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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, September 8th. Let's talk about some news. Before we do, though, quick reminder, I do have a new newsletter going out tomorrow morning. Of course, those newsletters go out Tuesdays and Fridays around 6am but you can always read them after the fact. Let's say you don't subscribe until 10am tomorrow morning. You can always find find the newsletter. It's always available. So it's another way of saying, you know, if it doesn't hit your inbox, it's still available on substack to read. So basically why I created this newsletter is I wanted people to have a way to get caught up across various genres of news, right? Because the podcast is only politics. So in the newsletter, I do politics, pop culture, business, health and international news. And it's all quick hitters because obviously we're all busy. We have a lot going on. We don't have a ton of time to, you know, spend a half hour reading the news necessarily. So it's quick hitters. You can get through it in five to 10 minutes. And I do include additional resources if there's a particular story that you want to read more about. So it's a really great resource. The newsletter is called Unbiased Society. It's on substack. I always link it in each in the episode description for each episode. So you'll see free newsletter. Subscribe here. Just click that link and. And that's how you do it. It's very simple. So that goes out tomorrow morning and then the next one will go out Friday morning. Okay, let's talk about some news. On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order titled Restoring the United States Department of War, which reinstated the name Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense. This is an important distinction. Basically, what this order is saying is that the name Department of War can be used in communications, ceremonial contexts, and non statutory documents, non legal documents, and that all executive departments and agencies are to accommodate the use of this secondary title. However, this order does not permanently change the name of the Department of Defense. Congress would have to do that. We will Talk about that more in a minute. But the order says that within 60 days, the Secretary of Defense must submit to the President and a recommendation on the actions required to permanently change the name of the Department of Defense to Department of War. That recommendation is to include proposed legislative and executive actions necessary to permanently change the name. So to be clear, to be very clear, for the time being, the Department of Defense can call itself the Department of War in certain contexts, the Secretary of Defense can call himself the Secretary of War in certain contexts. But officially and legally, the titles of each are still the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Defense. So in legal and statutory contexts, these two must still be referred to by their official names, which are the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense. And that's, of course, until Congress officially changes the name of the Department. Now, before we get into why the department's name was changed, let's quickly talk about the history of the department, just for purposes of adding context. Congress established the Department of War in 1789 to oversee the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and it was the Department of War until 1947, which was more than 150 years after its first creation when President Truman signed what's called the National Security Act. The National Security act merged the Navy, Air Force, and War Departments into a single organization called the National Military Establishment. Interestingly, the abbreviation for National Military Establishment was nme, which Congress felt sounded too close to the word enemy. So two years later, in 1949, the National Security act was actually amended, and the National Military Establishment was officially renamed the Department of Defense. And that's why today we know the department as the Department of Defense. It has remained unchanged since that time. As far as why the administration is wanting to change the name back to the Department of War, we know from the text of the Executive order that the purpose is to, quote, ensure peace through strength. The order reads, in part, the name Department of War, more than the current Department of Defense, ensures peace through strength as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our nation at a moment's notice, not just to defend. This name sharpens the Department's focus on our own national interests and our adversaries. Focus on our willingness and availability to wage war to secure what is ours and end quote. After signing the order, the President told reporters in the Oval Office, quote, I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength. We're very strong. We're much stronger than anyone would really understand, end quote. Secretary Hegseth said the change reflects a broader cultural shift within the department. Telling Fox News, quote, we won World War I and we won World War II. Not with the Department of Defense, but with a War Department. With the Department of War. We've re established at the department the warrior ethos. We want warriors, folks that understand how to exact lethality on the enemy. We don't want endless contingencies and just playing defense. We think words and names and titles matter, end