The Daily Signal - Disney Corruption Scandal, Horrific Hamas Rapes, Democrat Strategist Compares ‘Christian Nationalists’ to al-Qaeda | Dec. 4

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: A report from the Florida governor’s office reveals corruption at Disney World.  Democratic strategist James Carville says  "Christian nationalists" are an even greater threat to America than al-Qaeda.  China claimed that a U.S. Navy vessel illegally entered the South China Sea. Israel reports it had launched 10,000 airstrikes against Hamas since the war began on Oct. 7th.  It has been confirmed that rape not only took place during Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, but appears to have been part of the attack plan.  Relevant Links https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/04/mouses-house-disney-captured-local-government-perks-akin-bribes/  https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/hamas-gang-raped-and-beheaded-women-at-rave-massacre-fresh-testimony-reveals-blp0ghdl?utm_source=sharebutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=top Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, December 4th. Here are today's headlines. The area around Disney World has a new sheriff in town. The area's new government released a report showing that Disney heavily influenced the previous local government by effectively bribing government employees. The issue is that the governing body was a separate entity from Disney. Here with us to explain the situation is the Daily Signals Managing Editor Tyler O'Neill. He's been covering the story. Tyler, thanks for being here.

Thanks, Virginia. My pleasure. So, Tyler, four years, beginning in 1967, Disney received permission from the Florida legislature to create a local government known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Can you explain how exactly this worked? How was the land that Disney World was set on, controls? different and able to manage that area differently from the rest of Florida. Yeah, so this was a special district where it was still a government entity, but it was effectively

controlled by Disney. And the way that they did this was anybody who owned land in the district had a certain number of votes for the five-member board of supervisors. So pretty much Disney got to handpick all the supervisors. And for a long time, people on the board were actually paid by Disney. But then in recent years, they started having taxpayers foot the bill. And this became, you know, as it was, a government agency. And it started, you know, they would pay for the employees who had gotten used to many of these Disney benefits.

They started paying directly to Disney for. these benefits. So you got these, you know, I'm sure I'll get into it, but like $1.5 million one year they paid all for the employees of the Reedy Creek Improvement District to have these passes to Disneyland and Disney World and all these, like these are passes you could only dream of if you're a Disney fan and they get you in any Disney Park worldwide with the exception of Tokyo. And like, if anybody has tried to go to Disney World or Disneyland, they know how rare, like, that is impossible. You don't get that.

But these people were getting that. It was a perk of their employment. And most of them didn't even know that taxpayers were paying Disney for the privilege. Okay. Wow. All right. So the governor of Florida, his office, released this report showing this is the situation. And we saw Florida Governor Ronda Stangas kind of put his foot down on this.

this issue. And in February, he actually signed a bill that abolished the special district. He said, no, Disney World shouldn't receive this special treatment. They should be governed like the rest of the state, like the land and the rest of the state is governed, did away with the Reedy Creek Improvement District. But now with these files, you're saying, are reporting what we're learning is that that these individuals, even though they were supposed to essentially be treated like normal lawmakers would be treated, they were receiving these special perks from Disney. Yes, normal government employees. Okay.

So these are people who make the decisions, you know, where a road goes and how you manage pedestrian traffic. And there's a particularly shocking example where a Disney park wanted it one way and a DOD-owned resort for veterans wanted it the other way, this place called Shades of Green. And we have this email where employees at the Reedy Creek Improvement District are saying, this is an option, oh, Disney doesn't like that. This is an option. Disney really doesn't like that.

Oh, here's the option that Disney likes, but Shades of Green really doesn't like it. We can all guess what ended up happening. Very, very telling. All right. So what are the legal implications here? I mean, why is it a problem for Disney to be handed? out fast passes and special perks to the people that sit formally sat on this previously existing governing entity.

Yeah, no, that is an excellent question. And it's an interesting question now because the district, you know, the Reedy Creek Improvement District is now the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. So it's an entirely, it's a revamped changed government agency. And so is that new district, you know, legally culpable for some of the things? that the old district did. But there are some really damning things. Like, for instance, all these perks that were that the taxpayers paid Disney for these

government officials to get, they weren't reported that way in the tax, in the filing documents. And so there's a real question as to whether the IRS needs to investigate this and, you know, hold people accountable for it. And just the way that Disney, I mean, this, even if there aren't legal cases that come from this, it's really damning that Disney had these relationships and kept them going and that these, you know, these employees, one of the things before Desantis destroyed that district, we have these emails where they're like, all right, how do we keep Reedy Creek employees? Reed Creek Improvement District staff here. What incentives do we do? And they're not talking among themselves at RCID, which would be, you know,

that's something that someone would naturally fear and want to keep employees on. Any business, yeah. No, they're talking to Disney about this. Oh, interesting. They're saying, what's our plan? Hey, Disney, what's our plan to keep staff at our government agency

when we turn the reins over to Desmond? Very telling. Very fascinating. Well, I want to encourage all of our listeners to check out, Tyler. Your reporting on this will leave a link in today's show notes. I appreciate you joining us today, Tyler. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Virginia. An interview on real time with Bill Maher over the weekend got a lot of attention. Why? Because Democratic strategist James Carville told Marr on the show that the new House speaker Mike Johnson and other Christian nationalists like him are an even greater threat to America than al-Qaeda. Take a listen.

