1. NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll: "Americans are sick of lawmakers bickering. They don't have much hope that will change." (1:14)
2. Elon Musk Lifts Suspension of Journalists' Twitter Accounts Following Backlash (9:11)
3. Virginia Becomes Latest State to Ban TikTok on Government Devices; Proposed Legislation to Ban TikTok Completely in the United States (17:09)
4. Congress Votes to Remove Bust of Roger B. Taney from Capitol Building (22:12)
5. The Collapse of FTX and the Extradition of Sam Bankman-Fried (37:29)
All sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.com
Follow Jordan on TikTok and Instagram @jordanismylawyer.
1. NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll: "Americans are sick of lawmakers bickering. They don't have much hope that will change." (1:14)
2. Elon Musk Lifts Suspension of Journalists' Twitter Accounts Following Backlash (9:11)
3. Virginia Becomes Latest State to Ban TikTok on Government Devices; Proposed Legislation to Ban TikTok Completely in the United States (17:09)
4. Congress Votes to Remove Bust of Roger B. Taney from Capitol Building (22:12)
5. The Collapse of FTX and the Extradition of Sam Bankman-Fried (37:29)
All sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.com
Follow Jordan on TikTok and Instagram @jordanismylawyer.
[00:00:00] Jordan: You are listening to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. This is your host Jordan, and I give you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves, Diehl. Oh, and one last thing.
[00:00:20] I'm not actually your lawyer.
[00:00:25] Welcome back to the Jordan Is My lawyer podcast. Happy Monday. I cannot believe the holidays are upon us. Honestly, I'm kind of sad that it's almost over. This is my favorite time of the year and I feel like this year it just flew by. Um, and I, I don't, I don't love it. I wish it would stick around for a little bit longer and I also am kind of feeling this is the one thing I'm excited for.
[00:00:47] I'm excited to get back on a routine. Because I don't know if it's just me, but these like three weeks leading up to the holidays and then New Year's is just kind of a blur for me. I feel like I don't really have a routine. I have no idea what's going on. No. No idea what day it is, and I'm kind of just all over the place.
[00:01:02] But the good news is I do know it's Monday. I do know that I need to release a podcast episode, so here we go. . I am pretty excited for this episode just because I feel like there's a lot of really interesting stories that I'm gonna talk about. But first, I wanna talk about this study I found because I think it really falls in line with the message that I convey on here often.
[00:01:21] It was a poll done by N P R P B S News Hour N Marist. It was conducted. Uh, between December 6th and December 8th, 1000 312 adults were included in it. And basically the underlying message of this poll was that Americans are sick of lawmakers bickering, and. What's worse is that these Americans that were studied don't have any hope that that's gonna change anytime soon.
[00:01:49] So I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about the numbers. I wanna talk about some other statistics that were discussed in the article. So without further ado, let's get into it.
[00:02:10] So the article is titled, Americans Are Sick of Lawmakers Bickering. They don't have much Hope that will change. And I linked this article if you do wanna read it for yourself, it's linked on my website, Jordan is my lawyer.com. You guys know that's where I keep all of my sources. And if you hear some papers in the background, I actually printed this article out so that I could read it to you.
[00:02:31] Um, I'm more of a hard copy person. I know obviously there's people that are all online, they read a lot of their stuff online. And usually I do, but I, there's just something about having something on paper in front of me, so if you hear some papers in the background, that is what that is. But let's talk about what this poll found.
[00:02:48] So, as I said before, this is an NPR P B S News Hour Maris poll of 1,312 adults conducted between the days of December 6th and December 8th. So let's get into the numbers. 74% said that Congress should compromise. But 58% said that they have no confidence. Congress will do so, which is more than double the level found in 2008 when just 23% thought that there could be no compromise.
[00:03:16] Basically, respondents were asked whether they believe it's more important for government officials in Washington to compromise defined so. Or stand on principle, even if it means gridlock. And overall, 74% answered compromise. But when you break that down into parties, 82% of Democrats said that it was more important to compromise than stand hard on principles.
[00:03:40] 66% of Republicans answered that it was more important to find compromise. Then stand hard on principles, and 78% of independence answered that it was more important to find compromise than it was to stand hard on principles. So as you can see, according to this poll, the Republican party favors compromise less than.
[00:04:03] The other two parties, Democrats and Independents. Keep in mind this is one poll, right? So it could vary from poll to poll. The article goes on to say that many Americans say they're simply tired of the bickering name calling and foe outrage that have become all too common among members on either side of the aisle in Congress.
[00:04:22] Now the same poll found that President Biden's approval rating is at at about 43%, but the percentage disproving of the job he's doing has declined. Looking to 2024, a majority of Democrats and Democratic leading leaning independents said that they would prefer someone other than Biden to be the party's nominee.
