singled out as needing to be deported for legal reasons. The next claim that Britt made that needs context is that we are experiencing the worst inflation in 40 years. And while it's true that inflation hit a 40-year high in June of 2022, the current inflation rate is, as I mentioned before, 3.1%. Therefore, we are not currently experiencing the worst inflation in 40 years. That statement would have been true two years ago, but is not true today.

And finally, Senator Britt's story about the woman at the border. You may have heard this one because this is actually something that's been making some headlines. Britt claimed that when she took office, she took a different approach from Biden when it came to border security and actually went to the border herself. So she recounted a story in which she went to the Del Rio region of the border, and she spoke with a woman who said that she had been sex trafficked by cartels, by Mexican cartels, starting at the age of 12, and was raped multiple times a assault had taken place in America. What Senator Britt said is, quote, we wouldn't be okay with this happening in a third world country. This is the United States of America and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it, end quote. As it turns out, and as Senator Britt's communication director has in fact confirmed, this story originates from a woman

by the name of Carla Jacinto Romero. Carla Jacinto Romero works as a spokesperson for victims of human trafficking, and what Romero says is that she met Britt at an event at the Del Rio border with other government officials and anti-human trafficking activists. So it wasn't this one-on-one conversation as Britt made it sound. Furthermore, Romero says she was never trafficked in the United States, never happened in the country, and she was not trafficked by Mexican drug cartels. Instead, she says she was trafficked by a pimp who operated as part of a family that entrapped girls to force them into prostitution. So Romero says that she was kept in captivity from 2004 to 2008, not during Biden's administration. It was actually when President George W. Bush was in office, and she has previously testified to Congress

about her experiences with sex trafficking back in 2015. She testified. So those were sort of the clarifications that Romero made, and that is the color I feel you needed from the State of the Union address, as well as the Republican response. Let's now talk about President Biden's budget plan for fiscal year 2025. As I said before, this was just released yesterday, so on Monday, and what I'll do is I'll kind of touch on some highlights of it. I obviously can't touch on the whole thing. It's very lengthy, but I do have it linked for you if you want to read it yourself.

So President Biden, his fiscal year 2025 budget plan can also sort of be seen as this policy vision for a potential second term, and not surprisingly encompasses a lot of the points that he spoke to on Thursday in the State of the Union address. The $7.3 trillion budget plan would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years. This would not stop the national debt from growing, but it would slow its growth a bit. Now, according to White House forecasts, deficits would total $1.8 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year, 6.1% of GDP, before falling to under 4% over the next 10 years. And here is a little bit about what the proposal includes. Raising the corporate income tax from 28% to 28% from 21%, sorry. Raising the income tax for individuals with wealth more than $100 million

to 25%. Keeping taxes the same for anyone who earns less than $400,000 annually. Cutting taxes for middle and low-income Americans by $765 billion over 10 years. Giving the government more ability to negotiate drug costs and bringing the costs down, bringing back a child tax credit for low and middle income earners, guaranteeing affordable and high quality child care from birth until kindergarten for working families with annual incomes of less than $200,000, providing 12 weeks of paid family leave for workers, an investment of more than $258 billion to build or preserve more than 2 million homes, a new mortgage relief credit for middle class and first-time homebuyers of up to $10,000 over two years,

a new fund to reduce costs of college and much more again as i said that's just the highlights of it if you do want the full scope of it go ahead and go to the sources section of this episode which you can find in the podcast description and it'll scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see the sources there i have them separated out by, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find. And this goes without saying, this budget plan obviously depends on Congress being on Biden's side, right? So as Congress currently stands, more specifically the House being run by the Republicans, most of these proposals wouldn't happen. In fact, following the release of the budget plan, Speaker Johnson, along with Representatives Tom Emmer, Steve Scalise, and Elise Stefanik, released this joint statement,

