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UNBIASED Politics
UNBIASED Politics (2/24/25): 'List 5 Things' Email to Federal Employees, TPS Status Shortened for Haitians, AP News Sues Trump, New ICE Memo Targets Unaccompanied Children, 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 Monday, February 24th. Let's talk about some news. So let's start with some news from the end of last week and then we'll work our way to some news from today. At the end of last week, the Senate passed their own budget resolution and as we discussed last week, the House has already passed their own budget resolution. So I want to talk about the differences between the two, but I also want to quickly remind you what about what a budget resolution is and talk about what we can expect from here. Keep in mind the budget process is a two step process. First, a budget resolution, which is what we're talking about here. A budget resolution is a non binding blueprint that essentially outlines the fiscal goals of Congress but does not have the force of law. To get to the second step in the process, which does have the force of law and is known as a reconciliation bill. An identical budget resolution must be adopted by both the House and Senate. The reconciliation bill is what will ultimately guide Congress in appropriating funds for each department of the government. But we're not there yet. We're still on step one, the budget resolution. And as of right now, the Senate and the House have two different resolutions, so they'll need to reconcile their differences in order to get to step two. But let's talk about what those differences are as a refresher. The House resolution is much more expansive and expensive. Expensive? It proposes $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory spending over the next 10 years, $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, and a 4 trillion dollar increase to the national debt limit. None of those amounts are included in the Senate budget resolution. The Senate is pushing a more narrow budget resolution focused on increasing spending for immigration, national security and domestic energy production, and outlines a broader deficit reduction strategy than the House. As for Trump's tax cuts, those are not included in the Senate's resolution. The Senate says it'll deal with that down the road in separate legislation. So again, because the resolutions passed by the House and Senate do differ, the next step is for both chambers to reconcile those differences to produce a unified resolution. This process typically involves a conference committee, which is a group of appointed members from both the House and the Senate who negotiate to resolve disparities between the two versions. Once an agreement is reached, that's when the new agreed upon budget resolution is presented to both chambers for their approval. And if that passes both chambers, that is when the reconciliation process can begin and Congress can start enacting tax and spending laws that meet their agreed upon fiscal goals. Moving on Last week the Trump administration announced it'll be canceling temporary Protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians that were granted the status under the Biden administration. So provide a bit of a To provide a bit of a background. Under the Biden administration, temporary protected status was expanded to around 1 million immigrants from 17 different countries Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and more specifically for the Haitians. The Biden administration granted the most recent TPS protections in July 2024, which were supposed to last through February 2026. The Trump administration now says the TPS protections for Haitians will end in August of this year. Now, Temporary Protected Status was created by Congress in 1990 and it guarantees that migrants who are unable to return to their country due to unrest or natural disaster can remain in the United States via work authorization without fearing deportation. TPS is intended for natives of certain countries with ongoing crises, ongoing war, instability, etc. And it doesn't provide a long term path to citizenship, but rather an 18 month maximum if it's granted. It protects immigrants regardless of if they enter the country illegally or illegally. Haitian immigrants specifically have been extended TPS status since 2010 through continuous government renewals. It started after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated the nation in 2010. It was later renewed by the Biden administration in 2021 following civil unrest after the the assassination of the Haitian president. And it was renewed again most recently in 2024. Notably, according to a United nations report, gangs currently control 85% of the Haitian capital and 5,600 were killed in gang violence last year. And sexual assault in Haiti increased against children by 1000% last year. To give you some numbers as to how many Haitians are currently eligible for TPS protections and how many have been eligible in the past. Following that 2010 earthquake, DHS estimated 57,000 Haitians eligible to register for TPS. When status was renewed in 2021, DHS estimated 155,000 Haitians eligible. And when status was renewed Most recently in 2024, DHS estimated 520,000 Haitians eligible. So like I said, this most recent extension was granted in July 2024. It was supposed to last for 18 months until February 2026. But last