WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Under the Radar: 02.15.25

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

This week on “Under the Radar,” hear about the President's new plan to keep Iran in check, a Supreme Court case about a mistaken SWAT raid, Congress' efforts to a eradicate a dangerous animal species, and more. I’m your host, Luke Miller, and on this show we’ll cover the news you didn’t catch this week from the mainstream media. While they’re covering the President’s latest tweets, here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect you. Welcome to “Under the Radar.”

This is Under the Radar on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Now, here's your host, Luke Miller. This week on Under the Radar, hear about the president's new plan to keep Iran in check, a Supreme Court case about a mistaken SWAT raid, Congress's efforts to eradicate a dangerous animal species, and more. I'm your host, Luke Miller, and on this show, we'll cover the news you didn't catch this week from the mainstream media. While they're covering the president's latest tweets,

here you can hear about the new legislation, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions that affect. you. Welcome to Under the Radar. The first piece of news I have for you this week is an executive order signed by the president on February 4th called the National Security Presidential Memorandum, number two, and the goal is to put strong sanctions on the Iranian regime. The goal is to, quote, impose maximum pressure on Iran to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile system, and stop its support for terrorist groups. Also important in the executive order is the, quote, to drive Iran's export of oil to zero and to lead a diplomatic campaign to isolate Iran.

Now, this executive order condemns Iran for a few reasons, the first of which is their support for the Hamas massacres committed on October 7th in Israel, and their support for the Houthi attacks against the United States Navy in 2024. The order says, quote, Iran commits grievous human rights abuses and arbitrarily detains foreigners, including United States. state citizens without due process of law and the United States stands with the women of Iran who face daily abuse by the regime. Now, this is not the only reason that the executive order condemns Iran's way of going about things. It also is a punishment for Iran's violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Now, under this treaty, Iran is under some obligations to disclose any

nuclear material that they bring into the country. They're not allowed under the United States. nations to make nuclear weapons. So they're required by what's called the International Atomic Energy Agency to disclose any nuclear material that they bring into the country. Apparently, they have been violating that. They're standing in breach of the treaty. And the executive order claims that Iran may be engaged in computer modeling related to nuclear weapons development. So the Trump administration is trying to deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon and imposing sanctions is their way of punishing a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Now, there's a couple more parts of this executive order that I find really interesting.

First of all, the concept that we're trying to get Iran's oil exports down to zero and that we're trying to isolate them throughout the world. And one way that they're doing this through the executive order is by reassessing the sanctions waiver that the U.S. gave to Iran in 2018 for the Chabahar Port Project. Essentially, what this project does is it allows India to use the Chabahar Port in Iran to trade with Iran and Afghanistan. Now, this was a big part of Afghanistan's rebuild project that the Trump administration was working on in 2018. But given the Biden administration's pull out of Afghanistan and the Taliban is now under control of that country, the political landscape looks a little bit different over there.

first of all. Second of all, India each year imports about $13 billion worth of goods from Iran, primarily oil, and they do that through this port. So with the U.S. government reviewing the sanctions waiver that was given to Iran for this port, likely what that will mean is that Iran can't export all of that oil to India and other goods to India, and it's going to cut them off from a huge revenue source. Another ramification of that is that Afghanistan and India are not going to be able to trade. So this kind of, the secondhand effects of this are going to be that the way that the Taliban is treating people in Afghanistan is also being punished by this because India is not going to be able to trade with them. Now, India could go through Pakistan,

but there is a lot of tension between India and Pakistan. So India was trying to use this port to be able to trade with Afghanistan and bypass Pakistan. Now essentially, this is going to cut off India from a lot of their goods as well, and they're going to have to get more of their oil from Russia, which is a downside to this portion of the executive order. And for anybody who's tempted to think, well, we also import oil from the Middle East and that'll make gas prices go up in the United States. We do not import any oil from Iran as of 2025. There was a brief time period in 2003 when we did import a little bit of oil from Iran, but we don't right now. So this executive order is not going to affect oil and gas prices in the United States.

However, overall, it does punish Iran for their violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It does punish them for their support of Hamas and Hezbollah, and it is an effective way of brandishing a threat that the United States is not going to allow Iran to violate these agreements that we make with them. The next thing I have on the docket for you today is a court case that is quickly heading up the rank, towards the Supreme Court, that is an effort to challenge the Trump executive order on January 20th that essentially is aimed at banning birthright citizenship. So first of all, let's look at what the executive order does.