which said in part, quote, the price tag of President Biden's proposed budget is yet another reminder of this administration's insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the Democrats' disregard for fiscal responsibility. Biden's budget doesn't just miss the mark, it is a roadmap to accelerate America's decline, end quote. So if that's any indication of how the proposal would pan out, assuming the House remains in Republican control, then the proposal wouldn't have much of an effect anyway. But before we get into quick hitters, I want to quickly tell you about a fun contest that I'm actually hosting for the rest of this month, where you can win a $200 Visa gift card from me. I will send it to you myself. And if you're a

longtime listener, you know I'm always trying to get you guys to help spread the word about my platform. And this month, I've decided to offer an incentive along with it. So what I did is I set up this contest on my website where all you have to do is enter the email addresses of people that you would like to refer unbiased to. So the person who submits the most referrals will win that $200 gift card at the end of the month. You'll get an email directly from me on April 1st once I tally everyone up. And no, this is not some April Fool's joke, okay? Each

form submission allows for five email addresses. You can submit as many forms as you want in order to win. So if you have, you know, 10 email addresses, submit two forms. If you have 20, submit four forms. Just make sure that your first and last names match on each form so I can accurately track the submission. I will tell you, I already have people that have submitted at least five referrals. So you will want to submit more than one for more than one form for a chance to win. But I have made it really easy to access. It's in this podcast description, this podcast episodes description. There's a direct link there. Or you can just go to jordanismylawyer.com slash referrals. And again, that contest will close on March 31st at 1159 PM Eastern time. So just be sure to get all of your referrals in before then. And if I were you,

I would just do it now. So don't forget, but I will keep you updated each week as to how many referrals the winner has. So that way you can try to beat it. Okay, now let's get into quick hitters. The first quick hitter I have for you is about this port in Gaza or this pier, I should say. It was first announced at the State of the Union address. The United States is working with the European Commission, which includes Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the Republic of Cyprus, the UAE, and the UK, to open this maritime corridor to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza by way of the Mediterranean Sea. The United States specifically will be leading this emergency mission to build a temporary floating pier off of Gaza to enable the delivery of said supplies. The plan for the pier

has two components. The first being a floating offshore barge that actually will take delivery of the aid. And then the second component is this floating dock or floating causeway, floating pier, whatever you want to call it, that's anchored to the shore and provides an avenue for the aid to move from the barge to the land. The reason for this long causeway is because the shoreline off Gaza is too shallow for any large ships to actually pull right up to it. So you have to put the barge further out in the sea and then create a pathway to land. As far as what the pier will look like, it's essentially a bunch of 40-foot-long pieces of steel that are locked together to form one long pier. So if you've ever seen a floating dock, it'll resemble that, but on a much larger scale, obviously. The support ship carrying the equipment

for the pier left from a military base in Virginia on Saturday, but the Pentagon says that it could take up to 60 days to actually build and that there will be roughly a thousand troops helping with the construction. Pentagon Press Secretary Patrick Ryder did say that U.S. troops would not be going ashore in Gaza and did acknowledge that there is a risk of Hamas attacking the port system, but that the Pentagon had not yet determined how the port would be secured against any of these potential threats. And I do want to point out that Palestinians, Gazans also feel that Israel carries out these attacks as well. So although the Pentagon said it's at risk of Hamas attacking the port system, it's only fair to

acknowledge that Palestinians and Gazans also feel that this port is at a risk of being attacked by Israel so as to limit the aid into Gaza. So why up here, might ask? Essentially, there's three ways to get aid into Gaza, right? All the modes of transportation, air, land, and sea. Air and land have both proved to be pretty difficult, so now efforts are shifting to the sea. Aid driven into Gaza, like physically driven in, has proved controversial since day one. Number one, Palestinians have accused Israel of targeting aid trucks with strikes, killing those who seek out the aid. In fact, some believe it's sort of a starvation tactic being used by the Israeli military, whereas Israel has denied all of these claims and at times has said Hamas is to blame. More specifically, Hamas is the one prohibiting these aid trucks from entering Gaza and is actually

