The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Capabilities of China Spy Balloon Discovered, FBI’s Questionable Activity, Hunter Biden’s Business Dealings | Feb. 9

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Excitville top news for Thursday, February 9. Here are today's headlines. New information has been released about the Chinese spy balloon. We now know that the balloon had electronic surveillance technology in it. Officials at the State Department say this technology could be used for monitoring communications within the United States. The FBI began conducting analysis of the remains of the balloon earlier this week at Quantical. in Virginia. CNN has reported that what we are hearing now from the State Department officials is that the balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations. So this means it could collect information both from radar and from communication devices. The State Department is also reporting that the balloon was part of a fleet of other balloons

Starting point is 00:01:06 that have flown over more than 40 countries across five continents. officials say they know the balloons are used for surveillance. Parts of the balloon that was shot down remain in the ocean. So we're going to continue to keep you all up to date as this story develops, and we learn more about the balloon and its intelligence capabilities. House Republicans want to know what foreign business deals Hunter Biden has been involved in. On Thursday, House Oversight Committee Republicans filed a formal request for records and information related to Hunter Biden's business dealings.

Starting point is 00:01:42 abroad. Kentucky Republican representative James Comer is the chairman of the committee, and he said in a statement that the American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden family's influence peddling. Comer says the Oversight Committee is committed to exposing the waste, fraud, and abuse that has taken place at the highest levels of our government. In addition to requesting information from Hunter Biden, the committee is also asking for the foreign business records of the president's brother, James Biden, and Hunter's business partner, Eric Schwerin. The committee's ultimate goal is to determine if the Biden family used the influence of Joe Biden when he was vice president to sell access around the world. Hunter and James Biden and

Starting point is 00:02:27 Eric Schwerin have until February 22nd to respond to the Oversight Committee. If they don't, the committee may file a subpoena to get the information. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a report on the radical traditionalist Catholic ideology. The Daily Signal found out about it and reported on it, asking the FBI to comment. And one day later, the FBI rescinded that report. The Daily Signal's Tyler O'Neill has been covering this story, and he joins us now. So, Tyler, if you would, just explain this initial report. The FBI's Richmond office, they reportedly cited the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source in its intelligence bulletin.

Starting point is 00:03:10 and FBI Richmond, they specifically cited Southern Poverty Law Center in a document titled, this is a bit of a mouthful, but it's titled, Interest of Radically or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists and Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities. All right, so Tyler, the Southern Poverty Law Center, it's known to be a far-left legal group. So why was the FBI citing them in an intelligence bulletin? That's an excellent question. And in fact, when I asked the FBI about that, they didn't give me a response by my deadline

Starting point is 00:03:50 yesterday, but they did give me a response today and said, this doesn't meet our standards. And so we're pulling the report. And it's like, okay, that's good news. But also, you know, that raises a whole bunch of other questions about how this report was developed in the first place. And I actually, you know, responded to the FBI with a set of questions and they said, sorry, our comment is the only thing we're saying. So it's, you know, but yeah, this is this was a shocking development because not only is the Southern Poverty Law Center well known for attacking mainstream conservative and Christian groups, branding them hate groups, putting them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, a map which encouraged a terrorist attack in 2012. which, thank God, no one died.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Thank God, the SPLC condemned the attack. But of course, the SPLC kept the victim of the attack, the Family Research Council, on the hate map going on 10 years now. And their claims about FRC are just false. So I've gone in and debunked them multiple times. The FRC has responded many times they've been gracious saying, like, look, no, this isn't true. This has never been true. This is where this comes from.

Starting point is 00:05:08 But of course, the SPLC doesn't budge. So the FBI didn't have anything to say about how this happened, how they just so happened to be citing the Southern Poverty Law Center in an intelligence bulletin. They couldn't give the logic or how this made it through their chain of command. Yeah, no, they didn't respond at all. And the interesting thing is I had three current and former FBI sources who were telling me that, you know, SIPLC is very much of verboten. One of them had actually part of his job was to approve these reports and to go over them. He said that there was this official guidance during his tenure saying, you don't cite the SPLC, they're not credible.