[00:04:40] Just 35% said they wanted it to be Biden. 17% saying they preferred Vice President Harris. And 16% saying Pete Buttigieg, but more than a quarter of the respondents said they're looking for someone else. When you look at the Republican side of things, the majority of Republicans and Republican leaning independence said that they would rather someone other than Trump be the G O P nominee, but he would still be the preferred candidate by a 45% to 33% margin over Governor Ron DeSantis.
[00:05:14] Just 8% said that they would rather. Vice President Pence be the nominee. Keep in mind though with that, that a Wall Street Journal poll that was put out on Wednesday showed that Republican primary voters would prefer DeSantis over Trump if it were just the two of them running. So just keep that in mind.
[00:05:31] Now, overall, respondents said that they want Congress to focus on inflation preserving democracy. And immigration, but the expected, the parties see things quite differently. Republicans overwhelmingly want Congress to focus on inflation. 41% followed by immigration 23%, and preserving democracy, 11%.
[00:05:52] Preserving democracy was at the top of the list for Democrats. 29% followed by inflation, 20%, and climate. 17%. Importantly, the article points out that just because these two parties want, let's say, preserving democracy at the top of the list, doesn't always mean that they want the same thing. So when it comes to preserving democracy, republicans are focused on voter fraud.
[00:06:19] Whereas Democrats are more focused on the overturning or the attempt to overturn the presidential election in 2020. So just because these two parties answer the same, you know, uh, issue in the priority list, it doesn't mean that they're necessarily talking about the same thing. And the last thing I wanna point out from the article is kind of an illustration of how differently people in the two different parties see things.
[00:06:47] So as an example, this article gives immigration and climate change. Nearly a quarter of Republicans think immigration should be a top priority for Congress, but only 1% of Democrats think it should be on climate change. More than one in six Democrats think it should be Congress. Congress's top priority, but only 1% of Republicans.
[00:07:09] And then finally, when it comes to what this Congress has been able to get done, 24% said that they, that this Congress accomplished more than recent congresses. And while that number may not seem very high, it's actually the highest percentage to say so since 1998. So that is saying something. Now that is all I wanted to point out from that study.
[00:07:30] Again, I have it linked on my website, Jordan is my lawyer.com. In the episode description page for this episode, a couple of things I would like to point out because I always like to point out bias. When I was reading through this article, there is an obvious bias, right? The bias is in favor of the Democratic Party.
[00:07:50] With that said, I just want to be clear that depending on which outlet you look at, there's going to be varying biases. So some outlets are gonna favor the Republican party. Some outlets are gonna favor the Democrat party. That's just how these things work. But I get asked all the time, how do you do research on these mainstream media outlets and, and, and take out the bias?
[00:08:13] How I do that is I identify the bias and then I reword things accordingly, right? So if you're ever interested in getting a glimpse of how I do that, I suggest pulling up this article that I just read to you and let me find the. excerpt that I think will be a good show of how I do this. Okay, so it's under the subsection what people think Congress's priorities should be, and if you read that, you will see where the obvious bias is.
[00:08:45] Now, with that said, and before we move on to the next story, I just wanna say numbers are numbers. So when you look at a poll, you can look at a poll and read those numbers and. Take. Take them for what they're worth, which is why when I found this poll, I thought it would be really interesting to read to you guys.
[00:09:00] Just keep in mind that depending on who is conducting the poll, there may be a bias towards one side or the other. So for the sake of not repeating myself for a sixth time, let's move on to the next story, which is that Elon Musk has reinstated some suspended journalists on Twitter, following some back.
[00:09:20] So all of this started when one car that was driving his child was followed and blocked from moving anywhere by another driver, and then allegedly that driver got on top of the hood of the car with Elon's child in it. Following this incident, Elon took to Twitter and he wrote, quote, any account doxing, realtime location info of.
[00:09:44] Will be suspended as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn't a safety problem, so is okay. End quote. Following that, several accounts were banned, but reports are saying that the band accounts weren't posting.
[00:10:05] Realtime location info. So one of the accounts that was banned, just as an example, was called Elon Jet. It was originally ran by a college student at the University of Central Florida, and it tracks the movement of Elon's private jet. And there's actually been several Twitter accounts that track the movements of various private jets owned and used by celebrities and billionaires.
[00:10:24] But this particular account was tracking Elon's jet and that. Was banned or suspended. So these journalists that reported on this found themselves suspended on Twitter, and obviously this sparked some controversy because Elon claims to be this free speech absolutist. But then he goes and he suspends accounts that talk, talks about things that he doesn't want them talking about.
[00:10:47] Elon's argument is that these accounts were suspended, not because he disagrees with them, but because of physical safety violations. He actually wrote in a tweet quote. Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxing my real time location and endangering my family is not end quote. So the next day he tweets out a Twitter poll where he asked Twitter users to decide whether to unsuspend the accounts that quote doxed his exact location in real time.