week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a memo directive that said in part, quote, for decades the TPS system has been exploited and abused and allowed Haitians who entered the US Illegally to qualify for legal protected status. Biden and Mayorkas attempted to tie the hands of the Trump administration by extending Haiti's TPS by 18 months, far longer than necessary or justified. President Trump and Secretary Noem are returning TPS to its original status temporary, end quote. And again, just to be clear, US law does allow TPS for a maximum of 18 months at a time. Biden's most recent extension was for that 18 month maximum. But per the new memo, TPS for Haitians will expire on August 3rd of this year, which will essentially limit TPS to 12 months rather than 18. And by the way, I previously reported at the beginning of this month that the Trump administration had vacated TPS status for Venezuelans and that move is currently facing legal challenges. So it's likely this new memo will be challenged as well. For this next story, and this is one many of you wrote in about, there's a new bill that was introduced by Republican lawmakers that might undo a Biden administration registration rule that limits bank fees or bank overdraft fees at $5. So here's the deal. This past December, the former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director announced a new rule that would in some cases limit bank overdraft fees to $5, down from the current average of $27 at the time. The CFPB said the rule was meant to close a loophole that exempted overdraft loans overdraft fees from lending laws. In the rulemaking process, the CFPB found that some banks strategize to maximize overdraft fees by setting new rules without actually notifying customers and would manipulate the processing order of transactions to generate more fees for the banks. CFPB said the rule would save households that consistently pay overdraft fees about $225 a year. So basically, under this rule, banks with more than $10 billion in assets had three choices they they could either cap overdraft fees at $5, adjust their fees to only cover their costs and losses, or disclose the terms of overdraft fees up front. And that rule was or is supposed to take effect in October. However, Republican lawmakers have since introduced a resolution that would block that rule from taking effect. They argue that if banks cannot charge a large enough fee, banks will instead just block people from making transactions at all if the account holder doesn't have enough funds. Consequently, those who overdraft often will simply be declined for making a transaction rather than being loaned the money to do so. Republicans and lobbyists say they're trying to protect consumer choice. In other words, if the rule goes into effect and leads to banks cutting off consumer transactions entirely when the consumer doesn't have sufficient funds, the consumer won't have the choice to spend or the ability to spend. So two Republican congressmen, Senator Tim Scott and Representative French Hill, have introduced a joint resolution called a Congressional Review act, which if passed, will block the CFPB rule from taking effect. Notably, Congressional Review act resolutions are exempt from the filibuster rule in the Senate, meaning they only need a simple majority to pass. Because of that, it is looking like this resolution will pass if all Republicans are on board and the rule would then be blocked from taking effect. Those that support, support the CFPB rule and oppose this new joint resolution argue that the resolution serves the interests of big banks and financial institutions rather than hard working Americans. They cite to the fact that the bank of New York Mellon, the 13 largest bank in the country, was Representative Hill's top funding contributor last year. Hill himself is a former CEO of a community bank in Arkansas. Goldman Sachs was Senator Scott's top funding contributor last year and over the course of Scott's political career he has received more than $5.3 million in campaign funds from Financial Services. The IRS began laying off 6,000 new agency employees last week, which is about 6% of the IRS workforce, per an IRS email. Under an executive order, the IRS has been directed to terminate probationary employees who were not deemed critical to filing season. Those impacted are said to include revenue agents, customer service workers, specialists who hear tax disputes, and IT workers. More than 3,500 of the 6,000 are from just one division, the IRS Small Business Self Employed Division, which helps with debt resolution and ensures that roughly 57 million small business owners comply with tax obligations. Ahead of the layoffs, the IRS reportedly combed through an initial list of approximately 15,000 probation probationary employees to try to ensure that no one being laid off plays a direct role in filing season. However, those within the IRS still have concerns that the firings could cause delays this tax season. Now, the IRS has been hit the hardest when it comes to terminations. And it's no coincidence that during the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction act increased IRS funding over the next 10 years by $80 billion. And that has, in part, the intended and expected result of bringing on roughly 87,000 new IRS employees. Independent budget analysts estimate that the staff expansion would boost government revenue and narrow