August 22, 2024: Supreme Court Partially Upholds Arizona's Voter Proof-of-Citizenship Law. Clearing Up Some Rumors: Did Trump Use Epstein's Plane to Campaign? Free Abortions at the DNC?
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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.

Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Thursday, August 22nd, and this is your final news rundown of the week. This episode is going to be a short one because it was a travel day for me and the Wi-Fi was, of course, out of service on my flight, so bear with me. And I should also mention this episode is audio only. Luckily, there wasn't too much going on in the news today, so we'll cover two stories, one a bit longer than the other, and then I'll introduce a new segment called Rumor Has It, and you'll have to let me know how you feel about it.

Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Per a new Supreme Court order, the state of Arizona will be allowed to enforce some, but not all, of its proof of citizenship requirements. Back in 2022, Arizona enacted a proof of citizenship law that essentially did two things. First, it required officials to

turn away voting registration attempts using the state's registration form if that person had no documentary proof of citizenship. And two, it prohibited people without proof of citizenship from voting in presidential elections or by mail if they registered to vote using a federal registration form.

While this law has yet to be enforced, the Biden administration challenged it, and the administration's rationale was that the law violates a federal law called the National Voter Registration Act. The National Voter Registration Act, in part, requires those registering to vote in federal elections to attest to

that they are United States citizens, but doesn't require documentary proof. Now, what the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says is that state law cannot supersede federal law, meaning if a state law conflicts with a federal law, the federal law always supersedes.

So what the administration is arguing is that this new Arizona state law requiring proof of citizenship conflicts with federal law and therefore cannot stand. And on a slightly related note, back in 2013, the Supreme Court actually held that the National Voter Registration Act prevents states from adding additional requirements to forms people have to fill out to vote in federal elections.

So obviously that decision is not completely in line with what this case is about, but definitely related. Anyway, the Biden administration challenges this new Arizona law and the district court, which is the lowest court, ruled in favor of the administration, meaning the law could not be enforced.

Following that ruling, the Republican National Committee appealed, and on appeal, the RNC asked the Ninth Circuit to block the district court's ruling, at least temporarily, until the appellate court rendered a final decision on the merits. But the Ninth Circuit refused to block the lower court's ruling, which meant that the law could not be enforced while the appeal was pending.

So from there, the RNC takes it to the Supreme Court and asks the Supreme Court to do what the appellate court wouldn't and block the lower court's ruling while the appeal is pending. And what the Supreme Court said today is that they will block the lower court's ruling, but only in part. So essentially, the justices blocked the lower court's order as to the requirement for officials to turn away registration attempts using a state registration form if that person doesn't have

have documentary proof of citizenship, but allow the lower court's decision to stand as to the other provision at issue. In effect, what this means is that Arizona can now enforce the provision of the law that requires officials to turn away registration attempts using the state registration form if that person has no documentary proof of citizenship, but Arizona can

cannot prevent people without proof of citizenship from voting in presidential elections or by mail if they registered to vote using a federal registration form.

Notably, the justices said that their order will remain in place not only pending disposition of the appeal, but also pending disposition of a petition to the Supreme Court. The justices said that if the justices ultimately deny the petition for the review, meaning they won't hear the case, their order will automatically terminate and the final decision will rest with the appellate court. But if they do decide to hear the case, if the Supreme Court decides

does take it up, then the court's order terminates upon a final decision from them.

As a final note, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch said they would have blocked the lower court's decision in full and allowed Arizona to enforce the law in its entirety, at least temporarily. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson would have upheld the lower court's order decision in full and prevented Arizona from enforcing any part of the law, at least temporarily. So

So that's what happened at the Supreme Court today. Now moving on to some other court-related news, we'll keep this one very short, but a federal judge says the military cannot turn away those who enlist that are HIV positive.

A U.S. District Court judge said this week that the Pentagon's ban on HIV-positive people seeking to enlist in the armed forces contributes, quote, to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military's own recruitment goals, end quote.

quote. And finally, we can move on to the last segment. I told you that story was going to be really short, but this new segment is called Rumor Has It. You'll have to let me know what you think about it. Basically, I am going to talk about a few rumors from this week and discuss whether there's any truth to them. So here's the first rumor. Trump's campaign used the infamous plane formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein, which was used to carry underage girls. The

So did the Trump administration use the plane formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein? Well, Trump's campaign did use a plane formerly owned by Epstein, but not the plane. So let's add some context.

