UNBIASED - UNBIASED Politics (3/31/25): Can a President Serve THREE Terms? Declassified CIA Files Reveal Attempt to Find Ark of the Covenant, Trump Comments on Bombing Iran, and More.
Episode Date: March 31, 2025Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a r...ecap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Utah's New Flag Bill and the Controversy Surrounding It (0:30) NBC Interview with President Trump Sparks Questions: Can a President Serve Three Terms? Why Is Trump "Pissed" at Putin? What About Bombing Iran? (4:03) Declassified CIA Files Reveal Effort to Locate Ark of the Covenant (14:22) Legal Updates: Immigration, Alien Enemies Act, Dismantling of CFPB, DOGE Efforts to Dismantle USAID, and More (19:04) Quick Hitters: Columbia's Interim President Steps Down, Supreme Court Weighs Religious Tax Exemptions, US Soldiers Found Dead in Lithuania, Musk Announces X and xAI Merger, Musk Hands Out $1M Checks Amid WI Supreme Court Race (29:48) SOME GOOD NEWS (33:26) Critical Thinking Segment (35:24) SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER. 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Okay, Martin, let's try one. Remember, big.
You got it.
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Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.
Welcome back to Unbiased Politics.
Today is Monday, March 31st, and today is my 300th episode.
Isn't that crazy?
Two and a half years, 300 episodes,
we're just getting started.
On one hand, it feels like I've been doing this
for my entire career.
On the other hand, it feels like I just started
six months ago, but either way, I love what I do.
I'm so grateful for you,
and I am just really excited for the future.
With that, let's talk about some news.
Let's start by talking about some stateside news out of Utah. So Utah passed a flag bill
called HB 77, which some are deeming as controversial. Let's talk about it
because I want to make sure we understand what this bill says and why
it's being called controversial. In short, HB 77 bans the display of unauthorized flags on government property and buildings,
which includes those on public school grounds.
The law also requires the state auditor to impose fines up to $500 per day against those
that violate the law.
So authorized flags under this law include the American flag, the Utah state flag, flags of other
countries, states or cities, US military flags, college flags, or other flags as approved. So
political flags supporting a certain candidate or party are not allowed, nor are flags like LGBTQ
flags. And that is where the controversy lies. One critic, The Pride
Center, called the bill a deliberate attempt to erase LGBTQIA plus visibility and an example
of government overreach, claiming that it removes the ability of cities, counties, and
schools to support and affirm diverse communities. One supporter of the law, a group called Utah Parents United,
emphasized the law's importance
in safeguarding students' rights, saying, quote,
"'Our constitution guarantees that every child
"'has the right to receive a free
"'and nonsectarian education.'"
Now, the bill's sponsors said the bill is meant
to encourage political neutrality
from teachers and government employees. As for Utah's governor, he actually did not sign the bill, nor did he veto the bill. So he simply
let it become law without his signature. And he wrote a letter to lawmakers explaining this
decision. And he said that while he supports the underlying intent of the bill, he has serious
concerns with other aspects. He wrote, though, you, though because a veto would have been overridden, he did decide to allow the
bill go into law without his signature and that he urges lawmakers to consider common
sense solutions that address the bill's many flaws.
He wrote, quote, by simply requiring the removal of flags only, there is little preventing
countless other displays,
posters, signs, drawings, furniture
from entering the classroom.
To those legislators who support this bill,
I'm sure it will not fix what you are trying to fix.
The governor also noted that the Utah State Board
of Education rather than the legislature
is a better place for these types
of politically neutral regulations
and that this bill might actually have unintended consequences of increasing alternative political displays.
Like for instance, he said using rainbow lights on the side of a building.
He also noted that it's important for the LGBTQ community and conservatives to come
together to find a solution, something they've been able to do in the past.
And he hopes that they're able to do that here as well.
So this law is set to take effect on May 7th,
though it will likely face legal challenges.
And Utah, by the way, it's had a big month in the news
as far as legislation goes.
The state also recently enacted a bill
which made it the first state to ban fluoride in water,
and another bill that made it the first state
to require
age verification for app store purchases, which is meant to protect minors and give
parents more oversight.