Mike Johnson and what he believes is one of the greatest threats we have today to the United States. When I'm going to, I know these people. You're talking about it. Absolutely. This is a bigger threat than al-Qaeda to this country. House Speaker Mike Johnson responded to Carville's remarks on X, calling his comments twisted and shameful. President of Judicial Watch Kerry Severino called the remarks unhinged.

Marr has himself been critical of Johnson on his show and condemned the speaker's belief that America was founded as a Christian nation and his biblical view that God raises up political leaders. Moving to some international news, China claimed today that a U.S. Navy vessel illegally entered the South China Sea. The section of sea the U.S. ship entered is highly contested between China and the Philippines. China responded, saying that they sent a Navy vessel to follow and monitor the U.S. ship. A spokesperson for China's Southern Theater of Operations responded to the incident,

claiming that the U.S. had infringed on China's sovereignty and safety, and disrupted regional peace and stability, and violated international law, and basic norms of international relations. But U.S. officials rejected the claim and say that the U.S. Navy ship was conducting routine operations in international waters. U.S. Navy Deputy Public Affairs Officer Christina Weidman told NBC News that every day the U.S. 7th Fleet operates in the South China Sea, as they have for decades.

The incident comes, of course, as relations between the U.S. and China. main tense. We are nearing the two-month mark of Hamas's attack on Israel. So let's take a minute and talk about where things stand. About 100 hostages have been free. They were freed last week during a week-long ceasefire. More than 120 hostages are believed to still be held in Gaza, but we have no way of knowing right now how many of those hostages are still alive. The remaining hostages are mainly men, but among them are about 20 women. On Friday, fighting resumed between Israel and Hamas after the ceasefire, and on Sunday, Israel reported that it had launched 10,000 airstrikes against Hamas since the war began on October 7th.

Israel is also targeting areas in southern Gaza now, as well as areas in the north. Many civilians have escaped to southern Gaza to flee the fighting, and Israel is receiving some criticism for carrying out attacks in the south. Israel says the safety of civilians is a priority and has issued guidance to civilians as to where they can go to escape the violence. Just since Friday, Israel says it has hit 400 Hamas targets. Israel has been clear for weeks that their end goal in this conflict is to eliminate the threat of Hamas, crippling both their political and military power. For a deeper dive into the war between Hamas and Israel, you can check out the Daily Signals,

interview podcast edition on Tuesday morning, I'm going to be sitting down with the Heritage Foundation's Robert Greenway to talk in depth about what we know about the released hostages, what they experienced while they were in captivity, and also where the fighting stands. Strategically, what America's role needs to be right now, both in getting hostages out and in standing against the threat of Iran. So make sure to check out that conversation with Robert Greenway on Tuesday morning. Before we move on from Israel, there is a new report out from the Jewish Chronicle that has additional details about the attack on October 7th. And it's a pretty graphic and detailed report. I'll leave a link in the show notes.

But do you want to caution, I'm going to explain a little bit of what the Jewish Chronicle explains in this report. It's quite graphic. So if you're listening with children, go ahead and skip ahead a minute or two. The report details specifically the targeting of women and the rape of women on October 7th by Hamas. It has been confirmed that rape was not only something that happened during Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th, but it was actually a part of Hamas' attack plan. The Chronicle reports that a survivor of the attack at the music festival on October 7th said that he hid under a stage to survive, but he witnessed a woman being gang raped.

Yanni Sadan said, I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. She was screaming, stop it. Already I'm going to die anyway from what you are doing. Just kill me. When they finished, they were laughing, and the last one shot her in the head.

So that's the report from Yanni Sadan. The man also went on to say that he witnessed a woman being beheaded. when she resisted rape. A commander of the special unit Zaka, which collects the remains of the dead, told the Sunday times that Hamas had clearly intended to rape women. Commander Haem al-Mazjin said, we collected 1,000 bodies in 10 days from the festival site and Kabut-Zim. No one saw more than us.

It was clear they were trying, they being Hamas, to spread as much horror as they could, to kill, to burn alive, to rape. It seemed their mission was to rape as many as possible. The commander said that he found the bodies of two girls in a field, for example. Their legs were apart, their pants removed, and they had been shot in the head. This report is incredibly graphic. If you can stomach reading it, I will leave the link in the show notes if you would like to read further. Finally, before we go today, just a quick update on some news related to the 2024 presidential election.

A few things to mark on the calendar for this week. On Tuesday night, former President Donald Trump will be participating in a town hall hosted by Fox News. It's starting at 9 p.m. Eastern. And on Wednesday night, the fourth GOP presidential debate will take place in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramoswamy will all be participating. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie may be on stage, but so far it's unclear if he's going to meet the threshold needed to make the fourth debate. In another 2024 presidential news, North Carolina Governor Doug Bergam has dropped out of the presidential race.

Thanks again for being with us here for the Daily Signal's Top News Edition. If you haven't had the chance, make sure to check out our evening show like I mentioned. earlier tomorrow morning, I am sitting down with the Heritage Foundation's Robert Greenway to go into detail about where the war between Israel and Hamas stands right now. If you have not done so, take a minute to subscribe to the daily. So we love seeing your feedback. Thanks to everyone who has taken a minute to leave a five-star rating and review. It really means a lot to us. It helps us know what you think about the show, what you want to see change, and is such a gift as we try and spread the word to more and more listeners. Have a great evening.

we will see you right back here tomorrow morning for my conversation with Robert Greenway. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.