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UNBIASED Politics
UNBIASED Politics (2/18/25): Tesla's $400M Government Contract, Mass Federal Firings, 'Make American Healthy Again Commission,' Possible Cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and More.
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This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Depending on where you live, you might be in the thick of winter, right? It's still cold, but it's been cold for months now and you are counting down the days until spring. Well, unfortunately I can't change the temperature for you as much as I would love to do that. But what I can do is get you 40% off your cozy Earth purchase to help keep you warm and relaxed while you wait for spring to arrive. My two favorite Cozy Earth items are my bamboo sheet set and my bamboo pajama set. Highly, highly recommend both. These sheets are incredibly soft and temperature regulating. I'll never forget the first time I put them on my bed and surprised my husband. The genuine joy in his face was so pure. And the pajamas are breathable yet buttery. And they look good. So whether you're just trying to look a little more put together around the house or on your morning coffee run, the bamboo pajama set will have you not only extremely comfortable, but also looking good too. Get 40% off your purchase at cozyearth.comunbiased or or use my code Unbiased when you check out. If you see a post purchase survey, let them know you heard about it right here. Don't wait. Comfort like this is calling your name. Stay cozy all winter long with Cozy Earth. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Tuesday, February 18th. Let's talk about some news. But before we do, I do have one favor to ask. It's a favor I don't think I've asked for in maybe a year, and, and that is to share this episode with at least one person you know or share another recent episode that you've especially loved or you found to be especially informative with at least one person you know. Obviously, the more the better, but I feel like the more people we can turn on to unbiased news, the better our world will be, the more informed our world will be. And that's what I would like to see. So if you can do me that favor, I would really, really appreciate it. I wanted to start this episode by adding on to a story from last Thursday about Section 504 and and the challenges it's facing from 17 different states. As I mentioned, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation act protects against disability discrimination in federally funded programs. So schools, hospitals, public transit, et cetera. But one important conversation, one important aspect of that conversation that I didn't get to despite many of you having questions about is what would happen to 504 plans in schools if 504 were to be struck down? 504 plans, for those who aren't familiar, are for students with disabilities who need special accommodations in schools to help them meet their needs in the classroom. But at its core, it is a civil rights statute, which means it demands that students with disabilities are given equal access to education. However, because it is a civil rights statute and not a law that actually establishes a program, it doesn't actually provide funding. And that'll come into play in this conversation in a minute. But I want to back up first to when Section 504 was first enacted. In 1973, Congress enacted Section 504 of the Rehabilitation act, which, as I said, is a civil rights statute that says all students with disabilities must have equal access to public education and extracurricular activities. Two years later, in 1975, Congress enacted a law called the Education for All Handicapped Children act, which entitled every child with a disability to what's called a free appropriate public education, which is designed to meet his or her individual needs. In 1990, that law was revised and reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education act, or idea, and that is what we know it as today. So there are two different laws we're talking about here. We have Section 504, the Civil Rights statute, and that is the one being challenged. And then we have idea, a federal programmatic statute. And the reason IDEA is considered a federal programmatic statute is because it requires specialized plans for students with disabilities called IEPs, or Individualized Instruction Plans. Section 504 did not actually create or require 504 plans. It just required that all students with disabilities are given equal access to education, which ultimately resulted in states creating 504 plans. And that's because some children with special needs are not qualified for or do not qualify for IEPs under IDEA. And therefore, because section 504 mandates that all children with disabilities are given equal Access to education, 504 plans were created for those students that don't qualify for IEPs yet still have special needs. To expand on that a bit more, for a child to be eligible for an IEP under IDEA, which, as the name implies, are more individualized than 504 plans and actually require comprehensive exams, the child has to meet certain criteria for eligibility in at least one of the 13 categories of disabled or or 13 categories of disabilities identified in the law. These categories are autism, a specific learning disability, speech or language impairments, an emotional disturbance, a traumatic brain injury, a visual impairment, a hearing impairment, deafness, mental retardation, deaf blindness, multiple disabilities, an orthopedic impairment, or other health impairment. Notably, ADD and ADHD are not defined categories under idea. But if a student's ADD or ADHD causes that student to meet the criteria of other disabilities like learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, or other health impairments, the student can qualify under idea. If a student does not meet the criteria for any of those 13 categories of disabilities, but the student has a mental or physical impairment that affects a a major life function such as walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, working, learning, things