budget deficits, mainly due to increased tax enforcement against the wealthy. However, at the time of the Inflation Reduction Act's passage, and still today, Republican lawmakers were against it. So Trump's move to fire 6% of the IRS workforce isn't necessarily unexpected. And as we know, this move to fire IRS employees is part of a greater effort to reduce the overall federal workforce. The Trump administration supposedly has plans to merge the U.S. postal Service with the Commerce Department. But to be clear, there's some conflicting reporting. So some reports are saying that the President is preparing to issue an executive order to disband the board that oversees the U.S. postal Service and put the agency under the direct control of the Commerce Department. But then people within the White House have said that's not happening. So there's a bit of confusion here. However, let's go through what we know. When Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was sworn in last week, President Trump was asked about his plans to merge USPS with the Commerce Department. And in response to that, he said, quote, well, we want to have a post office that works well and doesn't lose massive amounts of money. And, and we're thinking about doing that. And it'll be a form of a merger, but it'll remain the Postal Service, and I think it'll operate a lot better than it has been over the years, end quote. Notably, Trump tried to privatize the Postal Service in his first term, which is something other countries have done and different than what he's proposing now. But that plan to privatize lacked support from Congress and labor unions at the time, and nothing happened with it. Now, Trump's whole reason for wanting to do something with the Postal Service, as he said during Lutnik swearing in, is to stop the losses. To give you some numbers, since the 1970 reorganization of the Post Office, USPS has been largely self funded. The bulk of its $78.5 billion annual budget comes from customer fees. Congress provides about 50 million of that 78 and a half billion to help subsidize free and reduced cost mail services, but the rest is entirely self funded. Due to the decline in first class mail and the cost of retiree benefits, the Postal Service has accumulated $87 billion in losses between 2007 and 2020. Now, as far as the potential disbanding of the U.S. postal Board and merging the Postal Service with the Commerce Department, it's unclear whether the President has the authority to do this without Congress's help, and the Postal Board is expected to challenge any attempt to disband it. The thing is, is that the Postal Board members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Per the president's Article 2 removal power. He has broad discretion in removing anyone the President appoints. However, the situation may be different if he's planning on disbanding the entire board rather than just one or two members. The other thing is that the Postal Service is an independent agency, and as we talked about last week, independent agencies are a bit more insulated when it comes to the amount of power the President has. Because of this, it's unlikely Trump could merge USPS with the Commerce Department without proper authorization from Congress. Like I said, as of now, the President has not issued an executive order, so we're still unsure of whether the President is going to ultimately try to do anything with usps. But stay tuned because I will keep you updated if an order does ultimately get signed. Let's take our first break of the episode here. When we come back, we'll talk about a UnitedHealCare fraud investigation and much, much.
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Welcome back. According to a report from the Wall street journal, the DOJ is investigating UnitedHealthcare for potential fraud, specifically how UnitedHealthcare records diagnoses that result in extra payments from the government. So the DOJ thinks UHC may have been inflating diagnoses to profit off of higher payments on Medicare Advantage plans. Basically, the federal government pays private insurers like UnitedHealthcare to provide insurance benefits beyond traditional Medicare coverage. These payments will increase when patients are diagnosed with certain conditions or diseases or diagnosed with additional conditions and diseases, which then potentially incentivizes insurers to identify additional illnesses. Right. The more illnesses or the more severe the illness, the more the insurance company can get paid. Now, Medicare is a federal health insurance program specifically for people 65 years or older or people younger than 65 that have certain disabilities. A Medicare Advantage plan, also called Part C, is what private insurers like UnitedHealthcare offer. Medicare Advantage plans are Medicare approved plans, you know, approved by the federal government from private companies that offer an alternative to original Medicare, and it's paid for by the federal government. In 2023, 49% of Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, and that number has only increased since then. So again, a crucial component to the story is the fact that the federal government pays for these plans. Reports are now saying that UnitedHealthcare has allegedly used software to suggest additional diagnoses to doctors offering bonuses for increased reporting of other conditions. Because, as we said, the more conditions, the more money