It essentially overrules the way that the government has been interpreting the 14th Amendment. So essentially what that means is that birthright citizenship will not be granted to people whose mother was either unlawfully in the United States or here on. on a temporary work visa or green card and whose father was not a citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the person's birth. Now let's look at the history behind this a little bit. So originally there was the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Scott could not become a citizen of the state that he was born in, even when it became a free state after he was

freed because he was born there. The court ruled that the Constitution did not give African Americans a birthright citizenship under the Constitution. The 14th Amendment was created a little bit after that to overrule that Supreme Court decision. And the 14th Amendment states that all persons born are naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Now, the part that the executive order is arguing about, and this is the part that the court case is arguing about, is the part of that which says subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Now, there are many court cases, but there's one in particular

that's rising as a threat to this executive order in Seattle, and the case is arguing that it is highly unconstitutional for the Trump administration to do this. And essentially what the lawyers at the DOJ are responding with is the clause in the 14th Amendment about subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The lawyers at the DOJ are arguing in this case that people who are here temporarily or are here illegally are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because they're not registered citizens, so they're not required to pay taxes. And they're here on temporary rules, which does not mean that they're under the same jurisdiction under the law as everyone else is. So that's what the Department of Justice lawyers are arguing in these court cases. However, the lawyers who have

address these cases, though so far, are completely rejecting that argument. They're saying that it is blatantly unconstitutional for the Trump administration to do this, and that the block on the executive order this week, this Thursday, February 6th, was extended to the entirety of the United States. So a U.S. District Court has extended the ban on the Trump executive order, so it cannot be enforced anywhere in the United States as of right now. Now, to analyze this, we've got to look at a little bit of history of how the 14th Amendment has been interpreted. The first precedent that has come up in this argument was the case of a man named Wong Kim Ark in 1895, who was born in the United States and visited China. When he came back to the United States, immigration officials would not let him

back into the country on the grounds that he was not a U.S. citizen, even though he was born in the United States. In that case, there was a six-two vote by the Supreme Court that said that under the 14th Amendment, Wong was a United States citizen, and that's a big precedent in this case, because while he visited China for a long time, he was not subject to the jurisdiction of American law, and the court ruled that in spite of that, he was still an American citizen and could come into the country and enjoy the benefits of being an American citizen. The other important case to look at that is really the main one that's being discussed in the arguments is in 1982 case called Plyler v. Doe, which was a Texas case about a law that was created in the state

that barred undocumented immigrants from attending public schools. In a five to four Supreme Court vote, they ruled that the law was illegal, that you could not prevent undocumented immigrants from attending a public school, which kind of breaks down the DOJ's argument that because you're undocumented because you're not subject to the jurisdiction of American law that 14th Amendment rights don't apply to you. So that's the main case that needs to be talked about when going through this court case is this Pliler v. Doe case in 1982 essentially is going to mean that the Trump administration cannot do this. It does violate the wording of the 14th Amendment and the precedent set by the Doe case in 1982 to outright ban birth.

right, citizenship just because the status of someone who, of parents who are living in the United States. So while a lot of people got excited about the executive order when it came out, a lot of people were very not excited about it. It would be absolutely shocking to see the, the effects of that executive order were they to go into place. But U.S. District Court has this week barred the, barred the executive order all across the United States. It's not being enforced anywhere and it looks like the case is going to get up to the Supreme Court, but likely because of that 1982 Supreme Court precedent, the court is going to most likely rule against the DOJ and against the use of this executive order that bans birthright citizenship.

The next piece of news I have for you this week is House Resolution 776 was just passed the House of Representatives, a bill called the Nutria Eradication and Control Reauthorization Act of 2025. What the act does essentially is reauthorize a very similar act that was passed in 2003, with the goal of eradicating the neutria, which is an animal. It kind of looks like a beaver. If you've never seen one, don't know what it is, you should look up a picture of it. It's not quite as menacing as it sounds in the bill, at least according to the pictures. But apparently, they've caused a ton of damage. So looking back at the original bill that was passed in 2003, it essentially gives funding to the Department of Interior to give to states in order

to make up for some of the damages that Nutria have caused and to restore a lot of the coastlands and wetlands that Nutriah have done so much damage to. So according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nutria were introduced to the United States in the 1940s at the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland because of the value of their fur on the fur market. it. Again, they're like a rodent, beaver-looking creature. Apparently, their fur is very valuable. So, they're introduced to the United States and parts of Central and South America in the 1940s. However, since then, they've destroyed thousands of acres of marshes and marshland. In just Maryland's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, they've lost over 5,000 acres of wetlands in the past 20 years

due to the combined effects of having nutria in the park. That's caused sea level rise. It's called the land to subside. They're losing coastline. They're losing marshlands because of the invasive nature of this animal. In 2004 alone in Maryland, the nutria caused economic environmental losses and environmental losses estimated at $6 million and was projected to drastic to drastic. increase without the funding for prevention and eradication from this bill. So in 2025, the bill aims to restore that, to keep up the efforts. They have killed apparently over 14,000

neutria just in the state of Maryland. The efforts are in other coastal states as well, but Maryland was where they were originally introduced. So the bill specifies that Maryland is to receive a little bit more of the funding because they have a little bit more of the problem. And the bill gives about 12, it gives 12 million dollars to the secretary of the Department of Interior for each of the fiscal years 2025 through 2030. Now if you're like me, like I had no idea what a neutrria was. I had to look it up to see what it was. So I was really intrigued when I saw that the House had passed this bill, especially so early into the Trump administration, so early into having a Republican majority in the house as to like, why would this be so important? But it is a major environmental