like that, the student is eligible for a 504 plan. Now, these disabilities could be asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, and more. Section 504 is much more broad than IDEA and does not include a limited list of disability categories. As you can maybe tell, disabilities like asthma, diabetes and epilepsy may require things like more nurse visits or additional accommodations, but those students may not necessarily qualify for IEPs under IDEA. So that's why 504 plans are important. Students who have 504 plans, they might get more travel time between classes, they might get more breaks, maybe extra instruction, maybe assistive devices. It really just depends on the disability. But to circle back to the question of what would happen to 504 plans if section 504 were struck down? The answer is that we don't exactly know. And that's because the effects would likely vary by school district as 504 plans currently do. You know? Because section 504 is a civil rights statute and therefore just requires equality but doesn't provide additional funding to schools. 504 plans rely on funds from general school districts budgets. This. And this means two things, right? So one, the availability and accessibility of 504 plans varies by district. And two, schools have to utilize existing funds to implement these 504 plans. In fact, that's why studies have shown that white students are more are twice as likely than black students or Hispanic students to have a 504 plan. Male students are almost twice as likely as female students to have 504 plans. If, if 504 plans were federally funded, you wouldn't see that disparity. Consequently, if 504 section 504 were struck down, nothing would happen to the funding for these plans because there is no funding in the first place. However, schools would no longer have a federal obligation to offer 504 plans, which means that some states might not offer them. Currently, the string that is attached to section 504 is other federal funding, meaning if states don't comply with section 504, they can lose other federal funding. Again, not 504 funding, because schools don't get 504 funding, but other funding could be at risk. Therefore, schools offer these 504 plans because they don't want to risk losing those other funds. But if 504 were to be struck down, schools would no longer be at risk of losing that other funding, which could result in some states just choosing not to offer 504 plans. So I just want to reiterate, if section 504 were ruled unconstitutional, it would be up to the individual states whether to continue offering these 504 plans. But no funding would be lost because there currently is no 504 federal funding. Now, I want to highlight a couple of different stances on this issue because remember, the whole reason this lawsuit was filed in the first place is because the states took issue with the Biden administration updating the definition of disabilities under section 504 to include gender dysphoria. What that meant is that if states did not offer 504 accommodations to students with gender dysphoria, they were now at risk of losing federal funding. The states feel that not only did the Biden administration exceed its authority when it added gender dysphoria to the list of covered 504 disabilities, but also that 504 as a whole is unconstitutional because it puts at risk federal funding unrelated to 504 disability discrimination. Now, on the other hand, you have people that say the gender dysphoria aspect of the lawsuit is just a ruse and that these states just don't want to offer accommodations to people with disabilities. So let me give you a couple of different perspectives. The attorney General of Utah, who is a party to the lawsuit, said in a statement, quote, I HEAR youR parents, Utah parents shouldn't have to worry if their children are receiving the services they need. Utah joined the lawsuit to challenge an unlawful regulation from the Biden administration adding gender dysphoria as a covered disability under section 504. The administration's unlawful actions could have put Utah's federal funding to help children receive these critical services in jeopardy. I am committed to protecting Section 504 accommodations for children, end quote. The attorney General for West Virginia, who is also a party to the lawsuit, said in a similar statement, quote, in our view, the goal of the lawsuit was to return 504 back to children who have disabilities contemplated when the 504 was created. The Biden administration added politically motivated language to the list of disabilities threatening the constitutionality of 504. This lawsuit was aimed at removing that particular language in order to protect section 504 as a whole and the children who rely on it. On the other side of the issue, though, the ACLU of West Virginia called that attorney general statement a bold faced lie. The ACLU wrote in its own statement, quote, while the lawsuit does take issue with the updated language protecting trans kids under the scope of 504, it also states that section 504 is unconstitutional and asks the court to permanently bar the government from enforcing 504 entirely, end quote. The statement also says that the 17 states are so focused on harming trans kids, they are willing to hurt disabled children as well. Now, who's telling the truth as to the real reason for the lawsuit? We don't know. But. But I'll tell you one way we might find out. The Trump administration can and likely will reverse the added gender dysphoria language. If that happens and the states still try to advance their lawsuit, we will know that the lawsuit is about more than just the added gender dysphoria language. In other words, if the Trump administration reverses the added language, the court will likely dismiss the case because at that point the case will be moot. And at that point, the states will either agree to drop the case or, or they'll try to continue with their claim that 504 is unconstitutional as a whole because it puts at risk unrelated federal funding. So let's wait and see what happens. But hopefully this conversation answered many of Your questions about 