In some other news, this story is national.
Yesterday, President Trump spoke to NBC's Kristen Welker over the phone, and during
that interview, Trump made a few comments that are now making headlines.
The first was Trump not ruling out the possibility
of a third term as president.
Now, unfortunately, I don't have a recording
of the phone call to play for you,
so I'll just have to tell you what NBC has reported.
In discussing the possibility of a third term,
President Trump said, quote,
"'A lot of people want me to do it,
"'but I mean, I basically tell them them we have a long way to go.
You know, it's very early in the administration.
End quote. He added that he's focused on the current.
And when asked whether he wanted another term, he said, quote, I like working.
When he asked to clarify, he said, I'm not joking, but I'm not.
It's far too early to think about it.
When asked whether he's been
presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, he said, quote,
there are methods which you could do it. When asked about a possible scenario in which
Vice President Vance ran for president with President Trump as his vice president,
and then, you know, Vice President Vance would pass the role to Trump if and when Vance was elected
Trump did say that that is one method, but there are others too. He did not share what those other methods would be
So let's talk about it
Can a president run for a third term? No, at least not as of today, right?
So the 22nd Amendment which was ratified in 1951 says that a president is limited to two terms
which was ratified in 1951, says that a president is limited to two terms. Quote, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.
End quote.
Here's the thing, if we take the language of the amendment literally and we analyze
it, it says no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.
So the method that NBC asked about, which was Vice President Vance running at the top of the ticket in 2028 with Trump as his VP
and then Vance handing the office over to Trump once inaugurated, could be a
possibility because Trump wouldn't have been technically elected to the office
of the president in that scenario. However, as we know, the Supreme Court is heavy on
historical tradition and the framers intent. So I would imagine that if this issue presented
itself and went before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court would say, no, no, no, no,
no, based on historical precedent and the framers intent, an individual cannot serve
as a president for a third term, regardless of how he gets there. To elaborate
on that a bit and to give you some context behind that legal analysis, Franklin D. Roosevelt
is the only president to have served more than two terms. All the other presidents have
served two terms max. In fact, President George Washington was the first to set the precedent
of two years. He left office in 1796 after serving his president
for eight years. Not to, or I should say, sorry, I should say set the precedent of two terms after
he left office in 1796. He served a total of eight years. Not to mention the reason the Framers set
up the Constitution the way that they did is because they wanted to avoid experiencing the same situation as England where the king reigns for life. And on top of that,
you have to consider the fact that the 22nd Amendment was ratified following FDR's four-term
stint. So all signs point to the fact that historical tradition and intent, not only the
framers' intent but also lawmakers' intent,
would prohibit a president from serving a third term regardless of how he got there.
Now, obviously we can't say anything with 100% certainty, but that is my legal analysis based on
everything I know about the Supreme Court, how it interprets the Constitution,
how it has decided cases in the past. As for the ratification of a new constitutional amendment,
which is another possible method
and is what would have to happen
to essentially undo the 22nd Amendment,
it's virtually impossible.
We know that Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee
did propose a constitutional amendment recently
to allow for three presidential terms,
but let's talk about what would have to happen
for that constitutional amendment to be ratified.
Not only would two thirds of both the House
and the Senate need to be on board,
but also three fourths of state legislatures
would need to ratify the change.
So that's 38 states.
It's virtually impossible with the way Congress
and these states are politically split. That's why there have been more than 11,000 constitutional amendments
proposed and only 27 ratified, with 10 of those 27 being ratified in 1791 with the Bill of Rights.
Put another way, of the 11,000 constitutional amendments that have been proposed, only 17
have been ratified outside the Bill
of Rights. It's incredibly difficult. So the possibility of President Trump
serving a third term is very slim. I only say very slim because I would never say
never. Now the second storyline coming from this NBC interview surrounds Trump's
comments about being pissed off and very angry at Putin. Both of those are quotes.
So pissed off and very angry are Putin. Both of those are quotes. So pissed off and very angry
are words that Trump himself used.
According to NBC, Trump said he was pissed off and angry
when Putin criticized the credibility
of Zelensky's leadership of Ukraine.