quote. So, again, it's important to point out that the President does not have the legal authority to actually rename the department officially. Right, and that's exactly why this order refers to the name change as a secondary title. To legally change the name, Congress would have to pass a law, which could happen considering both chambers of Congress have introduced legislation to do so. The Department of War Restoration act of 2025, if passed, would formally rename the Department. That, of course, has to pass both chambers, which likely won't be difficult. But you. You never know. Speaking of executive orders, the President signed another order on Friday titled Strengthening Efforts to Protect US Nationals from Wrongful Detention Abroad. We're going to keep this one short. Basically, if another country wrongfully detains a US national and doesn't release the US national upon request by the United States, the Secretary of State is to assess whether that foreign country meets certain criteria, and then the Secretary of State is to use his discretion in designating that country as a state sponsor of wrongful detention. This also applies to groups that have control over a country but might not be considered a government entity. So think ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. For that designation to be lifted once it is given, the foreign country or entity has to either release the wrongfully detained individual, demonstrate policy or leadership changes, provide credible assurances against future wrongful detentions, or the designation can be lifted if the President directs termination. Now, you might be wondering, what does it matter if a country or entity receives the State Sponsor of wrongful detention designation? Why would they care? Well, per the order, the United States, if that designation is given, the United States can A, impose sanctions, B, potentially withdraw foreign assistance, C, declare that country's citizens inadmissible in the United States, D, restrict the travel of US Citizens to that country, or E, restrict exports to that country. So the impact would be felt both financially and diplomatically by the countries that receive the designation. To give you a couple of real world examples and where we could see this order be applied, obviously we know Russia has wrongfully detained American citizens in the past, so it could be applied to Russia. Hamas, Right? Hamas. No. Longer has custody of US Nationals. But if it ever were to hold a US national hostage again, this order could apply to Gaza since Hamas exercises control of Gaza. So those are just a couple of real world examples of how this order could be applied in practice. Okay, moving on. Last week, more than 400 federal, state and local law enforcement personnel conducted a raid and at a Hyundai LG battery plant in a very small town known as Ellabelle, Georgia. This operation is now known as Operation Low Voltage. So the raid resulted in the detention of roughly 475 workers, most of whom were South Korean nationals. According to a DOJ press release, quote, On September 4, 2025, hundreds of federal agents executed a federal search Warrant at the H.L. georgia Battery Co. LLC in Ellabelle, Georgia, searching evidence related to the unlawful employment of illegal aliens in violation of federal law and quote, a search warrant filed in the Southern District of Georgia specifically identified four individuals as, quote, targeted persons to be searched, end quote. And multiple agencies participated in this raid, including hsi, FBI, dea, ice, gsp, ATF and others. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Stephen Schrank told reporters, quote, this was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses. This has been a multi month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence and conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain a judicial search warrant, end quote. So here's a little bit more about what we know. Ellabelle, Georgia is a very small unincorporated town about 30, 30 miles west of Savannah, Georgia. There's really nothing there besides a couple of churches, a couple of convenience stores, and then this Hyundai LG battery plant, which is Hyundai's first fully electrified vehicle and battery manufacturing campus in the United States. The plant is actually not yet fully operational. It's still very much under construction. And Hyundai has said that the plant would eventually create about 8, 500 jobs. But only a very small fraction of those have been fulfilled at this point because again, the facility is not yet fully constructed. As far as what we know about the actual raid. The press release says, quote, upon execution of the criminal search warrant, several people attempted to flee the location. For example, a handful of people ran into a sewage pond located on the premises. Agents used a boat to fish them out of the water. One of the individuals swam under the boat and tried to flip it over to no availability. These people were captured and identified as illegal workers, end quote. I said that those taken into custody included some who entered the country illegally, some who held expired visas, some who entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working and at least one lawful permanent resident who was held because of alleged prior firearm and drug offenses were, which can jeopardize green card status. Of the roughly 475 individuals detained, we know that there were roughly 300 South Korean nationals. Another 23 were Mexican nationals. But