504 plans in schools and what the effects would be if 504 were struck down. I know that that conversation took a little bit. I mean, I think we're at about 12 minutes at this point, and section 504 doesn't apply to everyone. But this was a big component of the, you know, case that I didn't really talk about. And I know that there were a of people in my messages that asked me to talk about it. So like I said, hopefully that answered all of your questions. Let's now move on to the next story. On Sunday, the White House initially told reporters that an unnamed IRS employee affiliated with DOGE had accessed the Integrated Data Retrieval system within the IRS department. But then a few minutes later, the administration clarified and said the employee didn't yet have access, but was expected to seek access. Now, this got a lot of people talking because the IRS obviously has access to taxpayer information. And just like all of the other conversations surrounding DOGE and what the entity actually has the authority to do. People are wondering whether non federal employees are going to have access to their taxpayer information now that DOGE is seeking access to the IRS systems. And the answer is likely yes, but it'll depend on how the courts rule in all of these upcoming court battles. As we've talked about in previous episodes, the Department of Government Efficiency has been seeking access to various departments within the federal government to identify and get rid of waste, fraud and misuse within the government. However, given the fact that DOGE is a non federal agency, there are a lot of questions as to what authority DOGE actually has and whether DOGE can lawfully access classified information. And the short answer is that yes, outside entities and individuals can access classified information so long as they meet certain criteria, so long as they get certain certain security clearances. With that said, doge's access has already been challenged in multiple different lawsuits and those will have to play out in in the courts. In the meantime, though, DOGE is continuing to at least attempt to access various departments. The latest one is the irs. DOGE is specifically seeking access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System, which is a software program that the IRS uses to get access to taxpayer accounts. This system of course, contains taxpayer information like Social Security numbers, addresses, incomes, amounts owed to the government, property information and more. But some of the capabilities of the system include researching account information and requesting returns, entering adjustments, entity changes and other similar transactions, entering collection information and automatically generating notices, collection documents and other outputs. Now, it's unclear whether DOGE would have access to the entire system or would instead have read only access, which is what DOGE affiliates were granted by the Treasury Department. As the name implies, Read Only Access allows people with access to simply read the information in the system, but they can't actually take any actions or make any changes. Elon Musk, who runs doge, has said that federal workers are defrauding taxpayers, though he did not give specific examples or cite to specific evidence. A White House spokesperson similarly said it takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it. DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on. As of now, the IRS is reportedly considering what's called a Memo of Understanding with Doge, which is a non binding agreement that would give DOGE officials access to the IRS systems, property and data sets, including this integrated data retrieval system. Of course, if DOGE is granted access, we'll likely see yet another legal challenge and maybe, maybe we see a similar situation play out here. As we've seen, whenever Doge has attempted to gain access to other departments. As we've talked about, Doge is currently blocked by a court from accessing Treasury Department records and Doge is also temporarily blocked from accessing Education Department records, per an agreement that the Education Department reach with a student association at the University of California. So, like most things we shall see with time. Let's take our first break here so we can hear from my beloved sponsors and I will be right back. I was so excited when I learned that Neutrophil wanted to be a sponsor of Unbiased Politics because I personally know how difficult some hair journeys can be and everyone has their own journey with hair. But my hair has always been something that's a huge part of my identity for a lot of reasons. It's always been the one thing I can count on when it comes to my appearance because I actually deal with autoimmune conditions that affect both my face and my skin. So my hair health has always been that one thing that I've been able to count on. But about a year and a half ago I had my first experience with hair shedding and let me tell you, it is something I will never forget. It was awful and it's why I so appreciate what Nutrafol is doing. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. 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Okay, welcome back. Let's stay on the Elon Train for this next story and talk about this contract the government apparently had with Tesla to buy $400 million worth of armored Tesla trucks. Here's what we know early last year, the Biden administration asked the State Department to explore interest from private companies to produce armored electric vehicles. This was the first step in a process meant to shift the Bureau of Democratic Security's existing fleet of armored cars into electric cars by 2035. So in April of last year, the State Department released a public request for information regarding the armoring and purchasing of electric vehicles. The State Department thereafter said only Tesla responded to that request. In December, the State department released their 2025 procurement forecast, which provides projections of possible contract opportunities for the upcoming year. One of those contracts, in fact the largest contract, was