Basically, Putin called for a transitional government
to be put in place in Ukraine,
which would effectively push out Zelensky.
A little background there,
Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term,
which would have ended in 2024. But in 2022, after Russia invaded, Ukraine declared martial law,
which meant that there would be no election until the declaration of martial law was lifted.
This is where Putin's comments are likely stemming from, either that or he just doesn't think Zelensky
is the right leader. Either way, Trump said Putin's comments were quote,
not going in the right direction and said quote,
if Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine,
and if I think it was Russia's fault, which it might not be,
but if I think it was Russia's fault,
I'm going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia.
That would be that if you buy oil from Russia,
you cannot do business in the United States. There would be a 25% tariff on all oil,
a 25 to 50 point tariff on all oil." Keep in mind, President Biden had banned Russian oil import
in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, the amount of Russian oil imported in the United
States has gone down drastically. In 2023, only 10,000 barrels of Russian oil and petroleum products
were imported into the United States. So these secondary tariffs that Trump is talking about
would apply to other countries that buy oil from Russia, like China, Turkey, Brazil, India. That's
why they're called secondary tariffs.
We wouldn't be imposing tariffs on Russia directly,
but rather on the countries that buy oil from Russia,
which would in theory deter those countries
from purchasing Russian oil and essentially punish Russia.
So it's basically another way to punish Russia
since we've already banned Russian oil imports.
The third and final storyline coming
from this NBC interview stems from Trump's comments that he would bomb Iran if they don't
accept a new nuclear deal. Later in the day, after this interview came out, Iran's president rejected
the attempt for negotiations for a new deal but left open the possibility of indirect talks. So
President Trump had previously sent a letter to Iran's supreme leader
urging him to negotiate a new nuclear deal to provide a bit of context here. In
2015 during the Obama administration the United States entered a nuclear deal with Iran
joined by other countries like China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the European Union.
The deal reached was a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and it was designed to ensure that Iran's nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful by placing
strict limits on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
In 2018, during Trump's first administration, the US withdrew from this agreement,
and since then, Iran has exceeded the nuclear limits that were part of that previous deal.
Over the last four years or so, Iran's nuclear program has advanced substantially.
Consequently, Trump is now trying to create a new nuclear
deal with Iran that's more in line with his objectives. And that's why we are here.
Earlier this month, on March 12th, Trump's letter arrived in Tehran, which is the capital of Iran.
We don't know exactly what that letter said, but Trump has said in an interview that he wrote the
letter saying, basically, quote, I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing.
Yesterday in Trump's interview with Kristen Welker, Trump said, quote, if they don't make
a deal, there will be bombing.
It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.
So that got people talking.
Then yesterday afternoon, Iran's president rejected Trump's letter,
but like I said, left open the possibility of indirect talks.
Keep in mind in Iran,
there is both a president and a supreme leader.
The president is the highest elected official,
but the president still answers to the supreme leader.
Iran's president said Sunday,
direct negotiations have been rejected,
but regarding indirect talks, Iran has always been involved in such talks and the Supreme Leader has emphasized
that indirect talks can still continue.
End quote.
Following Trump's comments about bombing, Iran submitted an official warning note to
the U.S. Interest Protection Office, which warned against any malicious acts and Iran's supreme leader said today
that it would respond decisively and immediately to any threat issued by the United States.
So that is where we're at on that front.
And those are sort of the three main storylines coming from that NBC interview.
A lot of you wrote into me yesterday asking me to kind of talk about those and provide
some context and clarity.
So there is that. Let's take our first break here and I will be right back.
Welcome back. Declassified CIA files have unearthed a 1988 effort called Project Sunstreak,
which tried to relocate the Ark of the Covenant using what are called remote viewers. The Ark of the Covenant
is the ancient sacred chest said to have held the Ten Commandments. So the Hebrew Bible says the
Ark of the Covenant was built under Moses's direction and it was kept in the inner sanctuary
of the temple in Jerusalem but disappeared after the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE and has not been found since.