[00:11:15] So instead of him making a, an executive decision as to whether to unsuspend these accounts, he put out this poll on Twitter, right? Cause you can do that, you can pull your followers. And 58.7% voted in favor of lifting the suspensions Immediate. . Whereas 41.3% voted in favor of making the journalist wait seven more days before their accounts could be uns suspended.
[00:11:38] Before I get into the criticism and the backlash that he faced when he suspended these accounts, I wanna first reread his statement he made when he acquired Twitter about his goals and where he wanted to see Twitter go, because that way once you kind of refresh your memory on that, you can determine for yourself if he's following through, on that or not?
[00:12:00] I'm not here to tell you whether or not he's following through. I'm not here to tell you whether or not I think he's following through. I just want you guys to have some context as to why he's getting some criticism. So in his open letter to advertisers, he wrote, I wanted to reach out personally to share my motivation in acquiring Twitter.
[00:12:16] There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong. The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square. Where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence.
[00:12:34] There's currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society in the relentless pursuit of cliques. Much of traditional media has fueled and catered to these polarized extremes as they believe that is what brings in the money.
[00:12:52] But in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost. That is why I bought Twitter. I didn't do it because it would be easy. I didn't do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity whom I love. I do so with humility. Recognizing that failure and pursuing this goal despite our best efforts is a very real possibility.
[00:13:10] That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free for all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences. In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences. Just as you can choose, for example, to see movies.
[00:13:27] Or play video games ranging from all ages to mature. I also very much believe that advertising when done right can delight, entertain and inform you. It can show you a service or product or medical treatment that you never knew existed but is right for you. For this to be true, it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is as relevant as possible to their needs.
[00:13:47] Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly relevant ads are actually content. Fundamentally. Twitter aspires to be the. Expected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise To everyone who has partnered with us, I thank you. Let us build something extraordinary together.
[00:14:02] So obviously the first part of that statement is more important once he gets into the advertising, it's really not as important to what we're talking about right now, but you, you heard he talked about a digital town square and everyone, you know, being able to share a wide range of beliefs and, and, uh, not resorting to violence and that whole thing.
[00:14:20] One of the journalists who had his account suspended said that the suspensions signaled Twitter's instability, saying it's a clear illustration that it is no longer a rules-based company. It is basically a company based on Elon Musk's whims and the terms of service depend on his mood each day. Jack Donovan, a research director at Harvard, thinks that this is only, only the beginning saying quote, the way Musk is targeting particular mainstream media journalists.
[00:14:46] I think we're going to see more of these shenanigans and not less over the next couple of months and quote. A C L U executive director Anthony Romero, said in a statement quote, it's impossible to square Twitter's free speech aspirations with the purging of critical journalists accounts. The First Amendment protects Musk's right to do this, but it's a terrible decision and quote.
[00:15:07] But the thing is, it's, it's not just the people in the United States that are taking issue. There's people overseas that are taking issue as well. To give you a few examples, Melissa Fleming, the UN Under Secretary General for Global Communications, Says that she was deeply disturbed by the suspensions, tweeting, quote, media freedom is not a toy.
[00:15:24] A free, A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation. And quote similarly, the European Commission, vice President warn Twitter of potentially violating the European Union's Digital Services Act and Media Freedom Act. Tweeting quote, there are red lines and sanction.
[00:15:44] Soon. Now, as of today, all but one journalist has been suspended. The only journalist that remains suspended is a Washington Post tech and online culture columnist who tweeted about Elon himself, doxing and hacking people in the past and said something like, you know, when you do it, it's okay. When we do it, it's not.
[00:16:02] So with that said, what are your thoughts? Is he abiding by what he set out to do? If he is a free speech absolutist, is this okay? Or. Is putting people's, you know, privacy and safety at risk, not. Okay. What are your thoughts? Does this fall into free speech? Um, you know, he calls this a physical safety violation.
[00:16:24] Would it be fair if Twitter had maybe a policy that prohibited doing something like this, and if you violated that policy, then you could be banned? Or is that indirect conflict with the free speech idea? It's kind of a complicated situation. . You know, if you're gonna go out there and say, I defend free speech, as long as it's not violent.
[00:16:46] Then do you have to let everyone do what they want in order to stand by what you say? So I'm curious to hear your thoughts. As you guys know, I do have a comment section on my website. If you go to Jordan as my lawyer.com and you click on this website's or this episode's webpage description, you can scroll down to the bottom and there is a comment section there.
[00:17:05] I always love to hear your thoughts. I am curious to hear how you feel about this. Okay, so that takes us to our third story, which is that Virginia becomes the latest state to ban TikTok on government devices. And there has been proposed legislation seeking an outright ban on TikTok in the, in the United States, not just on government devices, but on everyone's devices.