a contract for $400 million worth of armored Teslas. The money was to be awarded on September 30th of this year. However, the Trump administration has since put that contract on hold and says that there are no current plans to use it. As we know, things have changed a bit since the initial release of the procurement forecast in December. Most notably, President Trump took office and Elon Musk has been playing a big part in the administration. This resulted in the increased media coverage surrounding the potential contract. The story was originally published by Dropsite News, but was later picked up by more mainstream outlets like NPR and the New York Times. And at that point, the State Department went ahead and edited the procurement forecast to say armored electric vehicles instead of armored Teslas. And now, as of today, the most up to date procurement forecast says nothing about the $400 million contract at all. That row in the spreadsheet is entirely deleted. There is not one $400 million contract, let alone one for armored vehicles. Now here's the thing because I want to give you the full picture of this procurement forecast as it pertains to this story. As of December, there were three contracts listed for armored vehicles, armored Tesla production units for $400 million, armored BMW X5 and X7 for $50 million, and armored EV Knot sedan for $40 million. In the most updated spreadsheet, though, the row for armored Tesla production units has been deleted entirely. The row for armored EV not sedan has also been deleted entirely. The BMW X5X7 row is still there, though the contract price has been reduced down to 40 million from 50 million and a new row has been added for armored sedan, which has a contract price of $50 million. So to be clear, the $400 million Tesla contract is gone entirely. The State Department said that typically the next step in the process once that procurement forecast is released, would be an official solicitation for car manufacturers to compete for the contract. But it said the solicitation is now on hold and there are no plans of fulfilling the contract. Moving on Late last week, the House Budget committee approved a 2025 proposed budget resolution, which will now head to the full House for a vote. Importantly, while this resolution is worth talking about because it kind of tells us where the Republican Party's head is at as far as spending cuts and funding, there is a lot of confusion about what a budget resolution actually is. So I think we must explain that first. Typically, by the first Monday in February, the President is supposed to submit a budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. However, presidents don't always make this deadline. Once that proposal is submitted to Congress, though, the House and Senate start working on a budget resolution, which is basically an agreement between the House and Senate, and it serves as an overall revenue and spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget resolution does not go to the President's desk for signature and is therefore not law. Instead, it guides lawmakers as they fund the government for for the upcoming year. And another important thing about this particular resolution is that it includes reconciliation instructions, which, put the most simply, means that if the budget resolution is ultimately adopted by both the House and the Senate when it comes time to pass funding bills, the Senate would only need a simple majority to pass bills rather than the 60 votes that are needed to pass the filibuster, which then ultimately leads to a vote. But anyway, it would essentially change the laws of the Senate if adopted, to say that once these appropriations bills are voted on in the Senate, they would just need a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to pass the filibuster. Not all budget resolutions include reconciliation instructions, but this one does. And here's a final note to make. Although the Congressional Budget act sets an April 15th target date for the budget resolution, the resolution has been late for 30 of the past 49 fiscal years. In fact, the resolution for fiscal year 2021 was delayed the longest, not passing until February of the following year, two months before the next year's resolution was due. Resolutions are obviously a troublesome task for Congress. So as you can imagine, just because the one we're about to talk about passed a House committee doesn't necessarily mean it's going to pass both the House and Senate anytime soon. But maybe it does. Who really knows? So let's assume for a second that a budget resolution is adopted by both the House and Senate. Once that happens, that is when Congress starts working on the 12 different appropriations bills which fund and set the budgets for each executive department for the upcoming fiscal year. If these appropriations don't pass by the time current funding expires, that is when Congress will usually pass what's called a continuing resolution to keep funding levels the same or the government shuts down. So with that background, knowing a little bit about what a budget resolution is, let's talk about what this resolution provides for. One, it proposes $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is spending that is required by existing law. So this type of spending includes funding for programs like Medicare, Social Security, military pensions, veterans benefits, required interest, spending on the federal debt, and more. Now, the only thing we know at this point from the actual proposed resolution is that it proposes $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending. We don't know any details about which particular area of spending would be cut and by how much. However, with $2 trillion in proposed cuts, programs like Medicare and Social Security would likely see a reduction in funding. In fact, moderates, moderate Republicans within the House have already expressed concern over these likely cuts to programs like Medicaid, and a handful have said that they are undecided whether they'll. They'll support the measure because of it. And in order for this resolution to pass the