Earlier this month, Trump was en route to Bozeman, Montana to campaign for a Republican Senate candidate. On the way, Trump's personal plane, Trump Force One, had to make an unscheduled stop in Billings, Montana for maintenance. So while his plane was grounded for repairs, he used another jet to travel to campaign events over the course of two days between Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. That other jet was once owned by Jeffrey Epstein's business, Plan D, LLC.

But here's the thing. There were multiple social media posts, including one from a California lawmaker that claimed Trump used Epstein's plane that was once used to carry underage girls, a plane that's been nicknamed the Lolita Express. The plane Trump used was not the Lolita Express, but it was another plane that was once owned by Epstein's business. In fact, the Lolita Express reportedly hasn't been flown since 2016.

and the Lolita Express was a Boeing 727. The plane Trump borrowed just recently was a Gulfstream G550. Next rumor is that Taylor Swift endorsed Trump. This is false. This rumor stems from a post to Trump's Truth Social account where he shared four photos that seemed to indicate Swift's support of him, or at least support from Swift's

fans. He wrote alongside the photos, I accept, which led some people to believe that Swift had endorsed him. One of the photos he shared showed a headline that says, Swifties turning to Trump after ISIS foiled Taylor Swift concert. Two of the photos are of Swift's

wearing t-shirts that read "Swifties for Trump" and then the fourth picture is a picture of Taylor herself dressed up as Uncle Sam and the text on that photo says, quote, "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump," end quote. That fourth photo of Taylor is fake. The other three photos are real. So to be clear, Swift has not publicly endorsed any candidate at this point in the election, though in 2020 she did support Biden and Harris.

Third rumor. Harris's campaign is editing headlines in Google Ads. This is true, but it's more like creating headlines. So I spoke about this in my August 14th episode, if you want to hear more. Essentially, the Harris campaign has purchased Google Ads that link to mainstream media websites like CNN, the AP, Reuters, etc. But the headlines that actually appear

appear in the Google searches are being created by the Harris campaign. As an example, a Harris campaign ad will show up in the Google search as an article from the Associated Press with the headline VP Harris's Economic Vision, Lower Costs and Higher Wages. But then when you click the link, it'll just take you straight to the Associated Press website. In other words, it's not an actual AP headline, but rather a headline created by the Harris campaign that

that links to the AP's website. Now, Google ads are always public, so if you ever want to see what kind of ads the Harris campaign or the Trump campaign are running, you can just go to adstransparency.google.com and in the advertiser box, search either Harris for president or Trump for president, which is the name of their campaigns, and all of their current and past ads will come up. Fourth rumor.

The Democratic National Convention is offering free abortions and vasectomies. Not true. Let's add a little bit of color. Planned Parenthood had a mobile clinic set up in Chicago this week, same time and place as the DNC. And this mobile clinic was offering free abortions, emergency contraception, and vasectomies. However, the clinic is not physically located at the DNC, and there's been no indication at this time that the clinic is being offered in partnership with the DNC.

As far as physical location goes, the Planned Parenthood clinic was set up in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood, which sits between the two venues that the DNC was hosted at, those venues being the United Center and McCormick Place Convention Center. But the clinic was not at either of the actual venues.

And the fifth and final rumor is that less than 20 people showed up to Vance's rally in Michigan earlier this month. This is false. A photo at Vance's recent rally, which pictures less than 20 people holding up Trump-Vance signs, has gone viral. And now people are claiming that Vance's rally had less than 20 attendees.

This is not true, and it's disproven by photos taken by the Associated Press as well as video footage taken by a local news station that show a sizable crowd around the stage and definitely more than 20 people.

That was Rumor Has It. Let me know what you thought about that segment and if you enjoyed it, we'll add the segment into the podcast every so often, but I need to hear it from you first. That is what I have for you today. I know today's episode was a little short. I'm traveling. Bear with me, but as always, thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great weekend and I will see you back with regularly scheduled programming on Monday.