we don't know who makes up the remaining 150. Per the Mexican Consul General's office in Atlanta, most of the Mexican nationals detained signed voluntary releases to return to Mexico in the next few days. And we know that the South Korean government is facilitating the return of the South Korean nationals. On Sunday, the South Korean Presidential Chief of staff announced that negotiations with Washington for the release of the detained workers had concluded that South Korean officials plan to charter a flight to repatriate them and that the South Korean government would, quote, review and improve the visa system and stay status of people traveling to the United States for investment projects, end quote. At the same time, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said it conveyed, quote, concerns and regret, end quote, to Washington. It dispatched diplomats to the state of Georgia to form an on site team, and it warned that the rights of Korean nationals investing in US Projects must not be violated. So basically, just so we're all on the same page, what's been happening, and we saw this happen during the Obama administration a lot too, as well as during Trump's first administration. But the federal government will specifically target employers who are hiring illegal workers, meaning they're hiring individuals who do not have work authorization in the United States that is a violation of federal law to hire those individuals. So the federal government goes to a judge and says, hey, we have probable cause that this person or these persons are breaking the law by hiring unauthorized workers. And therefore, we need a search warrant to search their premises and determine whether. Whether they're doing what we think they're doing. If sufficient evidence is presented to the judge, the judge will sign off on a warrant and federal agents will go in and raid the factory or plant or whatever the employment site might be. So that's what happened here. One thing that makes this raid stand out is that it was the largest single site enforcement operation ever carried out by the dhs. Now, another thing that's a bit different when it comes to violations of federal law, the employers that are hiring these illegal employees don't necessarily get arrested for violating the law. In fact, the press release from the DOJ makes clear that this is an ongoing investigation, no charges have been filed, and all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. What typically happens instead is that the unauthorized workers will be removed from the premises and in many cases deported to their home country, which is what happened here. But the employers typically don't get arrested or face charges. Okay, let's take a break here. When we come back, we'll discuss the ICE expansion in Chicago, the Oura Ring Partnership, and more. Whether you like it or not, fall is right around the corner. Personally, I love fall and I love buying new clothes during the fall. It's probably my favorite season to buy new clothes for and you guys know how much I love Quint. 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Quince.comunbiased have you ever had the pleasure of sleeping on a cloud? A pillowy, soft, silky cloud? I think it's safe to say none of us have, but we all wish it were possible. So I've actually made it my mission to make my bed feel as close to a cloud as possible. I'm truly proud of the bed I've created. Those who have been around for a long time on this podcast know that I absolutely love my bed. I couldn't have done it without Cozy Earth, though. Cozy Earth bedding is like nothing else. Let me tell you, it is exactly what you would imagine a cloud would feel like. The sheets are soft, a little bit silky, but not too silky. Light and cool. Like temperature cool. And that's because Cozy Earth sheets are temperature regulating. They naturally wick away heat and moisture from your body. And here's the thing. Cozy Earth is so confident that you are going to love their sheets that they offer a 100 night sleep trial. 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Welcome back. In a Sunday interview on CBS's Face the Nation, DHS Secretary Christy Gnome confirmed that ICE operations will soon ramp up in Chicago. Gnome said in part, quote, we've already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states making sure we're upholding our laws. But we do intend to add more resources to those operations, end quote. Gnomes remarks came one day after President Trump posted to Truth Social threatening to deploy the National Guard to Chicago if Illinois's Governor J.B. pritzker did not, quote, straighten it out fast, end quote. And that's referring to Chicago's crime. Trump's post was also made on the same day that Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson and signed an executive order putting measures in place to limit local law enforcement's cooperation with federal troops. I. E. Immigration enforcement. Naturally, all of these discussions have led people to wonder whether this is legal. And there are two things to keep in mind here. So immigration enforcement is different from deploying the National Guard. We have to talk about them separately. Immigration enforcement is entirely within the federal government's control, right? That means ICE can go into whatever cities it wants and lawfully enforce immigration law. And the key word there is lawfully. Of course, ICE still has to abide by federal law, but and the Constitution. But it does have the authority to enforce