So essentially what we've learned from these files
is that the CIA trained subjects
in extrasensory perception with the goal
of the subjects being able to gather information
about far away objects based only on coordinates.
So we're talking about almost like psychic abilities, right?
When I say
extrasensory perception, I mean experiencing things by means other than sight, touch, taste,
etc. This perception is done by telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, or in other words,
predicting the future. Now, it's also worth noting that experts familiar with this program, including US Army Chief
Warrant Officer Joe McMonigal, have warned against interpreting this CIA session as proof
of the ARC's existence.
So we'll talk about what the subject reported is in a second, but McMonigal says he was
one of the original remote viewers in early experiments and that the 1988 session
appeared to be just a training exercise.
So its content is unverifiable.
Obviously, we all have our own minds.
We can attribute as much accuracy to this as we see fit.
It's pretty subjective.
But one thing that's not subjective is the fact
that the CIA actually worked on this project.
So that's really what I wanna talk about.
I wanna talk about what the report says.
I'm not here to tell you whether it's believable or not.
You can, you know, that's your deal.
In one session, the CIA gave a subject only coordinates.
This subject was identified as remote viewer number 32.
The session took place on December 5th, 1988,
between 9.15 and 10.45.
The mission, according to these files,
was to quote, access and describe the target identified by coordinate 781410-110-121."
So here is the session summary, and I'm reading directly from the CIA notes. Quote,
Target is a container. This container has another container inside of it.
The Target is fashioned of wood, gold, and silver. The Target is similar in shape to a coffin,
and is decorated with seraphim, which are celestial beings. The Target is located somewhere
in the Middle East, as the language spoken by individuals present seem to be Arabic.
Visuals of surrounding buildings
indicated the presence of mosque domes.
This has a question mark next to it.
Individuals in the area were clothed in virtually all white,
had black hair, dark eyes.
One figure I homed in on wore a mustache.
The target is hidden.
Underground, dark and wet were all aspects of the location of the target.
The purpose of the target is to bring people together. It has something to do with ceremony, memory, homage, the resurrection.
There is an aspect of spirituality, information, lessons, and historical knowledge far beyond what we know.
The target is protected by entities, see page 14, and can only be opened by those who
are authorized to do so. This container will not and cannot be opened until the time is deemed
correct. Once it is time to open the container, the mechanics of the lock system will be found
to be fairly simple. Individuals opening the container by prying or striking are destroyed
by the container's protectors through the use of a power unknown
to us. See page 17." So basically that summary, that report summary that I just read you was
the recording of the findings by this remote viewer. So the remote viewer is using these extra
sensory perceptions to sort of relay everything that they're seeing and experiencing in these visions.
And then someone in the CIA is recording
exactly what that remote viewer is saying.
So that is the report.
In total, the file is about 19 pages.
The first two pages summarize the project.
The remaining 17 pages consists of various drawings
and jotted down words.
I do, of course, have that document linked for you in the sources section of the episode, which you can always find by clicking the sources link in each episode
description, including this one.
For this next segment, I want to talk about some updates out of the courts.
As we know, the Trump administration has faced multiple lawsuits over its many
actions that it's taken since January 20th.
And over the last four days or so,
there have been updates in multiple cases.
So I just figured we would do them as part of one segment.
Starting with the Alien Enemies Act case.
As we've talked about,
President Trump signed an executive order
invoking the Alien Enemies Act
to deport Trendy Aragwa gang members.
The Alien Enemies Act essentially says that a
president can detain or deport citizens of an enemy nation without a hearing when either
Congress has declared war or an invasion has taken place. The Trump administration's position is that
the Trende Aragwa gang has invaded the United States and therefore members of the gang are
subject to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act.
However, the administration was sued and accused of exceeding its authority under the law.
Now, this is the case where we've seen the back and forth between the administration and the judge,
right? The administration sent those deportation flights to El Salvador the same day that the
judge said the administration couldn't do that. Notably, two of those three flights took off before the judge's order was issued, one took
off after.
But nonetheless, it has caused a bit of a legal battle.