[00:17:25] So we can add Virginia to the list of states that have been banned, uh, that have banned TikTok on government devices. There has been a lot of speculation. More recently, but honestly, ever since TikTok really blew up behind the intentions of TikTok because a lot of people, mainly lawmakers say that TikTok is actually a cybersecurity risk.
[00:17:43] Virginia's governor, Glenn Youngin said in a statement on Friday, quote, TikTok and WeChat, which is a Chinese owned instant messaging app. Data are a channel to the Chinese Communist Party, and their continued presence represents a threat to national security, the intelligence community, and the personal privacy of every single American end quote.
[00:18:03] Now, a couple of days before that, on Wednesday, the United States Senate unanimously approved a bill that would ban TikTok from all devices issued by federal agencies. This bill provides an exception for law enforcement activities, national Security interests act, and activities and security researchers.
[00:18:20] But you know, this is becoming a very popular thing so far, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Texas, Maryland, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Nebraska have already issued bans on state issued devices. TikTok has also already banned from all devices issued by the US military.
[00:18:41] Obviously, this makes sense. If this is a cybersecurity risk, we need to protect our military first and foremost. So with this, let's talk about the proposed legislation that would ban TikTok altogether. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and representative Raja Krishna Mory.
[00:19:00] I did my best to pronounce that, but he is of Illinois. The three of them have proposed companion legislation that would block and prohibit social media companies belonging to countries of concern, which include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. And again, this all boils down to cybersecurity.
[00:19:17] The reason that I said that these are companion pieces of legislation is because one is being introduced in the house, the other is being introduced in the Senate, but essentially they're doing the same thing. In support of this legislation, Senator Rubio stated in part quote, the federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok.
[00:19:36] This isn't about creative videos. This is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. End quote, representative Gallagher said in part quote, TikTok is digital fentanyl. That's addicting. Americans collecting troves of their data and censoring their news.
[00:19:54] End quote, and representative Krishna Morphy said in part quote, at the time when the Chinese Communist Party and our other adversaries abroad are seeking any advantage they can find against the. States through espionage and mass surveillance, it is imperative that we do not allow hostile powers to potentially control social media networks that could be easily weaponized against us.
[00:20:15] End quote. Now, mark Berkman, the CEO of the organization for Social Media Safety, told NPR in a statement quote, TikTok has the capability to collect massive amounts of data on our citizens because it's owned by China. There is certainly the potential, and it's unclear whether this is happening currently, but there's certainly the ongoing potential that the data is shared by the Chinese government and quote.
[00:20:37] It's important to note though, that even if this ban is implemented, it would be very, very difficult to get everyone off the app. Berkman himself said that there are just too many people on the app. There's a significant commercial interest there. and you know, there's, there's the interest is in maintaining those users and services.
[00:20:54] So it would just be very, very difficult to get everyone actually off the app. So they're doing what they can with the legislation, but that doesn't necessarily mean once it's passed, you know, all Americans just can't access TikTok. NPR did reach out to TikTok for comment. They didn't respond. TikTok interestingly has said in the past that it stores us user data within the US and it doesn't comply with Chinese government.
[00:21:18] Content moderation require. But more recently, in July, it acknowledged that non-US employees do, in fact have access to US user data. So who really knows what's going on? But this is actually a piece of legislation that has bipartisan support. And so it seems most everyone is on board with this. So time will tell what happens to TikTok, what happens to Americans using TikTok.
[00:21:42] You know, I, we all, we all love TikTok. I love TikTok. Obviously I have a platform on there, but at the end of the day, we don't really know what's happening behind closed doors. And I think it's important to kind of, you know, all be aware.
[00:22:09] Story number three is that Congress has voted to remove a bust of Roger Bani from the Capitol Building. Now let me tell you who Roger Bani is, and then I wanna be honest with you about something, um, as far as me reporting on this story and something that I want to. talk to you guys about slash pose, I guess, to you guys as a critical thought question.
[00:22:31] So, Roger Bani, for those who don't know, is a former Supreme Court Justice who is best known for writing the famous 1857 Dread Scott decision that dread Scott decision upheld slavery and deemed black people as non-citizens of the United States. Terrible, terrible, terrible decision. Now let me explain where my hesitation lies.
[00:22:53] So I do. My job here is to basically tell you guys all sides of the story, right? And there are some topics that I get worried if I tell you guys more, um, that you guys are gonna think, I think one way or the other. Right? So as an example, I am going to tell you more about Roger Bani and who he was and where he came from, some of his views and.
[00:23:23] Kind of explain who he was as a person, but in no way do I want that to be looked at as justification for why his bust shouldn't be removed from the capitol building or why I think he was a good guy, or anything along those lines. . I just want to give you guys all sides of the story, just like I've always done so you can form your own educated opinions.