they get paid from the government. Importantly, UnitedHealthcare has denied any wrongdoing. It has said that it continues to comply with with federal regulations. According to the Wall street journal, in 2021, $8.7 billion in federal funds were paid to UnitedHealthcare for diagnoses patients were never actually treated for. Now onto this federal email, the story everyone's requesting. On Saturday, the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to federal employees asking them to list five things they accomplished last week. The subject line reads what did you do last week? The body of the email instructed employees to reply with five bullet points summarizing their work accomplishments from the previous week and to CC their managers, but also cautioned employees not to include any classified information, links or attachments. The response deadline was set for Today, Monday at 11:59pm Eastern Time. Importantly, the email did not say what would happen if employees chose not to respond to the email. However, Elon Musk, despite having no decision making authority, wrote on X that failure to respond would be taken as resignation so let's talk a little bit about the opm, what role it plays in the government, what authority it has, and how Elon Musk factors into this entire situation. The Office of Personnel Management, or the opm, is an independent agency of the federal government that operates under the direction of the President and manages the federal workforce. This includes overseeing federal employee policies, benefits, hiring practices, etc. It's basically the HR department for the government. The OPM does not hire or fire employees outside of the opm. It can recommend that outside departments issue layoffs, but it cannot actually issue layoffs itself. Elon Musk does not have a role within the opm, but his role as a special government employee grants him the ability to contribute his expertise from the priority private sector to public service initiatives. This means he can offer his opinion and his thoughts, but he doesn't have any decision making power himself. However, because of his influence he's had over the government's decisions since Inauguration Day, people are concerned that if they don't respond to the OPM email, they may be fired by their respective agencies and departments. Per Musk's suggestion, Musk followed up his post on X regarding termination with another post that said, quote, to be clear, the bar here is very low. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable. Should take less than five minutes to write. End quote. So can the OPM demand five bullet points? That is the question. Since the email was sent out, some federal departments have instructed their employees to ignore the email, at least for now, while they await more guidance. At least one department has instructed employees to respond to the email and one lawsuit has been filed. So here's what we know. The Pentagon, the doj, the State Department, the Department of Energy, and multiple agencies within these departments, as well as other agencies like the cdc, the noaa, and the irs, have instructed their employees to wait for legal guidance before responding. The State Department told its employees that the department would respond to the email on behalf of the employees and said in a message to the workers within the department, quote, no employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their department chain of command, end quote. The newly confirmed FBI Director, Kash Patel, also told FBI employees not to respond, saying, quote, the FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses. End quote. The Department of Veterans affairs, on the other hand, told its employees that the email is, quote, unquote, valid and reiterated the OPM's message that the response to the email is not to include any classified HIPAA or personally identifiable information. The lawsuit says that the OPM's email is unlawful. A group of federal unions argue that because the OPM's email had not been announced in advance in the Federal Register and as a policy or program, it does not comply with federal regulations. So the Federal Register is the official publication for federal rules, proposed rules, notices by and for federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents. It's updated every weekday by 6am now, the thing about the Federal Register is that the federal agencies have to follow certain rules, and under the Federal Register act, rules and notices that have a substantial, substantial impact on the public must be filed with the Office of the Federal Register to be enforceable. This allows the public to have time to review and comment on a proposed policy before it's finalized. So the unions argue that federal employees have never been required to submit any reports regarding their work to the OPM until now. And therefore, it's a new policy that should have been published in the Federal Register, and because it wasn't, it, it cannot be enforced. However, the argument on the other side of that is that this new policy does not have a substantial impact on the public and therefore isn't required to be published beforehand. So we'll see what happens here. The unions have asked a federal judge for emergency intervention. We'll have to see if the judge, you know, grants that request, doesn't get involved yet. We'll have to see. Speaking of lawsuits, though, on Friday, the Associated