Ultimately, the judge's ruling said that while this litigation is pending and until a final
decision on the merits of this case is made, the administration cannot deport gang members
under the Alien Enemies Act. Following that ruling, the administration appealed, and the appellate court voted 2-1
to uphold the lower court's ruling. The update in this case, though, is that the administration
has now gone to the Supreme Court, asking it to lift the judge's order and allow it to continue
deporting gang members under this law. So the Supreme Court will have to decide whether the president can lawfully use his authority
under the Alien Enemies Act
to deport Trendy Aragaw gang members
while this litigation is pending.
In the past, the Supreme Court has held that
detentions and removals under the Alien Enemies Act
are quote, so bound up with national security judgments
that courts generally cannot weigh in on these matters
per their jurisdiction under the constitution.
However, we will have to see what the court decides
to do with this one.
The lawyers for the plaintiffs have been directed
to file their response to the administration's appeal
by tomorrow.
So we should see a decision from the justices
in the next week or two.
Another update, this one from Friday. An appellate
court has affirmed Doge's ability to continue issuing cuts to USAID. This ruling overturns an
earlier ruling issued by a district court judge which held that the dismantling of USAID by Doge
was likely an illegal overreach of power by an unelected official.
So that earlier ruling, which I had reported on when it was issued, said that it is likely
once arguments are heard and a final decision is made on the merits, that the court will
find Musk's actions with Doge violated the Constitution and therefore the judge issued
a temporary block on the actions that Musk and Doge were allowed to take with USAID while the litigation played out.
Doge appealed this decision and on Friday, a unanimous appellate court found that Musk likely did not use excessive power as an unelected official in violation of the Constitution because of the fact that the cuts
had largely been instigated by President Trump and his administration. Two of the three judge
panel overturned, or I should say two of the judges on the three judge panel overturned the
lower courts ruling with full support, with one writing, quote, while the defendant's role in
actions related to USAID are not conventional, unconventional does not necessarily
equal unconstitutional, end quote. That third judge, however, the third judge
on the three-judge panel, wrote that he believes Musk's actions likely do
violate the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because Musk has not been
appointed. However, he ultimately agreed to overturn the lower courts ruling
because he felt that the USAID employees wrongly sued Musk and Doge when they
should have sued the federal government. Now the plaintiffs here of course can
appeal the appellate court's decision. They can appeal to the Supreme Court, but
for now this decision means that DoJ can continue with its actions pertaining
to USAID. On a related note, though, I do also want to mention that Secretary of State Marco
Rubio did officially announce the dismantling of USAID. So Rubio issued a formal notification
to Congress that the State Department plans to reorganize the agency and fold the agency's independent functions
into the State Department by July 1st. In another legal update, a federal judge issued
a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, blocking it from deporting migrants
to countries that they did not previously have ties to without first giving them an appropriate
legal basis to claim that they would face
danger if they were sent there.
So this one stems from the administration saying it would deport any migrants illegally
in the US to El Salvador after ICE was given a directive that said migrants could be removed
to a third country with which they do not have ties.
A group of migrants represented by advocacy
groups then sued the administration, arguing that this policy exposes them to
potential dangers in other countries without giving them an opportunity to
appeal their deportation orders. Friday's ruling out of the court says that the
administration cannot deport migrants to any country other than the one designated
in their immigration proceedings, meaning any country other than the one they came from,
unless and until they provide that migrant and their lawyer with written notice and a
reasonable opportunity to object to the deportation.
Now this decision is in part because of the Convention Against Torture, which was ratified
by Congress in 1994, and it says that migrants cannot be sent to any country where they face
a reasonable threat of danger and likelihood of torture.
Actually achieving comprehensive protection under the Convention Against Torture is hard
because applicants have to prove that it's more likely
than not that they would face harm, but what this does is it slows the deportation process
by giving migrants the opportunity to object.
The administration, like all the other cases we've talked about, can appeal this court
order, but for now, the order remains in effect until a more permanent order is issued by
the court.
In another case, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The court held that there is a substantial risk that the
administration will complete the destruction of the agency in violation of law well before the
court can rule on the merits of the case, and therefore it issued this temporary block on the administration's ability to continue its dismantling efforts.
