Wednesday | October 6, 2021
00:03The Department of Justice has announced that it will investigate threats against teachers and school board members nationwide.Is the DOJ being weaponized against parents who want accountability from their children's schools?If this isn't a deliberate attempt to chill parents from showing up at school board meetings for their elected school boards, I don't know what is.We're talking about the FBI. You're using the FBI to intervene in school board meetings.This is extraordinary.I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.It's Wednesday, October 6th, and this is Morning Wire.The federal government has sued the state of Texas over its new pro-life law.
00:46As arguments in the case begin, we'll take a look at its national implications.And a Facebook whistleblower testified before Congress on Tuesday,leveling accusations of a cover-up and calling for more censorship of content.What is the whistleblower alleging, and do her ties to a Democratic PR firm,play into her allegations against the social media company.Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.This show is sponsored by WioTech.
01:17WioTech, one of the nation's leading auto and diesel training schools,sees the trades as America's front lines.WioTech is shaping young men, women, and veterans to build careers and businesses.America is built on the trades, and WioTech is leading the way in training.Visit WioTech.edu to subscribe and donate to the futuretechnicians of America. On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI to investigatean alleged increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school boardmembers and teachers. Without citing specific examples, Garland directed the FBI to partner with
01:56local law enforcement to develop measures to discourage the alleged threats and prosecute thoseinvolved. Here to discuss this development is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short. So Ash, what led toGarland's memo. Well, to start, over the summer, we witnessed a surge of parents all over thecountry attending school board meetings to argue against mask mandates and controversial content in theclassroom, the biggest examples being left-wing racial ideology and pornographic content.And with that said, have there been incidents of, you know, the harassment, intimidation,threats of violence, as Garland suggested? In some cases, groups of parents did become unruly,but in the rare cases where someone was actually arrested,
02:40one would have to stretch the definition for their behaviorto fit the claims made by the attorney general.So, for example, a parent in Loudoun County, Virginia,was arrested after the group that attended the school board meetingrefused to quiet down.The meeting was abruptly ended and people were told to leave,but some parents refused.And as a result, one man was ticketed for trespassing.
03:02And another allegedly, quote,displayed aggressive behavior towards,another attendee and then, quote, physically resisted arrest.He was charged with disorderly conduct in a resisting arrest.So even in that case, the aggressive behavior wasn't actually directed toward a public schoolofficial.By the way, the parent in that case said he was arrested after telling police he wouldn'tleave until everyone had been able to voice their concerns at the meeting.
03:31So this all happened over the summer and somewhat in last spring.why is the DOJ taking action right now?Well, a few days ago, the National School Boards Association demanded the Biden administration step in.They also claimed there had been a rise in, quote, malice, violence, and threats,which they said could constitute, quote, a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.I mean, terrorism and hate crimes, did they give examples of these?Sort of.In their letter, the NSBA cited more than 20 instances.
04:04as examples, though all but one of them were just examples of parents getting loud and angrywithout actual threats or intimidation. And that one case, well, that was a letter addressed toa school board member that forcefully objected to mask mandates, saying the school board wasforcing children, quote, to wear masks for no reason in this world other than control.And for that you will pay dearly. I mean, that could be taken in a few different ways.Right. So the school board association sent the Biden administration thatletter highlighting basically that one example of a threat of violence and now the DOJ is acting.Looks that way. And what are people's reactions to the memo so far?
04:46Well, you know, it's mixed. Those who support mask mandates and left-wing political contentin classrooms are applauding the move. But those on the other side are saying, this is the Bidenadministration attempting to control dissent. Since Democrats disagree with what the parentprotesters are demanding.Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri voiced his concerns with the memo during a hearing on Tuesday.And you are attempting to intimidate them.You are attempting to silence them.You are attempting to interfere with their rights as parents and yes, with their rights as voters.
05:19This is wrong.This is dangerous.So, Ash, where do we think this is going to lead?I mean, should we expect to see FBI agents showing up at school board meetings?What it sounds like is they're going to empower local officials to crack down on dissenting parents and aggressively pursue investigations.It's also striking considering the fact that in the rare incidents where the school board meetings have resulted in people committing crimes, mostly trespassing, the local police handled the situation.Now, suddenly, the FBI, which doesn't handle local affairs, are going to treat this as a multi-state conspiracy.It's quite concerning.
05:57Sounds like it.Ash, thanks for keeping us informed.You're welcome.That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Ash Short.Coming up, the DOJsues Texas over its new pro-life law.Inflation is destroying the dollar.Birch Gold Group can help protect your IRA
06:16or 401K with a precious metals IRA.Text Wire to 98989898 to claim a freeinfo kit on physical gold and silver.There's zero obligation.Text the word wire to 9809.8-9-8-98-98 to protect your savings today.The Justice Department argued against a new abortion measure on Fridayafter they sued the state of Texas for its recent pro-life law.
06:42The new heartbeat law effectively outlaws abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected,which is typically around six weeks of pregnancy.It also allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and people who aid and abetillegal procedures.But the DOJ wants it overthrown.Here to discuss as Daily Wire,Charlotte Pence Bond. Morning, Charlotte.Morning, John.