federal immigration law nationwide. Neither Illinois's governor nor Chicago's mayor could tell ICE to leave or, you know, actively keep ICE out of Chicago. What Chicago's mayor and Illinois's governor do have the authority to do is, is tell local police not to help ice, which they have done, but they cannot prohibit ICE from doing its job. Deploying the National Guard, though, is a different story. And for those of you that have been keeping up with the podcast, you know this, and I don't want to go too far into it because we have discussed it a lot lately. You can always go back and listen to past episodes and get caught up. But basically, the president can deploy the National Guard in certain situations, and that is because the National Guard is under the control of the state governor, not the president. So if a state's governor requests the National Guard, the president can send in the National Guard. If a state's governor doesn't necessarily request the National Guard, but approves the deployment of the National Guard, the National Guard can go. Neither of those situations are true in Chicago. Illinois's governor has not and will not request deployment of the National Guard, nor will he approve approve the deployment of the National Guard. Right. So the only way the president can lawfully federalize National Guard troops and send them into Chicago is if one, the president invokes the Insurrection act, which he has not done, or two, one of the following three situations are present. There has been an invasion of the United States by a foreign nation, or there's a danger of invasion, and there's been a rebellion against the federal government, or there's a danger of rebellion, or the president is unable to execute federal laws with regular military forces. Those are the only situations where the president can lawfully deploy and federalize the National Guard without invoking the Insurrection act or getting a governor's approval. Now, we know that a California judge just ruled that Trump's deployment of the National Guard to LA was unlawful. The administration had tried to argue that the ICE protests and riots were considered a rebellion against the federal government, and therefore deployment was lawful. But the judge rejected that argument and said that while there were protests and riots, they didn't rise to the level of a rebellion against the government. So if the president tried to deploy the National Guard to Chicago under similar circumstances, whether it be to combat crime or to assist ICE in immigration enforcement, it would likely be deemed unlawful. That's not to say the president won't try, because we saw him try in la. That's just to say that if he did, he would likely get sued by Illinois. It would turn into another legal battle like it did in California. Now, the reason the situation is different in Washington, D.C. and the reason the deployment of the national guard in D.C. is likely lawful is because that is the one place that the President has control over the National Guard. D.C. does not have a governor. It does not have statehood under the law. The National Guard is under the control of the President in Washington, D.C. so the situation in D.C. is not. You can't compare it to any other city in the United States. And, and just so we're very clear, this same discussion applies regardless of which city we're talking about. Chicago, Louisiana, Boston, New York City, Newark, San Diego, it doesn't matter. Any country in the United States, these same laws and rules apply. Lawful immigration enforcement by ICE is permissible. National Guard deployment is more nuanced. All right, let's move on. More than two and a half million people own an Aura ring. And a lot of those people are wondering what will happen to their personal data now that Aura has accepted expanded its partnership with the Department of Defense. So let's talk about this first. What is an Aura ring? An Aura ring is a smart ring that works as a wearable wellness tracker. So it tracks things like sleep activity, heart rate, body temperature, and it does this via various sensors in the ring that each detect different patterns within the body. The ring then syncs with the app via Bluetooth, which users have to pay a monthly subscription fee for. And the app provides customized insights and recommendations based on the data that the ring collects. So as examples, the app might tell a user who didn't get as much REM sleep as they usually do to try to limit caffeine or alcohol intake. It might tell someone who's been inactive for a while to go for a little walk. It might notify a user who's had an elevated temperature that they might be getting sick. So it's, it's things like that. Well, at the end of August, August 27, to be exact, Aura announced an expanded partnership with the DoD. The CEO, CEO of the company said, quote, we're proud to expand manufacturing to the United States and are committed to empowering the Department of Defense with technology that prioritizes security and promotes readiness, resilience and effectiveness to support service members and their missions, end quote. Aura's press release highlighted that one, the DOD is now Aura's largest enterprise client. And two, Aura will open a new manufacturing plant in Fort Worth, Texas. So that's the expansion, right? This new manufacturing plant, a few things to note here, and then I'll address the concerns from OURA Ring users. First, OURA has been partnered with the military since 2019. The partnership actually started after 17 