[00:23:48] So with that said, I'm going to tell you about Roger Bani because when I read this, uh, news headline and I, when I read the articles about it, I couldn't find anything about who Roger Bani was, aside from the fact that he wrote the Dread Scott decision, which yes, is a very famous decision. It's a terrible decision.
[00:24:09] But I couldn't find anything else about him. And I thought to myself, surely there's got to be more to this guy than what, what this article or these articles are saying, because there's a bust of him in the Capitol building. So at some point someone must have decided, or people, multiple people must have decided that this was a good bust to put in the Capitol building.
[00:24:32] So I figure. There must be a reason that he's there, right? So let's figure out who he is. So here's a little bit about Roger Bani. He is from England. Originally he was educated in France, and then he eventually became a tobacco grower in Maryland. He graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and then he ended up studying law with a Maryland judge.
[00:24:54] So didn't necessarily go to law school, but studied under a judge. He eventually became Attorney General of Maryland in 1827, and then attorney General of the US in 1831. Shortly after Andrew Jackson was elected president. No, he was a controversial figure, but not for the reason You think so? He was a controversial figure due to his opposition to the bank of the United States.
[00:25:16] So the United States used to have a central bank, and Tawny was of the belief that the bank abused its powers, and because of that, he recommended that the government funds be withdrawn from the bank. and deposited into numerous state banks because of these beliefs and because most people didn't align with this belief.
[00:25:36] When President Jackson appointed him to Secretary of Treasury in 1833, the Senate actually rejected him, and that was the first time that Congress refused to confirm a presidential nominee for a cabinet post. Following his rejection, he attempted to rebuild his law practice because in his eyes, he obviously wasn't making any, making it anywhere in the government, so he went back to.
[00:25:57] But just one year later, president Jackson nominated him to be, uh, to the Supreme Court as an associate Justice. His nomination was stalled by his opponents, but when Chief Justice John Marshall died in 1835, Tawny was nominated to fill his place. So there was initially a ton of resistance because as I said, he was a controversial figure, but he was ultimately sworn in in March, 1836.
[00:26:22] And what's surprising is that during his time on the bench, Many of his opponents actually grew to respect him because of his belief in divided sovereignty. So he believed in both the state's rights and federal supremacy. So prior to him, when John Marshall was the chief, ju Justice, John Marshall strongly believed in federal supremacy, and Tawny upheld these ideas.
[00:26:45] But at the same time, he believed in state's rights. So he had multiple notable decisions, but his most famous decision. Is the dread Scott decision for obvious reasons, right? So in that case, he determined that Scott, because Scott was a slave and he was not a citizen of the United States, he could not sue in federal court.
[00:27:07] He also stated in that opinion that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from the territories. So as you might imagine, this decision created more disagreement than pretty much any other legal opinion in US history, and it drastically undermined the P prestige of the Supreme Court at the time.
[00:27:26] What's interesting and that what a lot of people don't know, and what I couldn't find in any of the articles I read is that Tawny was a Roman Catholic. And he considered slavery an evil, and he actually freed the slaves that he, he inherited. So at one time, he inherited slaves and he did not want ownership of them.
[00:27:47] He quite literally freed them. He did not believe in slavery. So you might be thinking if he didn't believe in slavery and he didn't agree with slavery, why did he uphold slavery? Well, his belief that the problem of slavery needed to be resolved gradually, not in one fell swoop, and chiefly by the states in which it existed.
[00:28:08] Does this sound familiar? We just saw something and I, I'm hesitant to use the word similar because in no way, shape or form form do I want to equate abortion to slavery. But we just saw something similar in Roe versus Wade. Hear me out. When this court decided Roe v. Wade and they overturned it, their reasoning for overturning Roe v.
[00:28:30] Wade was that it was an issue to be left to the states because the constitution did, does not explicitly give a right to abortion. Similarly, back in the day in 18, in the 18 hundreds, PNY believed that slavery needed to be dealt with by the states. But just as we saw a complete uproar when Roe versus Wade was overturned by those who are pro-choice.
[00:28:56] They saw a complete uproar when he upheld slavery. And again, I cannot make this more clear. I am not at all equating abortion to slavery. I'm just trying to give you kind of a comparison tool, right? So, Tawny died in 1864 and despite the fact that his thinking ran counter to the dominant historical trends of his time, he actually had an immense impact on the evolution of United States constitutional law.
[00:29:22] Cuz like I said, dreads Scott wasn't his only decision, but he had other decisions that really shaped our, our, our constitutional law, as did a lot of decisions back when our country was first founded. Right. So before I kind of give you some critical thought questions, which I am. Hesitant to do because no part of me wants to come off as, I don't know.