07:05So, Charlotte, what's the latest with this DOJ lawsuit?Yeah, so it's difficult to say how this is going to play out. So on Friday, Judge Robert Pittmanof a U.S. District Court in Texas heard arguments from lawyers from the state and from theJustice Department regarding the lawsuit. The judge reportedly questioned the JusticeDepartment on the details of whether it's able to sue a state directly in order to stop one ofits laws, but he also called the private cause of action, quote, very unusual. The state's lawyerdefended the law saying it's not some kind of vigilante scheme and it uses the normal and lawfulprocess of justice in Texas. The lawyer from the federal government claimed that, quote,
07:45women have been left desperate, forced under sometimes harrowing circumstances to get out of Texasif they even can. Judge Pittman didn't offer a timeline on when he'd make his decision, but he saidthey'd get to work on it. So no concrete timeline. No. Tell us about the lawsuit itself. What is the DOJarguing here? Yeah, so the federal government essentially sued the state of Texas, saying that Texasacted unconstitutionally by enacting a law that bans abortion before viability. The lawsuit also argued thatthe law conflicts with federal law by purporting to prohibit federal agencies from carrying out theirresponsibilities. So they're saying that federal workers won't be able to do some of their jobs asit relates to abortion because of this law. So remember, the Supreme Court decided not to stay the new
08:32law, so they let it take effect, saying it was because it's enforced by private citizens.Right. Okay, so that's the latest from Texas. We're also seeing a lot of abortion-related discussionon the federal level. What's going on there? Yeah. So the House of Representatives narrowly passed theWomen's Health Protection Act last month with a vote of 218 to 211. Right now, there's no nationallegislation securing the right to abortion in this country. So this was trying to change that.It would eliminate state's abilities to regulate abortion before fetal viability and take awaylots of the restrictions already in place. Fetal viability, so we're talking 20 to 24 weeks.Right. The law could also streamline access to late-term abortion by allowing a health care provider
09:20to approve it. So the goal here is to really restrict state's ability to limit abortion.Is there any chance this is actually going to become law?Chances are slim, especially in the Senate because it would need 60 votes to get past a filibusterby Republicans. The vote in the House was seen as a mostly symbolic gesture. It could have beenan attempt to show progressive voters that Democrats are seeking to secure a right to an abortionin light of the highly anticipated Mississippi abortion law case that will be heard in the SupremeCourt this year. The court's decision on that case could decide the legality of all pre-viabilityabortion bans across the country, which could allow states to make their own abortion laws again.
10:03There's been a lot of big developments in recent months on abortion that could really determine thedirection on the issue in this country. Charlotte, thanks for the reporting. Happy to do it.Daily Wires, Charlotte Pince Bond. On Tuesday, a former Facebook employee testified to the Senate,saying she thinks the company has allowed people to post too many, quote, hateful and polarizing messages.Yesterday we saw Facebook get taken off the internet.I don't know why I went down, but I know that for more than five hours, Facebook wasn't used to deepen divides, destabilized democracies, and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies.That was Frances Howgan, a former Facebook employee who released internal documents to the Wall Street Journal, triggering outcry about the company.allegedly putting profits over safety. Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak did some research
10:58on who Howgan is. Luke, first, what are Howgans' specific claims about Facebook?Basically that they're not censoring enough. She says based on her insider knowledge,Facebook only censors about 3% of problematic content when presumably she believes they should becensoring 33 times that much. She claims the reason that the company is not censoring more peopleis because it, quote, puts profits over people.She says she became concerned about all thiswhen she saw a friend get so-called radicalizedto be far right after seeing misinformation online
11:30and that it's what she called dividing America.So she's basically saying Facebook is not censoring enough content,but specifically conservative content.Yeah, and this is the same Facebookthat suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop storyright before the election because of fears of misinformation,even though that story was true.Right.
11:49She also says Facebook is damaging children,by lowering them in. Howkin says the problems at Facebook are unlike previous places she worked,but it turns out she also accused previous employers of various forms of bias and failure to live upto woke ideals too. When she worked at Pinterest, she added a feature so that people could search byskin color. At another employer called Gigster, she steered the company towards inclusion. In 2015,she said Google was not inclusive enough of women, saying, quote, the last team I was on at Googleit had a transsexual engineering director,and as a result,
12:21we had more transsexual women than cis women on our team.Was that a complaint or a boast?It was a complaint.Okay, so she appears to be sort of a political activist.Yeah, she's given at least 20 campaign contributions,all of them to Democrats,including to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezand the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
12:42So as more information's come out about Howgan,you know, the obvious question here is this,Is this coordinated? Is this politically motivated?What we know is this isn't just some tech employee leaking documents.She's working with the Democratic PR firm called Bryce and Gillette,actually the PR firm where Jan Saki worked right until she became Biden's press secretary.One of the company's other clients is a nonprofit seeking to regulate Facebook into censoring more political content.Okay.
13:08Hogan is also represented by the same lawyers behind the so-called whistleblower whose allegations led to Trump getting impeached.All right. So we've got a political.loaded situation here with heavy Democrat connections. Exactly. Well, thanks for the reporting,Luke. Anytime, John. That was Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak.Other stories we're tracking this week? Despite existing staffing shortages, the healthcare industrycontinues to conduct mass firings as major hospitals terminate employees who don't comply with theirnew COVID vaccine mandates. New York's largest hospital system, Northwell Health, announced Mondaythat it has laid off 1,400 employees.
13:52Northwell defended the move,saying that the mass firing was necessaryin order to, quote,enable all our facilities to remain open and fully operational.And on Monday,98% of members of one of Hollywood's largest labor unions,Ayatzi, voted to authorize a strike if necessary.The union is pushing for higher wages on streaming projects
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