Press filed a lawsuit against three Trump administration officials after it was denied access to the Oval Office. The controversy between the outlet and the administration started after the Gulf of Mexico was renamed the Gulf of America. Following the name change, the AP said it would continue referring to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico, and subsequently the outlet was banned from covering the president in the Oval Office. The AP was still allowed to attend and is still allowed to attend press briefings in the briefing room. It's allowed on other White House grounds, but it is not allowed in the president's office. The AP has since accused the administration of violating its Fifth Amendment right to due process and its First Amendment right of freedom of the press. The AP has requested that a judge issue an emergency order restoring the outlet's access to the Oval Office, and the judge is set to make a decision on that request today. Earlier this week, roughly 40 news organizations signed onto a letter written by the White House Correspondents association urging the White House to reverse its decision against the ap. The letter was signed by outlets all across the political spectrum, including cnn, npr, Fox News, Newsmax, and more. And in its own statement about the situation, Newsmax said, quote, we can understand President Trump's frustration because the media has often been unfair to him. But NewsMax still supports AP's right as a private organization to use the language it wants to use in its reporting. We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us. As for the Trump administration, administration attorneys wrote in their response to the AP's lawsuit, quote, the president has absolute discretion to give interviews to whomever he pleases. The First Amendment does not compel him to give a personal audience to any particular journalist. That same discretion extends to whom he allows into the Oval Office, his personal workspace, Air Force One, his personal plane, and Mar a Lago, his private residence. The president's discretion over these small spaces simply does not implicate constitutional rights for citizens, journalists, or news organizations alike. End quote. So basically, the gist of the administration's argument is that the Oval Office is different than other White House grounds because the President has discretion in deciding who he lets into his private spaces. And those private spaces do not come with a constitutional right like other White House grounds do. So stay tuned because like I said, the judge in that case is supposed to decide today whether the AP can temporarily be allowed back into the Oval Office while the legal proceedings play out. And that decision will ultimately come down to whether the judge believes the AP has a likelihood of succeeding on the merits of its claim, and whether by not allowing the AP back into the Oval Office for purposes of reporting, the AP and the public would suffer some sort of harm. Let's take our second and final break here, and I will be right back. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. One of my favorite things to do seriously since I was, like eight years old, is look at homes and apartments that are for sale or for rent around the country just for fun. In fact, just last week I was looking at homes outside of Nashville, Tennessee and apartments in Austin, Texas. Why? Because it's fun and I just choose random locations. 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Welcome back. According to multiple outlets, the Trump administration has circulated an internal memo detailing plans to track down hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the United States without their parents. Importantly, this memo has not been released to the public, so I'm reporting based on the information that has been reported by various news outlets that have seen the memo. I have not personally seen it. The memo is reportedly written by ICE entitled, quote, unaccompanied Alien Children Joint Initiative Field Implementation, end quote. The memo's stated initiative is to ensure migrant children are not victims of human trafficking or victims of other forms of exploitation, and consequently, it directs immigration agents to track down migrant children who entered the United States without their parents. The memo reportedly states that the children will be served a notice to appear in immigration court or deported if deportation orders were pending against them. According to the memo, ICE has collected data on unaccompanied minors and has created three groups, Flight Risk, Public Safety, and Border Security. The priority will be to track down flight risk minors, including those who have received orders of deportation for missing court hearings. The memo outlines four phases of implementation, with the first phase, the planning phase to have already commenced on January 27, but it does not provide a start date for enforcement operations. To give you some numbers as to how many unaccompanied unaccompanied minors have entered the United States in recent years. Since 2022, there have been just under 425,000 CBP encounters with unaccompanied minors nationally, with roughly 422,000 of those encounters happening at the US Mexico border. So let's talk about what the law says. Under federal law, migrants who have exhausted their legal options to stay in the country can be removed even if they are