A little background here, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, was created by
Congress in 2008 after the financial crisis, and the intent was to protect consumers and
economic turmoil.
So, part of the CFPB's responsibility includes
regulating lending activity, like credit cards and mortgages. However, the CFPB has faced
opposition since its creation, with oppositionists arguing that it overimposes regulations on
finance and innovation. Since Trump took office in January, thousands of CFPB employees have
been fired, the remaining employees have been ordered to stop working,
offices have been closed and contracts have been canceled.
Naturally, as we've seen
with many other administrative actions,
lawsuits were filed challenging these actions
to dismantle the CFPB.
So in Friday's decision,
which like most of these other decisions
we're talking about is a temporary one,
the court held that it was likely that only Congress could terminate the CFPB because it was Congress
that created it.
Of course, the court still needs to issue a final decision on the merits of the case
once it hears arguments, but for now, the administration is blocked from taking any
more actions to close the CFPB, unless of course the administration appeals
this order and gets the order overturned.
Let's take our second and final break here.
When I come back, I will touch on one more legal update and then we'll get to quick hitters,
some good news, and the critical thinking segment.
Welcome back.
One more legal update for you.
A court has blocked one of Trump's executive orders, which strips a law firm of its security
clearance.
The judge found that the administration failed to answer how the attorneys targeted by the
order threatens national security in a way that would cause their protections to be stripped.
Importantly, this ruling only applies to one law firm, though Trump has issued various
orders targeting multiple law firms, but we'll get into that in a minute.
DC District Judge John Bates said that Trump's executive order pertaining to law firm Jenner
and Block was both troubling and disturbing because it targeted First Amendment rights
of the law firms and their employees in addition to their rights to receive due process.
The judge wrote that the order demonstrated, quote, retaliatory actions based on perceived
viewpoints, and that there is no doubt that this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy
or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm. End quote. As I mentioned, President Trump signed
multiple orders targeting various law firms for various reasons. For instance, the order against Jenner and Block was because the firm rehired a lawyer
that was previously involved in the Mueller investigation.
The order against Covington and Burling was because Covington and Burling helped special
counsel Jack Smith during his time as special counsel.
Other law firms like Perkins Coy and Wilmer Hale also had their security clearances revoked for other reasons.
However, some law firms have actually reached agreements with the administration
to hold on to these security clearances. So one firm reached a deal to provide $100 million in
basically free, it's called pro bono, but free legal work to the administration. Another firm
offered $40 million in free legal services.
And then other firms like, you know, Jenner and Block, obviously, received court orders that block
the administration from targeting them. So those are the court updates that I have for you.
Now let's run through some quick hitters. Columbia's interim president, Katrina Armstrong,
stepped down from her position on Friday,
just one week after the university reached a deal with the Trump administration to discuss
its federal funding.
A couple of weeks ago, Columbia agreed to a list of requests by the Trump administration
to start negotiations to restore $400 million in federal funding after it was accused of
not taking enough action to protect Jewish
students against anti-Semitism.
However, according to Armstrong, her decision to step down had nothing to do with the talks
with the administration, but rather that she had only planned to stay in that role for
one year before returning to the medical center.
Claire Shipman, co-chair of the Board of Trustees, has been named Acting President.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case today centered around religious tax
exemptions. Specifically, this case centers around a tax dispute between the state of
Wisconsin and the Catholic Charities Chapter. The question for the court is whether a state
violates the First Amendment's freedom of Religion clause by denying a religious organization
an otherwise available tax exemption because the organization does not meet the state's
criteria for religious behavior.
The justices did seem to lean in favor of the Catholic group today, but we will get
a decision in the next month or two.
Sadly, the bodies of three missing U.S. soldiers
have been found in Lithuania after the vehicle
they were traveling in was found submerged
in a muddy swamp.
At this time, one soldier remains missing
and the search is ongoing.
The team of soldiers had been missing for six days
after taking part in military drills
and an armored vehicle designed to recover damaged tanks
and other vehicles from battlefields. They
were conducting a mission to repair and tow in a mobilized tactical vehicle when
their own vehicle was submerged. Two quick hitters related to Elon Musk. The
first is that he announced a merger between his two companies X and XAI. He
wrote that XAI had acquired X in an all-stock transaction.