House, you know, because of the relatively tight margins, you can't, the Republicans can't really afford to lose any, any Republican representatives. Similarly, the resolution proposes cutting $230 billion from the Department of Agriculture, which administers propos programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as snap. The Agriculture Department is also responsible for funding various loans and grants for farmers. They offer disaster assistance, crop insurance programs, and more. The resolution suggests cutting about $330 billion in education related funding, which could include programs like Pell grants and Title 1 funding. But again, I want to stress from this proposal, we don't know what, where the actual cuts are going to be. We just know what the committee has proposed, the amounts that the committee has proposed cutting in each area of funding. So moving on, it proposes an increase in funding for veteran services. It proposes $880 billion in cuts to energy related funding, a $90 billion increase in funding related to homeland security, and more. Now, lawmakers are pretty split on how they feel about this proposal, depending on which side of the aisle they're on. Democrats say the resolution will reduce funding for critical social programs which will negatively impact seniors and low income families while benefiting wealthy corporations. They claim it'll increase economic inequality and reduce access to health care. Republicans, on the other hand, support the resolution, saying that it'll cut government spending, reduce the national debt, encourage economic growth through tax cuts, and strengthen national security by prioritizing defense spending. Again, as of now, the resolution has yet to be voted on by the full House. It simply passed a House committee. If the resolution does ultimately pass the House, though, it'll move on to the Senate. And keep in mind, both the House and Senate have to pass the resolution with the exact same language for it to be adopted. So if anything changes in one of the chambers, it has to be again passed by the other chamber, so on and so forth. Okay, let's talk about these mass firings and what's going on, or at least what we think is going on. Because most of the things that I'm about to tell you are coming from anonymous sources who are reporting on meetings between the Office of Personnel Management officials and agency leaders. And therefore, I unfortunately have not been able to verify these claims beyond mainstream media reports because the contents of these alleged meetings have not been made public and because even in the reports, there are many discrepancies. So take this story with a grain of salt. And I should clarify too. We know people are getting fired and laid off. That is not where the discrepancies lie. Where the discrepancies lie is in the details. We don't know exactly how many employees have been fired and whether in this latest round of layoffs all, all fired employees were probationary employees or whether some were official employees. Those are the details that, that we have not confirmed so last week, the Trump administration allegedly told federal agencies to fire probationary employees within multiple agencies. Probationary employees are federal employees that are within their first year of employment, in some cases their first two years. Most new federal employees have to complete at least one year of a probationary period before becoming an official federal employee. And during that probationary period, the employee can be fired at any point by their employer. They have far fewer protections than regular employees. Per federal regulations, federal agencies are to utilize this probationary period as as fully as possible to determine the fitness of the employee. And if that employee fails to demonstrate fully his or her qualifications for continued employment, that employee must be fired. So on Friday, hundreds of probationary employees within the FAA received layoff notices. Those affected worked as maintenance mechanics, aeronautical information specialists, environmental protection specialists, aviation safety assistants, and management and program assistants. Critics have called into question the firing of these employees despite an already understaffed FAA and the recent flying incidents that have taken place within the United States. The Transportation Department, though, said despite these layoffs, the FAA has continued to hire and onboard air traffic controllers and safety professionals, and that it has kept employees who perform safety critical functions. On Saturday, so, a day after the FAA layoffs, hundreds of probationary employees who worked for the CDC received similar notices. Though the administration told CDC leaders that they plan to fire upwards of about 1300 probationary employees at the CDC, workers were also notified. At the National Institutes of Health, roughly 1,000 National Park Service employees were also fired, 800 Bureau of Land Management employees, roughly 400 employees from the EPA, an unspecified number of employees within the Agriculture department, more than 60 probationary employees within the Education Department, thousands of probationary employees in the Department of Health and human services, roughly 1,000 probationary employees within the Department of Veterans affairs, and between 1200 and 2000 employees within the Energy Department. About 300 of those Energy Department employees worked specifically on the country's nuclear weapons programs. And on Friday, one day after the termination notices were sent out, most of those notices were actually rescinded. Department officials have said that less than 50 employees were actually dismissed. Another important aspect of the story is that many of the probationary employees were let go and told in their notice that their perform their performance didn't justify further employment. However, it's also been reported that many of these employees were rated as exceptional by their supervisors. Allegedly earlier in the week. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management had told agencies that they didn't have to terminate all probationary workers, but should focus on those that have been underperforming. So it's unclear whether that directive changed in some way by the end of the week, whether agencies are prioritizing those that have been underperforming or what. Like I said, a lot of discrepancies in the reporting. But that is what we know as of now. And also it's worth mentioning, even though I know you know this, but this stuff is constantly changing and updating. So what I'm telling you is current as of Monday, but it is definitely subject and likely to to change. Speaking of government firings, though, the first Trump administration appeal related to its firings has made its way to the Supreme Court, the administration is asking the justices to uphold the firing of Hampton Dellinger, the special counsel of the Office of Special Counsel. So here's the issue. Dellinger was in the middle of a five year term when he was fired. He was nominated by President Biden towards the end of 2023. He was subsequently confirmed by the Senate in February 2024. That means at the time of his firing last month, he was just shy of one year into his five year term. Earlier this month, on February 7, Dellinger received an email that said, on behalf of the President, I am writing to inform you that your position as special Counsel of the U.S. office of Special Counsel is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service. But according to Dellinger, the firing was unlawful because federal law says that a special counsel can only be removed by the president for either inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance while in office. Dellinger says none of these reasons apply to him, yet he was fired anyway and therefore he must be reinstated and the lower court agreed with him. The district court reinstated his position. The administration then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which declined the administration's request. And now the administration is heading to the Supreme Court. Basically, what the administration is asking the Supreme Court to do is put the district court's order on hold because the district court hasn't actually made a final decision on the merits of the case yet. What the district court did is it issued a temporary injunction or a temporary restraining order against the administration. And in effect, what that does is prevents the administration from enforcing Dellinger's termination until the court makes a final decision on the merits of the case, once it hears arguments from both sides and all of that. So depending on what the Supreme Court decides to do with Trump's request, the district court's temporary restraining order against the administration will either remain in effect and Dellinger will keep his position, or the restraining order will be lifted and Dellinger will be removed from his position to quickly touch on the administration's argument, because I briefly touched on Dellinger's argument. So now let's talk about the administration. The administration says that it has unrestricted authority to remove executive Officers under Article 2 of the Constitution and that Congress nor the courts can interfere, can interfere with that core constitutional power. The administration cited to a recent instance in 2021 where President Biden fired the sole head of the Social Security Administration without cause. Now, there are obviously, obviously some differences there, the main one being that the head of the Social Security Administration is different than the special Counsel of the U.S. office of Special Counsel. And here's why. This case actually presents a pretty interesting question because on one hand, yes, the President does have Article 2 removal power, meaning he can remove all officers that are appointed by the President without being checked by Congress or the courts. And of course, the special Counsel of the U.S. office of Special Counsel is an appointed position. But then on the other hand, you have the fact that Congress specifically enacted a law that lays out the exact circumstances when a special counsel specifically can be removed from their position by the President. And, and courts put a lot of weight on congressional intent. So this particular law in question signals that Congress did not intend for Article 2 removal power or for the Article 2 removal power to extend to special counsels. But like I said, interesting question, which the courts will have to sort out. Let's take our second and final break of the day. When I come back, we'll talk about the Make America Healthy Commission, Kennedy's comments on SSRIs, and, and we'll do some quick hitters. Today's episode is sponsored by acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to be an expert. ACORNS will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you start with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. So a few years ago, I found myself in a pretty tough spot financially. I had to quit my job as a lawyer. I started a company on my own. And I got to a point where I depleted my entire savings account trying to get that company off the ground. After feeling what that felt like, I told myself I would never let myself feel that again. And I knew that one of the ways I could avoid that feeling was by investing my money, something my dad has actually preached to me since I was a little girl. But at the time I didn't have much, so I wasn't sure I could even start investing. I I always thought you had to have a big bank account to start, but to my surprise I happily learned that wasn't the case. Sign up now and join the over 13 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $22 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.comunbiased or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier one compensation provided investing involves risk. 