The military’s ‘stress card’ — myth or reality? And federal workers wait for pay, Congress doesn’t.

Finally this morning, we're turning to your questions and comments

This is Straight From You, where we fact-check claims, separate fact from fiction, and call out what's murky

So here's what stood out this week. First, the government shutdown. Everybody's talking about it, right

Or at least paying attention. A viewer put it bluntly. ICE works unpaid

The military works unpaid. Congress still gets paid. Well, you're not wrong, but there is some nuance

Here's the deal. When funding stops, federal agencies activate shutdown plans. Simple enough

Civilian workers may be furloughed. Accepted staff like ICE, TSA, and Border Patrol keep working without pay until the funding resumes

The same goes for active duty military. A 2019 law now guarantees back pay for both groups

But members of Congress, they still get paid. That's because their salaries come from a permanent appropriation in the Constitution

Yep, shut down or not. Next up, the story of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing strict changes in the military this week

A viewer said they once saw a soldier refuse a uniform order and flash a yellow stress card

So here's the reality. Stress cards that allow troops to skip orders

Not a thing. Snopes traces it to the 1990s when the Navy briefly gave out cards with hotline information However they were not excuses and the practice ended quickly The Army had tools to measure stress not stop training The Defense Department has

debunked this myth for years. Why are we hearing about it again? Because Hegseth and President

Trump just pushed a tougher warrior ethos at Quantico, fitness tests, grooming standards

and tougher training. In making the case that training got too soft, Hegseth invoked stress

cards on Fox News with Laura Ingram, which keeps the legend alive. By the way, the producer of this

segment is a U.S. Marine, and he has never seen a stress card. All right, number three. A lot of you

are asking about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. A viewer put it this way

Here's the question. With a grand jury vote of just 14 out of 23, how can prosecutors possibly

get a unanimous 12 out of 12 jurors to convict at trial? That's a sharp and good question. It gets

to the heart of a legal hurdle. Indeed, the vote to indict was 14 out of 23. That clears the probable

cause bar, but just barely. To get a conviction, prosecutors need all 12 trial jurors to agree

beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher standard, obviously. That narrow grand jury margin

legal ysts say it's a red flag, a tough road ahead for sure for the government

Keep dropping comments on our YouTube, asking questions, and we'll tackle the biggest ones

next week