[00:29:43] I'll, I'll explain more once I get there. But let's talk about the recent legislation and then I will talk about, um, I'll bring it kind of full circle and we'll talk about some critical thinking questions. So this week the house gave final passage to legislation that will replace the bust of Roger Toney with one of Thurgood Marshall.
[00:30:01] Thurgood Marshall was the first black person to serve on the high court. Now that the legislation has passed Congress, it will go to the President's desk for signature. By the way, I have this legislation linked for you on my website so you can read it for yourself. It's an interesting and very short read, but I'll give you a couple of snippets so you can get a general idea.
[00:30:19] So first and foremost, it goes over Tawney's role in writing the Dread Scott opinion, and it briefly summarizes that holding. And then it goes on to say that Tawney's authorship of the decision quote renders a bust of his likeness unsuitable for the honor of display to the many visitors of the capitol.
[00:30:37] Then it says, while the removal of the bus from the capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs, it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress's recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms. And the legislation goes on to say that the bust is to be removed from the capitol.
[00:30:59] No later. Then 45 days after the date of enactment, and it should remain, it will, it will remain in the custody of the Senate curator. Once it's removed, then the bust of Thurgood Marshall, which will replace Tawney's bust is to be agreed upon no later than two years after the enactment date. And when it is eventually installed, it will be installed specifically by the architect of the Capitol.
[00:31:24] So now let's talk about some critical thinking questions. In recent years, we've seen various monuments be destroyed or removed, and each and every time it seems like one of these monuments is destroyed or removed. There is some sort of controversy, right? Because you have some people on one hand that think the country's history should be maintained.
[00:31:44] We wouldn't be where we are today without that history and without these people and their contribution to the country. So we. maintain that and we should respect that. But others believe that we shouldn't honor these people who made negative decisions or decisions that maybe don't align with modern day values.
[00:32:04] Right. So for one, I'm curious to hear where you stand on on that thought process. But the other thing that I thought was interesting, because I tried to kind of equate. What happened in the 18 hundreds in the drug Scott decision to now, and I've said multiple times in this discussion that I in no way want to come off as equating abortion to.
[00:32:28] slavery. But I do wanna give kind of a perspective on, on the situation that maybe you haven't thought of already. Maybe you have, but it's something I thought of when I was reading through all of this that I thought was important to shed light on. So for, this is all hypothetical of course, but for purposes of the hypothetical, let's think about.
[00:32:49] Today with Roe versus Wade being overturned, chief Justice Roberts, um, writing that majority opinion. And then let's think about hypothetically 150 years down the road right now, you know, the issue of abortion is controversial, definitely, but it's not. You can't even try to equate it to how slavery is viewed nowadays, right?
[00:33:14] They're just about every single person in America thinks that slavery is wrong. Obviously, you have the one-offs that are always gonna be crazy, but just about every single person thinks that slavery should have never existed, and it definitely most definitely should not exist today. However, keep in mind that society changes societal thought changes.
[00:33:34] And 150 years ago when the Jud Scott opinion was written, the outlook on slavery was not the same as it was today. Right? So now for purposes of this hypothetical, I want you to think of Roe versus Wade. Roe versus Wade was obviously just overturned over the summer, and the logic behind that opinion was that this is a decision for the states because.
[00:33:57] the right to abortion does not exist explicitly in the Constitution, and therefore it's not up to the Supreme Court to make a decision on it, and it's something that should be left to the states. Similarly, in the dread Scott opinion that the issue of slavery was, was, or the issue of. Um, you know, being a citizen and being able to sue was an issue left to the states.
[00:34:20] So now picture today, or 10 years from now, 20 years from now, chief Justice Roberts gets a bust put up of him in the capitol, right? Because whether or not you agree with all of the decisions of justices, every single chief justice, every single justice of the court has made an impact on our country. On the laws of our country, on the evolution of our country, every single one of them.
[00:34:43] So let's say this bus goes up of Chief, chief Justice Roberts, and 150 years from now. Society's view on abortion is completely different. Everyone thinks that there is a, obviously there's a right to abortion, right? And I'm not saying me, I'm just saying like generally let's assume in 150 years there is this solidified right to abortion and it's hard for anyone to imagine a world in which the right to abortion didn't exist.
[00:35:14] So now the people. , you know, America 150 years from now are looking at this opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts thinking to themselves, how could he have not upheld the right to abortion? How could he have left this to the states? That's crazy. So they're looking at this like, I can't even imagine.
[00:35:34] And they decide to remove the bust of Chief, chief Justice Roberts. What, what are your thoughts on that? Like y do you think that that one decision should. Take away the honor of being featured in the Capitol, or do you think things like this really should be looked at as a totality of the circumstances?