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All right, with that, let's move on to the final story Following Kennedy's confirmation as HHS Secretary, President Trump sent an executive order titled Establishing the President's Make America Healthy Again Commission. As we talked about, an executive order sets forth a purpose or policy and then directives to carry out that purpose or policy. In this order, the President states that it is the policy of the federal government to aggressively combat the critical health challenges facing our citizens, including the rising rates of mental health disorders, obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases. To implement that policy, the Order issues various directives. To start, the Order directs all federally funded health research to empower Americans through transparency the National Institutes of Health to prioritize gold standard research on the root causes of why Americans are getting sick. Federal agencies are to work with farmers to ensure that US Food is the healthiest, most abundant and most affordable in the world and federal agencies shall make available expanded treatment options and the flexibility for health insurance coverage to provide benefits that support beneficial life changes and disease prevention. Next, the Order establishes the Make America Healthy Again Commission. This Commission is to be chaired by RFK Jr as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. But others on the Commission include the Agriculture Secretary, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Education Secretary, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, and nine others. The Commission's initial mission, according to the Executive Order, is to advise and assist the President on how best to exercise his authority to address the childhood chronic disease crisis. This includes studying the scope of any potential contributing causes of childhood disease, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, government policies, food production techniques, corporate influence, and more. Within 100 days of the order, the Make America Healthy Again Commission is to provide an assessment to the President called the Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment. It will identify and describe childhood chronic disease in America compared to other countries. It will assess the threat of overutilization of medication and certain chemicals assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of SSRIs, antipsychotics, mood stablers, stimulants, and weight loss drugs. And it'll evaluate the effectiveness of existing educational programs with regard to nutrition, physical activity and mental health for children. And then finally, within 180 days of the order, the Commission must present a strategy to the President based on the findings from the Make Our Children Healthy Again assessment. And that strategy must address how to appropriately restructure the federal government's response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, which will include ending federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis or unsuccessfully attempt to address it and adding new solutions to end childhood chronic disease. So that is what the executive order says and establishes. Now I always like to address your guys specific concerns when I can. And I received a lot of messages about SSRIs and other prescriptions like Adderall and what might happen to those with this new commission and with Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. So a little bit about SSRIs or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. SSRIs are a class of antidepressants that work by increasing the levels of serotonin in the brain. More common SSRIs include drugs like Zoloft, Lexapro, and Prozac. According to an article in the journal titled Pediatrics, about half a million children and adolescents in the United States receive prescriptions for SSRIs each year. There are warning labels that come with SSRIs which say that they could increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders. And the medical community also acknowledges that there are risks associated with antidepressants. But but they also say that the benefits are believed to outweigh the risks and that these medications significantly reduce suicide rates. Over the years, RFK Jr. Has been critical of the pharmaceutical industry generally, but in recent years he has made some remarks that people find to be questioning. So about a year ago, Kennedy appeared on the Capitol Hill show, and in talking about gun violence, particularly against children, he said that the National Institutes of Health has not studied the causes of gun violence since 1996. He says NIH needs to be studying them to see if there's connections to some of the SSRI and psychiatric drugs people are taking or if there's connections to video games. He went on to say that there are other countries that have comparable numbers of guns that we have in the United States, but that those other countries have far less shootings and that something different is happening here and it needs to be studied. He's made similar comments like that one. I have a few clips and videos linked for you in the Sources section of this episode if you're interested in watching them. But more recently, at his recent confirmation hearing, he touched on what he believes is the addictive nature of SSRIs, saying, quote, I know people, including members of my family, who have had a much worse time getting off SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin. By the way, Kennedy himself was once a heroin user. But regardless, medical experts have given their 2 cents on Kennedy's comments. So to give you the other side, Colin Davidson, a professor of neuropharmacology, seemed to agree with Kennedy, saying, RFK Jr. Has made several debatable statements related to health, including, for example, on vaccinations. On this occasion, though, concerning antidepressants, there is considerable evidence that coming off of SSRIs can be very difficult, but for most people it is unlikely that it would be as difficult as coming off of heroin, end quote. Professor Keith Humphries, an expert in psyche, psych, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, had a different take. He said, quote, antidepressants and heroin are in different universes when it comes to addiction risk. In my 35 years in the addiction