responsible for some of the strikes at the various aid locations. So those are the issues with land delivery, but aid drops are also controversial. The most recent aid drop in Gaza by the United States was Friday. Shortly after that, reports came out that the airdrop actually killed five children because one of the parachutes had failed to deploy. Later, the United States Central Command said the deaths were not a result of the United States airdrop, but nonetheless, five children died. Aside from this sort of potential harm if a parachute fails to deploy or something, some say airdrops just aren't sufficient. So over the course of the last week or so, the United States has carried out four different airdrops and over the course of those four drops delivered a total of about 124,000 meals. However, when you look at the population of Gaza,

over 2 million people, that's not a lot. So the government media office in Gaza has called air drops useless. Humanitarian organizations have also persistently stated that air drops just don't get the job done. They say it's just not possible to drop the amount of aid into Gaza that needs to be delivered. So that's one of the sort of barriers with aid drops as well. It's just when you're averaging about 12,000 meals per drop, it's just not a lot in the grand scheme of things. So because of these issues, countries, including the United States, obviously, are now shifting to the sea. However, of course, as with anything, this new plan has its critics too. Critics are

saying that this plan is simply an attempt to divert attention from the actual issue, which critics say is Israel obstructing aid operations. Nonetheless, President Biden says that if all goes to plan, this new dock will hopefully provide 2 million meals per day, which would be obviously a significant increase from what they're experiencing now. Israel has allegedly welcomed this initiative, but has said that they would be conducting security checks to ensure the aid is in accordance with Israeli standards. So that, of course, begs the question from critics who are asking, how will this aid delivery mechanism be any different than what we've seen on land?

Will it have the effect it's intended to have while Israel is conducting oversight? So those are the main questions from the people on that side of things. The second quick hitter also relates to the war between Israel and Hamas. On Sunday night, some celebrities who attended the annual Oscars award show wore their red pins in support of a ceasefire. These pins were red, as I said. There was an orange hand in the center and then a black heart in the middle of the orange hand. And I'll explain why Jews specifically have a problem with these specific pins in a second. But first, I want to take a second to clarify the controversy behind the idea of a ceasefire, because I think a lot

of people who aren't very well versed and historically knowledgeable on this topic don't necessarily understand why a ceasefire would be a controversial topic. Why wouldn't everyone support peace, right? Well, here's the thing. To Palestinians, the, in a sense, civilian Palestinians, right? We're not talking about Hamas. A ceasefire is their only way out of this. Obviously, they are suffering the brunt of this war. More than 30,000 Gazans have died. They don't have the means to fight back. So for them, this war will not end unless either Hamas gives back the hostages, which the civilians have no say in, they have no control over, or two, there's a ceasefire. To the Jews, on the other hand, a ceasefire is essentially giving the right to Hamas to carry on in their mission to destroy the state of

Israel and kill the Jews, while at the same time forcing Israel to stop its fight. To the Jews, a ceasefire means nothing to Hamas, because Hamas has broken many ceasefires over the years. In fact, there was a ceasefire in place on October 7th when the October 7th attack happened. So for the state of Israel and the Jewish people, they're like, okay, yeah, in a perfect world, a ceasefire works, but it doesn't work here because Hamas doesn't abide by the ceasefire agreement. So we don't want that. And Jews feel so strongly about this to the point that, and I think this is just an important point to make for people who might be unaware, Jews feel so strongly about this to the point where they actually view those asking for a ceasefire, calling for a ceasefire, as essentially

calling for the death of Jews. That's the controversy. So it's not just as simple as, it's a ceasefire, it's peace, you know, you know everyone should want it now the other layer to the story and the reason why these pins specifically sparked outrage in the jewish community is because of the hand on the pins some jews feel that the hand on the pins is symbolic of the hand of a palestinian man who killed two jews during the second intifada back in 2000 and i just want to be clear first before I get into this. I haven't seen any confirmation of this from the artist for Ceasefire Side, but this is the feeling from some Jews. During the Second Intifada, two Jews were killed by Palestinians.

One of the Palestinians, after the killing, waved his bloody hands outside of the window. His hands were bloody from killing these Israelis. And a picture was taken by the media of these hands waving, these bloody hands waving outside the window. So on one side of this narrative, you have people saying that the orange hand on the pin is a symbol of that picture of the Palestinian murderer's hands. Now, could it be just a mere coincidence that a hand is being used as a symbol of peace? Of course. I'll let you decide that, but I wanted to give you, you know, all the sides of the story so you're as informed as possible, because that's my job at the end of the day. The third quick hitter is about this funding deal.