[00:35:52] Because as I said, justice Tawny was against slavery. He freed the slaves that he inherited, but because he was an originalist that believed in state, you know, states' rights, he thought it was an issue to be left to the states. It's not that he was a purely evil person and thought everyone should be a slave or, you know, Should be allowed or legal, whatever, however you wanna say it.
[00:36:15] He was just standing by his political views. So it's just something that I thought about, a hypothetical situation that I thought about that I feel is kind of comparable to what happened with Tawny. And I just think it's worth a thought. And again, I, I don't want this, I'm really, really hesitant in what I say sometimes it's really hard to be in my position.
[00:36:40] My job is to give you guys, like I said, the full story, but mainstream media only reports on some of the story, and sometimes that makes them look like the good guy. And I don't wanna be looked at as, as the bad guy just because I'm giving you all sides, right? So please don't take any of this to mean anything or like read too far into it.
[00:37:00] I really just, it all boils down to me wanting to share different perspectives and give you all sides of the story. So with that, let me know your thoughts. I am really curious to hear from you guys on this. This was kind of the story that I was most looking forward to talking about, but also most hesitant to talk about.
[00:37:17] So that's what's going on with that. And we are now gonna move on to the final story, which has to do with ftx. I'm sure you've all heard about ftx. It's been making headlines since filing for bankruptcy in November. There's been a lot going on. It's been one big just. That's the best word I have for it.
[00:37:39] Most recently though, the former ceo, Sam Bankman, freed, was arrested in the Palmas and he is actually set to be extradited to the United States today, meaning Monday if you're listening to this on the day this goes live. So let's quickly discuss the collapse of FTX because the story. About his arrest and his extradition wouldn't be complete without it.
[00:37:57] I kind of wanna give you guys some context. So FTX is one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. It's, it stands for futures exchange, but that's really irrelevant. It basically gave its customers the ability to trade digital currencies for other digital currencies or traditional money. And vice versa.
[00:38:16] It was originally based in Hong Kong, but it moved its headquarters to The Bahamas in September of 2020, and it was ran by this 30 year old guy named Sam Bankman Fried. And when I talked to my fiance about it, my fiance describes him as a genius when it comes to the software behind it, but he had no idea what he was doing as far as running the company.
[00:38:37] Evident in what I'm about to share with you. So the reason that this company was based in The Bahamas it's is because it was built essentially on risky trading options that aren't legal here in the United States. And keep in mind, this is a fairly new company, so it's founded in 2019. It very quickly rose to almost just being a household name.
[00:38:57] Just in the first three years. It sponsored numerous sports teams and organizations, including the Miami Heat Basketball Arena. The FTX logo was on the uniforms of all MLB umpires. Um, they were adding the FTX logo to the Mercedes F1 racing Team, cars and Merchandise. They had title sponsorships for the first season of the MLB Home Run Derby, like just so many things.
[00:39:20] And they also had several public figures either investing in. Or being paid to promote the company, including Tom Brady, Shaquille O'Neill, Steph Curry, Kevin O'Leary, Gisele Bunin, who was also appointed the ESG advisor for ftx. And because of that, she's faced some lawsuits from FTX investors following the bankruptcy.
[00:39:40] Uh, and they're basically accusing her of participating in Ft. X's alleged scheme to take advantage of unsophisticated investors. Now if you heard me call her the e ESG advisor, and you're like me and you're curious about what an ESG advisor is, it stands for Environmental, social and Govern. E S G stands for Environmental Social and Governance.
[00:39:58] And an E S G advisor basically advises on these non-financial factors. When it comes to identifying material risks and growth opportunities, so anyway, the company grew very quickly. It was completely unregulated, and frankly, it was being run by someone who just had no clue what he was doing on a day-to-day basis.
[00:40:17] Ultimately, the collapse really began in the beginning of November of this year, and I'm gonna give you a really short summary. So in September, 2022, Bloomberg reported on this relationship between Alameda Research and F T X. In a nutshell, Alameda Research was a trading firm founded by Sam Bankman Fried and two other people, and FTX was started within Alameda Research, and this Bloomberg article noted that Alameda had functioned as basically the market maker.
[00:40:47] For FTX early in the exchanges history, and that as of July, 2022, Alameda remained the biggest known depositor of stablecoin on ftx. This article also mentioned that if the crypto market was regulated, like the traditional equities markets, this type of relationship between Alameda and FTX would absolutely be prohibited.
[00:41:09] So several months after this report by Bloomberg dropped CoinDesk, which is a news outlet specializing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Reported that a significant portion of Alameda's assets were held in FT T, which is the token that's minted by ftx. Now days after this article dropped, so the Coin Desk article, the c e O of Binance announced that he was intend, he intended to sell his holdings in F T t.