sailors were killed in two separate collisions. Following those collisions, the Naval Health Research center, or nhrc, launched the Command Readiness, Endurance and Watch Standing program to advance fatigue research because those collisions were said to be caused by fatigue fatigue. As part of that effort, NHRC tapped OURA Ring to track sleep and certain other biometrics. AURA also works with active duty units, tracking their data to enhance military performance. Aura says it advances defense operations in four key areas stress management and resilience training fitness optimization with physical stress and focused recovery fatigue risk management through scheduling optimization to prevent placing overexerted personnel in safety critical roles and early illness detection to proactively alert individuals and command before illnesses spread. So Aura again has worked with the government for years, but this is what has people concerned, Aura's press release says. In part underscoring its commitment to responsible data practices, Aura's enterprise platform will empower government personnel, including performance coaches and commanders, with individual and unit insights and unlock targeted deployments enabled by Palantir Fed starts IL5 ready hosting environment end Quote. Palantir is the big name here, so Palantir Technologies is a data and tech firm that's been working with multiple, multiple different federal agencies. Palantir's partnership with the government goes back years, but since Trump took office this past January, the role of Palantir in federal projects has increased. As examples, Palantir recently received more than $113 million in federal funds for new contracts with the DHS and the Pentagon. It will potentially also work with the Social Security Administration and the irs. And Palantir's data analysis product is currently being used by at least four federal agencies. Now on top of that, back in March, President Trump signed an executive order that called for sharing data across all federal agencies to, quote, maximize government efficiency. And that led that executive order, combined with Palantir's involvement, led to speculation about a national citizen database, which I have addressed in the past. I don't want to get into it now, Basically. Critics worry that Palantir's expanded federal role combined with Trump's executive order on, you know, data sharing could give Palantir even more oversight of agency and personal data. Notably, Palantir has denied being a surveillance database. But when Aura mentioned Palantir in their press release, some got worried. And in response, Aura's CEO posted a three minute video attempting to ease consumers concerns. I'm going to play that video for you because it'll be more effective than me just reiterating what he said. So here it is.
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Hi, everybody. I'm Tom Hale. I'm the CEO of Aura. And I have been watching this weekend's conversation online with some real concern. I've seen a ton of misinformation and people are really upset. And I just want to acknowledge that and start with the most important thing first. Aura will never sell your data. We will never share your data without your consent or your authorization. If you want to participate in a research study and you want to do that, great, we're going to provide you the tools to do that. If you want to put your data in Apple Health Kit or Google Health, we'll help you do that. But we're never going to do that for you. And we're never going to do anything that would be, I don't know, against your health. Look, the way to think about this is that your data is yours and yours always. That is our commitment to you is to protect your data and your health. And we stand for firmly against unauthorized data sharing. We have always held this point of view and we will always continue to do so. And we take it incredibly seriously. We want people to understand it well. So let me, let me zoom back. I wrote it down. So I'm going to give you some perspective here. Separate from the services that we provide Aura members, we make AURA available to us service members, men and women and government employees via government only enterprise solution. And to meet security for that government only enterprise solution, some of those programs require that we use the IL impact level 5 IL5 security environment. Now, Palantir's Fed Start provides that environment today, but they do not have access to any of your health data. That DoD enterprise solution is separate, completely separate from the Aura platform that our members use. And your personal data never touches any government system. And nobody from Palantir or the government has access to your data, full stop. Let me just take a minute to talk about our privacy practices. Our privacy practices and our policies have consistently been reviewed and audited by independent third parties such as Mozilla and upguard. And we undergo regular third party audits of our security and privacy practices as part of certifications. We are always working on additional compliance things like multi factor authentication so that you will have absolute confidence that your account is secure and your data is secure. We are committed to innovating in the name of privacy and in the name of your security. And looking ahead, we continue to invest in the compliance programs that support that. Today we are supported by the most stringent compliance in the world. That's GDPR and hipaa. So that's how we earn your trust.