A partial government shutdown was again avoided on Friday, though this time with actual appropriations bills rather than a continuing resolution. What this means is that six of the 12 appropriations bills are now signed into law. The covered departments have their funding set for this fiscal year, and some of those funded departments include the Departments of Justice, Commerce, Agriculture, and Transportation. Some of the notable highlights from the package from the respective sides include funding for WIC, which is a program that provides assistance for food assistance for women, infants and children. Democrats are happy about that one. And then on the Republican side of things, they are happy with the cuts to the FBI, EPA, and ATF. The government still has one more hurdle before it can officially turn this page on this lengthy 2024 fiscal year funding chapter, that last hurdle being the passage

of six more appropriations bills to bring the total appropriations bills passed to 12, because that's how many we need every year. And the remaining six agencies are currently being funded through March 22nd. So that means Congress has until March 22nd to pass the remaining bills. Otherwise, it could resort to yet another continuing resolution if it doesn't get there, but we will see. Cost-wise, the six-bill package just signed into law on Friday allocates $467.5 billion in funding, and the next six-bill package, which will include funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and others, is expected to exceed $1 trillion in

funding. Quick hitter number four. Last week, congress received the first volume of the ready all domain anomaly resolution office's history record report in 2022 congress established the aaro the all domain anomaly resolution office within the National Defense Authorization Act. And basically, the AARO is meant to serve as this central office for UAP matters. UAP being Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, aliens, UFOs, things like that. Obviously, in recent years, there's been a lot of speculation as to what sort of extraterrestrial sightings and technology that the government has had experience with that's been kept from the public. So this setting up of this office was Congress's first attempt at getting down to the bottom of that speculation. Then, as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress took it one step further.

And this time they required the AARO to submit a report that summarized the government's historical record relating to UAPs dating all the way back to 1945. And the first of two volumes is what Congress just received. And this is what we know from it. So the AARO says that after reviewing all UAP investigations conducted by the United States government since 1945, this includes material from both classified and unclassified archives, as well as interviews that they conducted, they have found no evidence of any confirmed sighting of extraterrestrial technology. The AARO also found no evidence that United States government or private companies have access to extraterrestrial

technology, and according to its assessment, most UAP sightings are ordinary objects that are misidentified. So here's where things are a little bit interesting, I suppose. The report then goes on to say that there is a persistent narrative in pop culture that the government or a secret organization within the government had recovered several what are called off-world spacecraft and extraterrestrial biological remains. And the allegations were that the government operates these programs to reverse engineer the recovered technology. So what the report said is, quote, the AARO recognizes that many people sincerely hold versions of these beliefs. The goal of this report is not to prove or disprove any particular belief

set, but rather to use a rigorous analytic and scientific approach to investigate past U.S. government-sponsored UAP investigation efforts. AARO found no empirical evidence for claims that the United States government and private companies have been reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology, end quote. However, the report says that the AARO did discover a program that was proposed to the Department of Homeland Security back in the 2010s. Its codename was Kona Blue to do just that, reverse engineer any recovered extraterrestrial aircraft. So Kona Blue wasn't reported to Congress at the time because it was never established as a highly classified special access program. Congress was notified of

the program when it was identified, quote, in the spirit of transparency in this new report. You may remember at a hearing last year before the House Oversight Committee, a former Air Force intelligence official testified that the government was covering up the existence of an effort to recover and reverse engineer extraterrestrial craft. And at the time, Pentagon officials, including then-AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick, said that these claims were categorically false. So the report sort of said, well, it's not necessarily categorically false, there was an effort to create a program like that, but the report noted that Kona Blue was ultimately rejected by Department of Homeland Security leaders because it lacked merit. And the report says nothing