[00:41:34] Binance is a competing crypto exchange. And the CEO of Binance, whose last name is Zao, had previously purchased a steak in FTX, but then sold it back to Bankman Frid. And when he sold it back, Bankman Frid bought that steak back in Ft t tokens. So now the CEO O of Binance has these FTT tokens and he announces that he's going to sell them.
[00:41:59] And we, when he announces this, he cites recent revelations coming to. As his reason for selling, which seems obvious that it's about the CoinDesk article, right? Because what this CoinDesk article shed light on is the fact that there's some sketchy things happening between Alameda Research and ftx. So this announcement by the Binance CEO about selling the FTT tokens led to a decline in the price of ftt and honestly, other cryptocurrencies for that matter.
[00:42:30] But this decline. To a three day depositor selloff of an estimated 6 billion, and this sent FTX into a crisis. So on November 8th, bin's CEO announced that it had actually entered into a non-binding agreement to purchase FTX due to what he called a quote, liquidity crisis at ftx. And with that announcement, the Binance CEO also said that he expected FT T tokens to be highly volatile in the coming days, and that crypto exchanges should really just avoid using FTT tokens as collateral.
[00:43:03] On the day of that announce. FTT price dropped by 80%, erasing 2 billion in value, so the next day, on November 9th, Binance announced that it would not be moving forward with the deal after all, and its cited, quote, reported mishandling of customer funds and pending investigations as its reason for not pursuing the deal.
[00:43:24] That same day, FTX stopped processing customer withdrawals. The next couple of days consisted of more crumbling. Despite Bankman Fried assuring customers, they had nothing to worry about. And then on November 11th, Alameda Research FTX ftx.us, and more than a hundred affiliates filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, Sam Bankman Fried, resigned as CEO O and is replaced by John Jay Ray the third, who was a corporate restructuring specialist who previously oversaw the liquidation of Enron.
[00:43:52] And it's said that between one and 2 billion in customer funds are not accounted. As of November 12th. So that in it is the crumbling in a nutshell. But let's fast forward to just this last Monday when Sam Baf Fried was arrested in The Bahamas. It happened almost exactly one month to the day. He resigned as c e o, actually, and he was arrested by the Bahamian police at the request of the US government.
[00:44:18] Based on a now unsealed indictment. So he is facing charges including wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy and money, money laundering. And because cases like this take months to build, Bankman Freed was actually supposed to testify in a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
[00:44:35] And so it really came as a surprise when lawyers on the case found out he was arrested prior to his testimony cuz he was arrested on Monday. His testimony used supposed to happen on Tuesday. So now there's a little bit of speculation of. because during Ft X's rise, I guess he made a ton of donations to politicians.
[00:44:53] And so now there's speculation like was he arrested prior to his testimony? Because certain politicians don't want, don't want certain things coming to light. There's a lot of theories being thrown around. Nothing is really for sure. But following his arrest, he actually contested extradition to the United States, so he didn't wanna be extradited.
[00:45:10] But then he had a change of heart. Not sure why. Maybe because Bahamian jail is a little rough. Who knows? He's actually supposed to appear in court in The Bahamas on Monday. Could be today, depending on if you're listening to this, the day this comes out. But he's gonna ask. For his decision to contest extradition to be reversed.
[00:45:30] Once he's extradited the road will essentially be paid for him to appear in the US and and face his charges. According to a defense lawyer, he will likely be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. But he may end up being held at a jail just outside New York City because I guess they're facing overcrowding issues at the moment.
[00:45:48] But his initial court hearing in Manhattan has to take place within 48 hours of his arrival into the us and that's where he'll be asked to enter a plea and the judge will determine his bail. Prosecutors will likely argue that he's a flight risk and he should remain in custody because of the large sums of money that are involved.
[00:46:06] Um, and just like the overall lack of clarity into the, the location of those funds. So, I, I don't see him being released. If he is released, there will probably be a ton of restrictions on what he can do, and according to legal experts, any trial is realistically more than a year away because there's just so much unknown.
[00:46:27] That it's gonna take a very long time to really get a handle on what happened here, what went wrong, where the money is, how this unfolded. Like there's just so much, um, really so many pieces to this puzzle that have yet to be determined. So that's what's happening with Sam. Bankman Freed, I'm sure much more will come out once he's extradited, once he testifies in Run of Congress.
[00:46:51] There is just so many moving parts to this case and it really is. Really just crazy. Some people are comparing this to Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, but this is, this happened so much quicker. I mean, this, this all happened in three years and, and this involves so much more money and it's really just. . It's really just wild.
[00:47:14] So that concludes today's episode. The next time I talk to you will be the day after Christmas, and then the following Monday, there actually won't be an episode. So that'll be, that should be like the second or third day of the new year. Uh, I'm gonna take that week off and then I'll be back the week after that.
[00:47:31] But you will be getting an episode from me the day after Christmas. So be on the lookout for. And I will talk to you then.