field, I've met only two or three people who thought they were addicted to antidepressants versus thousands who were addicted to heroin and other opioids, end quote. So those were some of his comments on SSRIs, addiction and gun violence. But many of you also wanted me to touch on Kennedy's comments about sending people who use SSRIs to what some of you referred to as camps. Back In July of 2024, Kennedy appeared on the Latino Capitalist podcast and he talked about his plans for overhauling addiction treatment programs, something he's talked about on many occasions on that podcast. He said addicts, whether addicted to opioids, SSRIs, benzos, or Adderall, would be able to receive treatment on tech free wellness farms or drug rehabilitation centers in rural areas of the U.S. he said these people would be able to spend as much time as they want there, even three or four years if they need it, in order to get quote unquote reparented to fund these wellness farms. He said he would move Cannabis off Schedule 1 and start collecting taxes on it, and that tax revenue would fund the wellness farm so people could go there for free. While there, he said that people can grow their own organic food because he says a lot of behavioral issues and illnesses are food related. And again, he has talked about this on multiple occasions, but that podcast discussion was just one instance. So what can we expect to happen with SSRIs and other prescriptions like Adderall? We don't know. And I hate to say that because that's what I usually say, but that's the truth. We just don't know right now. We don't know if the HHS is going to recommend making some drugs legal that are currently illegal or making some drugs illegal that are currently legal. We don't know if it's going to become a more difficult process to get a script for prescription drugs like SSRIs and Adderall. We don't know if the changes are going to be, you know, targeted at just kids rather than adults. We just don't know. But hopefully that answered a lot of your questions and now we can do a few quick hitters to close out this episode. Of course, we have to start off with the Delta flight that flipped upside down on a Toronto Runway yesterday. A Delta regional jet, which had taken off from Minneapolis, was landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport when things did not go as planned. Thankfully, all 80 people on board survived, though 18 people were injured. Two of the 18 are said to have critical injuries, but not life threatening. We know that it was about 18 degrees Fahrenheit at the time of landing. We also know it was pretty gusty. But from what it looks like. So there's new video footage, and what it looks like is the plane smacked down pretty hard on the Runway when it landed, and that force looks like it might have caused the rear landing gear to fail. Whether it snapped off, I don't know. But it seems that something happened to that rear landing gear because of the forceful landing, and that caused the plane to go belly down and then slide before it ultimately flipped over. An aviation specialist and former inspector general with the Department of Transportation noted that there was no attempt to flare at all, which is when the pilot pulls the nose up just before landing, exposing the wings to more air resistance. This is meant to slow the plane down. However, it is still early. Investigations are currently ongoing. That's what we know as of now. In some other news, the US army announced on On X that it will no longer allow transgender people to join the military and will stop performing or facilitating procedures associated with gender transition for service members. This announcement follows President Trump's executive order which directed the Pentagon to establish a policy for transgender service members that aligns with the United States policy that individuals with gender dysphoria cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. And the judge overseeing Mayor Eric Adams case will decide tomorrow whether to grant the DOJ's request to dismiss the charges against him. If you want to know more about what's going on there, you can tune into last week's episode for this last one. Remember how we spoke about POLITICO's monetary awards from the government a couple of weeks ago? Well, this time Thomson Reuters has found itself in a similar situation. If you go to usaspending.gov, you can find a four year, $9 million award between the Department of Defense and and Thomson Reuters Special Services. The contract began in 2018 during Trump's first administration and ended in 20 in 2022 during Biden's administration. But the part that has a lot of people talking is the award description, which says Active Social Engineering Defense Large Scale Social Deception Thomson Reuters Special Services CEO Steve Rubley has since released a statement saying in part that the contract description has inaccurately represented the nature of the business between Thomson Reuters Special Services and the Department of Defense and has incorrectly conflated Reuters News with trss, a separate legal entity that operates independently from Reuters News. Rubley added, quote, trss has provided software and information services to U.S. government agencies across successive administrations for decades to assist in identifying and preventing fraud, supporting public safety and advancing justice. A spokesperson for the U.S. defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said in part that Thomson Reuters Special Services was competitively selected to serve as the evaluator to test the defensive tools and they assessed the effectiveness of our defensive tools. Thomson Reuters Special Services website says it offers customized mission critical services and actionable intelligence that exposes vulnerabilities across Department of Defense commands, programs and missions. That is what I have for you today. Please don't forget to share this episode or a recent episode that you loved with at least one person in your life. Have a great next couple of days and I will be back with you on Thursday.
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