children. The government typically prioritizes adults, especially those adults with criminal records, but children can be deported as well. When an unaccompanied minor is apprehended, they they're usually taken into Office of Refugee Resettlement Custody. From there, they're typically released to sponsors while immigration authorities weigh their case to remain in the country. Now, you may remember during the vice presidential debate, Vice President Vance said that DHS has effectively lost 320,000 children. More recently, in December, Trump's incoming border czar Tom Holman similarly said the US cannot find 300,000 migrant children who he says could have been lured into forced labor and sex trafficking. Those claims stem from a 2024 report that I had previously reported on from the Office of the Inspector general that found 32,000 unaccompanied minors who had illegally entered the US have not shown up for immigration court and more than 291,000 never even received a summons to appear in court between the years 2019 and 2023. The report stated that ICE could not monitor the location and status of all unaccompanied migrant children or initiate removal proceedings as needed. The report reads, quote, during our ongoing audit to assess ICE's ability to monitor the location and status of unaccompanied children who were released or transferred from the custody of DHS and HHS. We learned ICE transferred more than 448,000 UCs unaccompanied children to HHS from fiscal years 2019 to 2023. However, ICE was not able to account for the location of all UCS who were released by HHS and did not appear as scheduled in immigration court, ICE reported more than 32,000 UCs failed to appear for their immigration court hearings from fiscal years 2019 to 2023, end quote. So that report was a big talking point for Republicans during the election cycle, and this new internal memo is in line with those concerns. Now, there's a parallel storyline here that the Trump administration had issued a Stop Work order to the Acacia center for justice last week, and even though it has since been rescinded, that order has since been rescinded. I do want to talk about it because quite a few of you had questions about it. So the Acacia center for justice has a federal contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide legal services for unaccompanied migrants younger than 18 that were either in the office's custody or had been released. Under federal law, migrants are not guaranteed the right to free legal representation like citizens are. But in the past, federal funds have allowed nonprofit groups like Acacia to provide lawyers for children. So last week, on Tuesday, the Trump administration had issued this Stop Work order to Acacia. But as of Friday, the administration rescinded that order. Acacia said they received notice from the administration that it can immediately resume work providing representation and legal access services to unaccompanied children. So that's what you need to know about that. Now we can briefly talk about the new FBI Deputy Director, Dan Bongino, before we move on to quick hitters. So who is Dan Bongino? Some are referring to him as a conservative podcaster, others are referring to him as a former Secret Service agent, and the truth is, he is both. Bongino previously worked for the NYPD before joining the Secret Service, and he served on the Presidential Secret Service details for both former President Obama and George W. Bush. He ran for a Senate seat in Maryland in 2012, then for congressional seats in Maryland in 2014 and Florida in 2016, though he did lose all three of those races. He's worked for Fox News, he hosted a Saturday night show with the outlet from 2021 to 2023, and more recently he started his own podcast called the Dan Bongino show, which he will now reportedly still host despite taking on the new role of FBI Deputy Director. So the role of the FBI Deputy Director does not require Senate confirmation. The Deputy Director is one of four members of the FBI Senior staff and serves under the FBI Director. The Deputy Director is the FBI Director's second in command and is responsible for the Bureau's day to day law enforcement operations. Bongino does not have prior experience with the FBI, but does have extensive outside law enforcement experience, so that's a little bit about him. And now it's time for some quick hitters, starting with some numbers from the first month of New York City's congestion pricing plan. We talked last week about the federal government revoking authority for the program, but some new numbers have since came in, and it looks like the pricing plan raised $48.6 million in its first month and reduced traffic by 10% with 2.6 million less vehicles and south of 60th Street. Of the roughly $48 million in revenue, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will collect 37 and a half million of net revenue, and New York's governor met with President Trump on Friday to try to protect the plan, but it's not clear whether they discussed a possible resolution to the lawsuit that was filed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week. Apple announced its largest ever spend commitment today with plans to invest $500 billion in the United States over the next four years. The plans include hiring 20,000 workers, opening a new facility in Houston to produce servers that support AI, doubling Apple's US Advanced Manufacturing Fund, and opening a new Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit. Sources say that the Trump administration has stopped efforts to place migrants in tent structures built at Guantanamo amid concerns that the tent facilities don't meet detention standards due to the lack of air conditioning and electricity. The administration had previously said it would be building out tent structures to house roughly 30,000 migrants, but as of today, sources say that those tents don't meet the detention standards set forth by ice. It's worth noting, though, that there are not many migrants currently at Guantanamo, and those that are there are not being housed in newly constructed tents, but rather the existing detention facility. Last week, more than 170 migrants were flown to Venezuela, which nearly emptied out Guantanamo, and Since then, only 17 more migrants have arrived at Guantanamo. Now for some news out of the national parks. Due to the recent layoffs of National Park Service employees, the following changes have taken effect across the country. Carlsbad Caverns national park has canceled guided tours indefinitely. Cave tours at Great Basin national park are now available only as staffing permits. Yosemite national park has delayed the sale of summer permits for five campgrounds indefinitely. Saguaro national park has closed its visitor centers on Mondays, and the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Importantly, the National Park Service has promised to hire thousands of seasonal workers, so it's unclear whether these changes will last into season when and if those employees are hired and a federal judge today blocked the Trump administration from conducting immigration enforcement actions at a handful of churches, temples, and other places of worship that sued over the administration's new immigration policy. However, the judge did not implement a nationwide restraining order. This order only applies to the particular parties that filed suit last month. And now it's time for some critical thinking. For today's Critical Thinking segment, let's go back to the story about the five Things Email it's been a few weeks since I last incorporated a critical thinking segment into the podcast, so just as a refresher, these segments are just to get you thinking a little bit deeper about a particular issue. In a world where we're constantly consuming content and other people's opinions, I think it's incredibly important to check back in with ourselves from time to time and ask ourselves where our own opinions lie. Nothing crazy. The questions aren't meant to be incredibly complex. It's just a little exercise for the brain. So let's go back to the five Things Email the Office of Personnel Management, which is essentially the HR Department of the federal government, has asked federal employees to list five things they accomplished last week. First, what are your initial thoughts here? How do you feel about this email? Do you support it or are you against it? And why? It's always good to ask yourself why you think the way you do. Now I want you to think about this email from two different perspectives. First as an employee, and then as an employer outside the government. By the way, imagine yourself in your current role as an employee, or your current role as an employer. Or if you're not employed, just picture yourself anywhere. You can be an accountant at Coca Cola for this exercise. You can be the CEO of Walmart, whatever you want to do. If you're an employee and you receive this email from your boss, would you have an issue with it? Would you. Would you respond without hesitation? Would you respond but with hesitation? Or would you ignore it? And would your answer change depending on how productive you were? So if you're an incredibly hard worker, you get a lot done. Are you excited to respond with five things you accomplished, or are you still reluctant? Maybe you didn't get much done last week, Whether by choice or due to life circumstances, are you excited to respond? Or are you more reluctant? And ask yourself, are your feelings about this email that you received, you know, as an employee, are those feelings a response to your work product or your boss's request? All answers are acceptable, by the way. This is just a mental check in with yourself. Okay, now let's move on to the other perspective Feel free to pause this episode if you want to take a second to think about those questions that we just posed. We can always go back, you can always rewind, whatever. Let's move on to the other perspective. You are the boss. Part of your job is to ensure the company is running as efficiently as possible. Number one, would you send an email to your employees asking them what they've accomplished in the last week and why or why not? And two, regardless of whether you would or not, would you want the ability to do something like this without pushback from your employees? And then I guess a third question is, would you expect your employees to respond without hesitation, or would you expect some pushback? And after answering those questions and assessing how you feel from both perspectives, I want you to check back in with how you felt initially about the email and see if your answer has changed or if it stays the same. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, have a fantastic next couple of days. I will talk to you again on Thursday.
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