He wrote, quote, the combination values XAI
at 80 billion and X at 33 billion.
He wrote that the merger will unlock immense potential
by blending XAI's advanced AI capability
and expertise with X's massive reach.
Musk also made some news on Sunday
by giving out $1 million checks to two Wisconsin voters.
These payouts come as Wisconsin voters get ready to vote on a state Supreme Court seat
tomorrow.
Essentially, the race will decide whether conservatives or liberals control the Wisconsin
Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the liberal candidate has received millions in support from people like George
Soros, the governor of Illinois, a Wisconsin philanthropist, and others. Spending on both sides of this effort is expected to reach $100 million,
which will be the most expensive state judge race ever. I feel like it's worth mentioning here that
Supreme Court races are nonpartisan because judges and justices are supposed to be nonpartisan.
But that doesn't mean that judges and justices are not described as either liberal or conservative,
because they are.
We know that of our nine US Supreme Court justices, six lean conservative, three lean
liberal.
This particular race in Wisconsin, though, will replace one of the four liberal-leaning
justices on the seven judge court for a
ten-year term. So if the liberal candidate wins, the state court will
remain majority liberal, but if the conservative candidate wins, the state
court will become majority conservative. Let's talk about some good
news. For this next segment, I figured why not include some good news. It's
something I used to do weekly. Now I kind of just throw it in whenever I see fit really, but we'll cover a
couple of positive news stories and then we'll finish with the critical thinking
segment. Retired military dog Frankie has been adopted by his former military
handler after four years apart. Army Staff Sergeant Kristen Vander Zanden
worked with Frankie for four and a half years, including a nine-month combat tour in Afghanistan and a ten-month combat tour in Iraq.
Together, they completed around 20 Secret Service missions to help protect high-profile
figures, including the President, Vice President, First Lady, and others.
However, when Kristen was relocated to Fort Drum in 2021, the two were separated.
Frankie later retired after six
years in the service and was sent to the American Humane Society, who ultimately helped reunite
Frankie with Kristen after Kristen reached out asking to adopt him. The American Humane Society
covered all transportation costs associated with reunification, and because of Frankie's service to
the country, his unit, and Kristen, Frankie gets free veterinary care for life.
In some other good news, new research suggests that the installment of safety nets on the Golden Gate Bridge has led to a 73% reduction in suicides.
Before the installation of the nets, there were 2.48 suicides per month on average.
During installation, that number fell to 1.83, and post installation, the number is down to 0.67. The research also showed an increase in third-party
interventions to prevent suicides. Prior to the installation, there were 8.2 interventions per
month compared to 14.42 interventions during installation and 11 interventions per month
post installation.
These nets are made with stainless steel
and they're installed 20 feet below sidewalks
and extend out about 20 feet as well.
For today's critical thinking segment,
let's revisit the three term discussion.
Remember, this segment is not meant to be too complex.
It is simply an exercise for our brain
so we continue to think for ourselves despite being constantly told how and what to be too complex. It is simply an exercise for our brain, so we continue to think for ourselves,
despite being constantly told how and what to think
by others.
Of course, we always start with our initial thoughts.
So we start by assessing our initial feelings
about the situation.
How does this make you feel?
Expanding the presidential term limit to three years.
Do your feelings differ based on the person?
Would you feel differently if this was President Biden
versus all this talk being about President Trump
and why or why not?
That why is the most important part of this.
We need to check in with ourselves
and figure out why we feel a certain way.
Now, if you tend to lean in favor
of a president serving three terms,
where does the ceiling get, or I should say,
where does the line get drawn for you?
Is it a fourth term?
Should presidents be capped at a fifth term?
Should it be unlimited?
Where would you draw the line and why?
If you're opposed to a third term,
I want you to consider the scenario
in which term limits could be modified
with certain legal safeguards in place. In other words, is there a way to allow exceptions to the
two-term limit without risking abuse of power? What would that look like and why? That is what
I have for you today. I hope you have a fantastic next couple of days and I will talk to you
again on Thursday.