Starting point is 00:05:52 And suddenly this document, which had to go through at least two levels of approval before they would disseminate it. And of course, they only disseminated it among the FBI. but they had to go over it and it made it all the way through. What do you think this says about the FBI right now and maybe it's priorities? Yeah, well, we've seen a lot of really troubling politicization of the FBI in recent years, especially under President Biden, where they're going after pro-life protesters and kind of ignoring the attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers until very, recently and also not really very aggressively going after these people who are protesting at

Starting point is 00:06:40 Supreme Court justices houses, you know, really, really trying to pressure the Supreme Court into not returning to the pre-Rovie Wade status quo, which is what they did. And, you know, the rhetoric has been very extreme from one side of the aisle. And what the Supreme Court did was pretty moderate all things considered allowing states to make their own laws on abortion once again. And yet people on the left are pushing it and the DOJ has not really acted. So I think this is yet more confirmation that the FBI either institutionally or at least the people at the Richmond office thought that conservative Christians, Catholics, you know, in this case it's radical traditional Catholics. But you can imagine, I mean, this is citing the SPLC, which goes after, I mean, the SPLC attacked a Catholic nonprofit citing a quote that came directly from the catechism of the Catholic Church. So what does that tell you?

Starting point is 00:07:42 Yeah. Tyler O'Neill of The Daily Signal. Tyler, thanks so much for joining us today. And if you all are curious, want to read Tyler's reporting on this. We'll be sure to leave those links in our show notes today. But Tyler, appreciate your time. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks, Virginia.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Election funding is on the minds of some conservative organizations. Both the Honest Elections Project and Heritage Action for America, which is the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, says that there are loopholes regarding election funding that need to be closed. Specifically, the groups are calling for state legislatures to close loopholes regarding private funding of elections. The calls came after the same organization that destroyed. The 2020 Mark Zuckerberg election grants issued a $2 million grant to county in Georgia. But the problem is Georgia is one of two dozen states that ban private funding of election offices. The Daily Signal's Fred Lucas has been covering this story and he joins us now.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Fred, thanks so much for being here. Would you just explain what exactly the Georgia law says? Why is private funding of elections not allowed? There was about tens of millions of dollars from the Zuckerberg grants went into Georgia in the 2020 election. As part of a major election reform in 2021, Georgia was among 24 states, I should say. So two dozen states in the United States that banned private money. They were called Zuckerberg ban, just kind of broadly. But it actually meant any private funding of election offices.

Starting point is 00:09:25 And people didn't want these billionaire oligarchs, basically, funding how elections are run at the local level. So after the ban was put in, though, it was specifically saying election offices could not take it. Now, just last week we learned that the same organization, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which launched this new alliance for election excellence, has given DeKalb County, Georgia, a $2 million grant. Now, it appears that's probably legal under this, even under the law, because instead of giving it directly to the election office, they gave it to the county treasury, and then the county treasury then distributed. So it sort of almost sounds like funneling money, but it apparently is technically legal. So they have found this loophole. And now these conservative organizations, heritage action for America and the honest election project, they are saying, wait, no, we need to close these loopholes.

Starting point is 00:10:39 So what exactly are they saying needs to be done in order to prevent this kind of behavior? I think broadly speaking, I think it's just saying that counties or, you know, local governments will not, should not be able to accept money being used for the purpose of running election. And that's a I mean, that's like public purpose. And whenever someone wants to throw massive amounts of money behind that, particularly a group like the Center for Tech and Civic Life, that has an obvious ideological bent, one would assume that there is a basis for why they want to influence how elections are running in a particular area and what areas they're targeting. Otherwise, the way it is now, it makes these bans almost completely unenforceable, at least in the case of Georgia. Since there is a way around that, it becomes impossible to enforce this. From my understanding, some of the states do have tighter language on this type of thing.

Starting point is 00:11:50 Okay. Okay. Wow. Well, Fred, we really appreciate your reporting on this. Fred Lucas of the Daily Signal, also the author of The Myth of Voter Suppression, The Left's Assault on Clean elections. Fred, thanks so much for joining us today. Yes, thanks for having me on. Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Yonkin is speaking out against Black Lives Matter content in the state's public schools.

Starting point is 00:12:12 The Virginia Teachers Union has released a Black Lives Matter at school toolkit. The toolkit champions BLM's 13 principals in the classroom. The principals include affirming transgender ideology and embracing the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics. The principals promote critical race theory, but Governor Yonkin signed an executive order over a year ago, banning the teaching of critical race theory in schools. Yonkin's office told the daily signal, this BLM toolkit for, for schools will not be tolerated. We will leave a link to the Daily Signals article on this piece in today's show notes.

Starting point is 00:12:50 And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signals Top News. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us tomorrow morning for the Daily Signals interview edition. I'm going to be sitting down with former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott to dive into the reality of the crisis at the southern border and specifically talk about the roles that the cartels are playing in this crisis. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your

Starting point is 00:13:22 podcast and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. Thanks again for joining us today. Have a wonderful evening and we'll see you right back here tomorrow morning for my conversation with Rodney Scott. 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 Geine, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Capabilities of China Spy Balloon Discovered, FBI’s Questionable Activity, Hunter Biden’s Business Dealings | Feb. 9

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