issue. They're listed by the United States government as a major ecological threat. Apparently, they contaminate a lot of water. They erode the soil. They destroy vegetation and agriculture. And then they eat away at the coastline by the types of burrowing they do and the houses that they create. So they're listed as a major ecological. threat and the government actually recommends that people kill them if they see them just because of the amount of damage that they do to the environment. So while it's not the most important bill that Congress is going to pass in this term, it's really interesting and it is a good practical step towards continuing to fight against a legitimate environmental concern. The next thing I have for you

today is back in the realm of executive orders with one signed on February 3rd by President Trump called a plan for establishing a United States sovereign wealth fund, which when I saw that, I thought that was going to be very interesting. I want to see what this has to say. So the goal of the executive order is to promote fiscal sustainability, lessen the burden of taxes on American families and small businesses, establish economic security for future generations, and promote United States economic and strategic leadership internationally.

And all that sounds great. So here's what the executive order actually does. it lays out a plan for the assistant to the president of economic policy to create a plan within 90 days for funding mechanisms, investment strategies, fund structure, and governance of a sovereign wealth fund for the United States. So, first of all, I think that this is a very interesting concept. I'm intrigued to see where this ends up going. The intent behind it seems very good.

obviously we want things like fiscal sustainability for the United States. We want to maintain the value of the dollar. We want the government to be in less debt, preferably no debt, but less debt. So a wealth fund for the United States seems like a good concept. However, here's the concern with a plan like this. How exactly is the United States as a government going to invest? Well, there's a few ways that they could do it. First of all, they could invest in the United States market.

so they can invest in the stock market or mutual funds or other things like that. They couldn't do like bonds, obviously, because they owned the bonds themselves in the United States government. But if the United States government with trillions of dollars to play with were to invest in something like the stock market, that would throw everything out of whack. That would mess the entire stock market up if the United States were to start actually investing taxpayer money into the stock market. They could invest in certain stocks and skyrocket them. So you could see Congresspeople who have stakes in a particular company vote to try to get the government to invest in a particular stock under this sovereign wealth fund to make profits. Like there's so many problems that arise from the idea of the United States investing in American markets.

But there are other ways that they could do that. They could invest in things like real estate. but that could be a problem too. If the United States government starts buying up American real estate, we already have a housing shortage going on in the United States right now. The government buying up real estate is not going to help that. It's not going to drive up the value of the real estate, especially if they buy a lot of it,

because you're taking a lot of it off of the market, because the goal of that would be to own the real estate for a while as the value goes up. So I don't really see how this is going to work. It's a very interesting concept. there could be other ways that the government is thinking about how to invest money in a wealth fund, but the typical ways that we think about it as private citizens would not really work for the government to do. So I'm interested to see how they fulfill this executive order if it ever really comes to anything, but there is a plan being drawn up for this sovereign wealth fund.

So the last thing I have for you today is a very interesting case that the Supreme Court has just taken up called Martin v. the United States. So a few years ago, the judge issued a no-knock warrant in Atlanta for a gang member named Joseph Riley. So the FBI was trying to execute this no-knock warrant with a SWAT team, and the SWAT team broke into the wrong house under a no-knock warrant. The Martin family who lived there were accosted. Their child was accosted. apparently they were not they were not dressed while they were accosted which was another part of this there were damages that were uh that they that happened to the house and the FBI uh sincerely apologized obviously to the family for this big mix-up but the family is suing for the federal

government for damages because the government didn't pay for the damages that were done to their house and there was one unsubstantiated claim that the child needed to go to therapy after this and generally the government is immune from being sued by private individuals, but the Federal Torts Claims Act waives that immunity if there were wrongful acts of federal employees. Now, while the monetary claims for the damages to the House were addressed by the Georgia State Court, the couple is also suing for false arrest, negligence, false imprisonment, and assault and battery, and that's what's really making it up the chain here because the FBI was acting rightfully if they were addressing the right person, if they had been addressing the man that the warrant

was put out against. So the Supreme Court has taken up this case and we're essentially going to have a decision about whether a private individual can sue for wrongful treatment against the government when it was an accident. So that's going to be an interesting precedent. The FBI obviously didn't mean to do this to this family. They were acting within their correct capacity if they had been dealing with the criminal that they thought they were dealing with. However, can they face actual really serious charges being sued by a private individual for governmental discretionary action is the term?

I guess we'll find out what the Supreme Court has to say soon. So to summarize this week, we had executive orders that place sanctions on Iran to try to eliminate their oil exports and another to establish. a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, two court cases, one trying to punish a mistaken swat raid, and another protecting the 14th Amendment from the birthright citizenship ban, and a conservation bill aimed at eliminating an animal called the Nutria and protecting our coastlands. Tune in next week for more. Well, that's all I have for you today on Under the Radar.

I'm your host, Luke Miller, and I want to thank you for listening and encourage you to tune back in next time for more coverage of the news that fell under the radar. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Thanks for listening to Under the Radar with Luke Miller, here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.