otherworldly was ever recovered. So that program was sort of a hypothetical program. If anything were to be recovered in the future, maybe we could reverse engineer it. So these are some of the claims that were addressed in volume one of the report. And then additional claims will supposedly be detailed in the second volume. So we will see. Quick hitter number five, the last one, Airbnb announced on Monday that it is banning the use of indoor security cameras for all of its listings. The company said indoor security cameras are now prohibited in any listing, regardless of their location, purpose, or prior disclosure. Previously, hosts were allowed to have security cameras. They had to be in common

areas inside. So as long as the devices were clearly disclosed on the listing page and placed in visible spots in the home, they were allowed, but cameras were never allowed in private areas. So bedrooms, bathrooms, anything like that, couldn't have cameras. Now, no indoor cameras at all. The update said hosts have until April 30th to remove any indoor security cameras. And after that date, a host who is found to be in violation of this could potentially have their listings or accounts removed from the platform entirely. Finally, let's touch on since we last spoke. This final segment, again, it's just a couple of stories that would have been included in Friday's episode, but obviously because of my absence, they're being covered today.

The first one is about Sweden's membership to NATO. You've probably heard that Sweden officially joined NATO last week. Sweden's flag just went up at the NATO headquarters yesterday. But why does it matter? For one, it means that Sweden is no longer neutral and is now a part of this pact of 32 countries that vow to defend each other should one country be attacked, right? An attack on one is an attack on all. But the second part as to why it matters is that this is sort of a loss for Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, Russia's intention was to not only take control of Ukraine, but in doing so, he wanted less, when I say he, I mean Putin, wanted less NATO and more control over his neighboring countries.

However, when Russia invaded Ukraine, both Sweden and Finland ended their years of military neutrality and they both applied to join NATO. Now, it took Sweden a little bit longer to get accepted, but in a sense, what this means is that the more countries in NATO, the more of a threat that NATO is to Russia, right? With the addition of Sweden, NATO has 32 members. Of the EU's 27 members, the only members not a part of NATO are Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta. Sweden was a part of that group until last week. And obviously, NATO has non-EU members as well. It is also worth noting that Ukraine has applied to join NATO, but the issue there is that because NATO members are obligated to defend each other and Ukraine is currently in the middle of a war with Russia,

if Ukraine were to be accepted, the other NATO members would have to join the war. So that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon. The second and final sort of since we last spoke story is about Alabama's in vitro law. So I was covering Alabama's Supreme Court ruling about embryos and I wanted to follow it up with this. Alabama's governor signed a new law that protects IVF patients and providers from legal liability in the event of death or damage to an embryo in the in vitro process. So as I discussed a few weeks ago, the state Supreme Court ruling found that an IVF provider could be held civilly liable for wrongful death of a minor in the event that a patient's frozen embryos were destroyed. And the reason being,

the court held is that an embryo has personhood as a child, and therefore, under the terms of the statute, civil liability can attach in those situations. Well, immediately following that ruling, some of the IVF providers in Alabama said they weren't going to fertilize eggs until this issue was sorted out, and they were able to sort of assess their potential civil and criminal liability. This, along with the ruling itself, led to Alabama lawmakers drafting a bill that protects both IVF patients and IVF providers from any potential liability. Specifically, what the law says is this. It says, quote, no action, suit, or criminal prosecution for the damage to or death of an embryo shall be brought or maintained

against any individual or entity when providing or receiving services related to in vitro fertilization. End quote. The law does allow for a manufacturer of goods used in the IVF process or an entity responsible for transporting stored embryos to be held liable, but caps those damages available to the plaintiff. So what the law says in regards to damages is this. It says, quote, for the damage to or the death of an embryo brought against the manufacturer of goods used to facilitate the in vitro fertilization process or the transport of So no additional damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, none of that. It's just to be paid back for the price paid for that in vitro cycle. Now, I do want to note that this law does not address the concept of embryos

and personhood. So the court's ruling still stands as to the fact that in Alabama, embryos are considered children. But what this law means is that despite that, despite that ruling, providers and patients cannot be held civilly or criminally liable. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to participate in that contest so you can win $200 and I will see you on Friday.