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So that's what the CEO had to say. Just to round out this conversation and close any possible loops. What we know is that Aura is expanding its already existing partnership with the DoD by building a new manufacturing plant in Texas. But that according to Aura, this expansion has no effect at all on personal data from everyday Aura users. Military data flows through a completely separate platform from consumer data, per Aura. Okay, so hopefully that clears things up for people. Now for some quick hitters. The Supreme Court has allowed ICE to continue stopping individuals in California for questions based on criteria such as speaking Spanish or gathering at locations where day workers often gather. Basically, immigration advocates filed a lawsuit against the administration arguing that these kinds of stops violated the Fourth Amendment because ICE lacked what's called reasonable suspicion, which is constitutionally required to justify a stop. In July, a lower court had ordered the DHS to discontinue the practice if the stops were based largely on a person's apparent ethnicity, language, or their presence at a particular location, like a farm or a bus stop. However, today the Supreme Court disagreed. Notably, the Supreme Court did not offer an explanation with the order, but Justice Kavanaugh wrote his own concurrence that said the circumstances the agents were considering, quote, taken together, can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States, end quote. Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent saying the order goes against the normal practice of the courts and allows the federal government to continue arresting people based on their appearance or job. An appeals court in New York upheld the $83 million defamation judgment against Donald Trump today, rejecting his claim of presidential immunity. The case stems from comments that Trump had made back in 2019 while he was president, accusing Eugene Carroll of lying about her allegations that he sexually assaulted her 90s. A jury previously found that Trump's remarks were defamatory and awarded her $83 million in damages. And then today, in a unanimous opinion, a three judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said the damages were reasonable given the extraordinary facts of the case. Jury selection began in the trial against Ryan Ruth, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at his Palm beach golf club last year. Ruth has pleaded not guilty to federal counts of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and multiple firearms violations. However, if he is convicted, he does potentially face a life sentence. Interestingly, Ruth is defending himself despite not being a lawyer, but he will have a court appointed counsel on standby. A little bit of lottery news for you. I was keeping you aware when the jackpot was rising, so I feel as as if it's my duty to let you know that there were two winners of the $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot over the weekend. The two winning tickets were sold in Missouri and Texas and the winners will have the option of taking in annuities prize of 893 and a half million or a lump sum payment of 410.3 million before taxes. Tickets winning $1 million were sold in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and West Virginia. There were also 232 tickets that won $50,000 prizes and 90 tickets that won $100,000 prizes. So a lot of winners there. Now, I did want to note quickly before we move to critical thinking, that I did have quite a few requests to talk about the Tylenol autism alleged link. However, I am going to wait until we have the report from the HHS before we talk about it. Right now we're just hearing rumblings that the HHS is going to make some announcement based on some report, but we don't have that report yet. The most detail that we have at this point is that people familiar with the matter have said that the report is likely to suggest as being among the potential causes of autism, low levels of the vitamin folate and Tylenol taken during pregnancy. But these, that's really all we know at this point. So I just want to wait until we have that report before we really dive into it. They're saying we should have the report sometime this month, but we will see. All right, let's now finish with critical thinking. The critical thinking segment is not meant to be too complex. It's not meant to stump you. It's just supposed to be an exercise for our brains. It's important that we ask ourselves why we feel a certain way about an issue. It's also important to try to familiarize ourselves with opposing viewpoints and arguments. So for today, let's revisit the Department of Defense name change. For those who support changing the name, consider that the department's responsibilities extend far beyond combat. Right. Things like disaster response, peacekeeping, cybersecurity, space operations, counterterrorism, evacuation operations, the list goes on. With that in mind, do you think the term Department of War accurately or fully reflects its mission and why or why not? For those that oppose the name change, I'm going to flip the perspective given the Department's history of involvement in wars. Do you believe Department of Defense is an accurate description or does it potentially understate the department's role? Why or why not? And then finally, I'd like to challenge you. This is kind of like a fun challenge to think of a name that comes closer to accurately depicting what the department does, something that's more accurate than the Department of Defense and more accurate than the Department of War. Let's see what you come up with. That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, I hope you have a fantastic next few days. Don't forget about the newsletter going out tomorrow and I will talk to you on Thursday.
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Episode Date: September 8, 2025
Main Topics: Department of Defense Renaming, Oura Ring & DoD, Chicago ICE Operations, Hyundai Plant Raid, Supreme Court & ICE, Legal News
Jordan Berman delivers an impartial, clarifying summary of recent developments in U.S. politics, law enforcement actions, legal news, and technology privacy concerns. The episode’s key focuses are President Trump’s push to reinstate the Department of War as the military’s alternate title, the expansion of Oura Ring’s partnership with the Department of Defense, ICE enforcement increases in Chicago, the record-breaking raid at a Hyundai battery plant, and recent Supreme Court and legal updates.
[03:00 – 11:00]
Order Details:
Historical Background:
Stated Purpose:
Executive order aims to “ensure peace through strength.”
From the order:
“The name Department of War, more than the current Department of Defense, ensures peace through strength as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our nation at a moment's notice, not just to defend.”
[06:40, Executive Order Text]
President Trump to reporters:
"I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength. We're very strong. We're much stronger than anyone would really understand."
[07:45, President Trump]
Secretary Hegseth on Fox News:
"We won World War I and we won World War II. Not with the Department of Defense, but with a War Department. We’ve re-established at the department the warrior ethos. … We think words and names and titles matter.”
[08:20, Secretary Hegseth]
Legal Reality:
[11:05 – 13:30]
[13:35 – 21:20]
Event Details:
Memorable Details:
“A handful of people ran into a sewage pond … Agents used a boat to fish them out of the water. One of the individuals swam under the boat and tried to flip it over … These people were captured and identified as illegal workers.”
[16:55, DOJ Press Release]
Context:
[23:00 – 27:00]
Confirmation from DHS:
“We’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois ... But we do intend to add more resources to those operations.”
[23:30, Secretary Noem]
Context:
Follows Trump’s threat to deploy National Guard to Chicago amid crime and sanctuary city policies.
Legal distinction:
Examples:
[27:00 – 31:30]
Oura Ring Overview:
New Partnership:
Data Privacy Concerns:
CEO Tom Hale clarifies in a video message:
“Aura will never sell your data. We will never share your data without your consent or your authorization. ... Your data is yours and yours always.”
“That DoD enterprise solution is separate, completely separate from the Aura platform that our members use. And your personal data never touches any government system.”
[28:35–31:30, Tom Hale]
Key Takeaway:
[31:35 – 36:30]
Supreme Court:
“The circumstances ... can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.”
[32:00, Kavanaugh]
Defamation Case: Trump & E. Jean Carroll:
Assassination Attempt Trial:
Lottery News:
Upcoming Tylenol–Autism Report:
[36:40 – 38:00]
| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Notable Moment | |-----------|----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:40 | Executive Order| “The name Department of War… ensures peace through strength as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars…” | | 07:45 | Trump | "I think it sends a message of victory.… We're much stronger than anyone would really understand." | | 08:20 | Hegseth | “We won World War I and II… with a War Department… We want warriors… We think words and names and titles matter.” | | 16:55 | DOJ | “A handful… ran into a sewage pond.… Used a boat to fish them out.… captured and identified as illegal workers.” | | 23:30 | Noem (DHS) | “We’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE… but intend to add more resources to those operations.” | | 28:35 | Tom Hale (CEO) | “Aura will never sell your data. We will never share your data without your consent or your authorization.… your data is yours and yours always.” | | 32:00 | Justice Kavanaugh| “The circumstances… can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal presence in the United States.” |
This episode broke down politically charged moves (renaming DoD, ICE expansions, international labor raids) and explored the tension between government actions and individual rights/concerns—in privacy (Oura/Palantir), due process (ICE/Supreme Court), and national identity (DoD naming debate). Berman provides historical context and legal clarification for each story, ending with a challenge for listeners to consider the accuracy and impact of institutional names.