Morning Wire XX
[0] Why are prosecution rates going down in America's major cities while crime rates go up?
[1] It feels to me like they want to create chaos.
[2] They don't put people in jail for violating the law.
[3] You see people now being arrested for the 30th and 40th time.
[4] We speak to an investigative reporter who's tracked the rise of progressive district attorneys and the dark money that funds them.
[5] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[6] It's February 18th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[7] A chapel at Asbury University in Kentucky has been in a nonstop prayer and worship session for over a week now, drawing worshippers from around the globe and leading some to call it a genuine revival, the largest scale event of its kind in more than 50 years.
[8] And in the age of digital directions, some people are choosing to use paper maps.
[9] We'll take a look at why some folks are opting for the old -fashioned navigation method.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
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[18] From Chesa Boudine in San Francisco to Larry Krasner in Philadelphia to Alvin Bragg in New York City, progressive prosecutors are leaving their mark on American cities.
[19] At least 20 % of Americans are now living in a city governed by a progressive prosecutor, thanks in large part to funding from billionaire George Soros.
[20] Joining us to discuss is Washington Examiner, contributor Jim Nell's.
[21] Jim, thanks so much for coming on.
[22] My pleasure.
[23] Thank you for having me. Now, a lot of Americans have observed over the past several years that there's been a rise in crime in America's major cities.
[24] You've reported that some of this is by design, thanks to some policies that have been promoted by a group of newly elected district attorneys.
[25] What did you find?
[26] What I've really found is that there's a lot of dark money that's going into elections of local district attorneys or state's attorneys or just basically city or county prosecutors.
[27] Most Americans don't even know who their district attorney is.
[28] And since 2016, George Soros has dumped more than 40 million to elect 75 prosecutors nationwide.
[29] Those 75 prosecutors cover more than 20 % of the American population.
[30] And he's put them in place to have very specific goals.
[31] They're believing in things like social justice, racial justice, defunding the police, making the police unable to do their job handcuffing them, if you will.
[32] And what it basically comes down to is that they've been unable to change the laws in these cities because they don't have the votes.
[33] So they're putting people in place who won't enforce the laws.
[34] And we're seeing that over and over again in cities like New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Angeles, San Francisco, and even creeping into smaller towns like Memphis, Tennessee, and smaller areas and places like Kentucky and in Texas.
[35] Now, is it legal for an individual to influence elections so much?
[36] It's done through super PACs.
[37] So he has a super PAC called the Democracy PAC, the Open Democracy Pack, the Open Society Pack, and then they'll start PACs during races.
[38] So, you know, Justice for St. Louis PAC or Justice for Chicago PAC.
[39] And those are just short -term political action committee.
[40] that are created for the election, and then they go away after the election.
[41] So it's totally legal.
[42] I'll let other people make the judgment on if it's moral, but the only way to stop is for people to educate themselves and vote for law and order prosecutors.
[43] Now, what kind of policies do these Soros -backed Super PACs support?
[44] What do they want to see happen in these cities?
[45] So one of the things that they're trying to do is decriminalize what they call non -violent crime.
[46] So something such as resisting the police is not considered a crime in places like Chicago and Philadelphia.
[47] Loitering in order to commit prostitution is not considered a crime.
[48] One troubling thing that I'm seeing, though, is in places like Philadelphia under Larry Krasner in places like Chicago under Kim Fox is they are not prosecuting people for illegal possession of a firearm.
[49] Larry Kraser has been very vocal about this saying that it only impacts African -American communities if they are arrested only for illegal possession of a firearm, but yet a study that was conducted in Pittsburgh, same state as Philadelphia showed that 80 % of people arrested for illegal possession of a firearm.
[50] They were already federally prohibited from owning a firearm.
[51] They obtained one illegally.
[52] They were arrested for it.
[53] If you don't get those people off the streets, they're going to use that illegal firearm in order to commit a crime.
[54] The other thing that they're doing is even in cities where they don't have no cash bail laws, they're not asking for bail.
[55] The other thing that they're doing is they're not prosecuting or they are really just trying to dumb down the charges.
[56] So again, I come back to Larry Krasner in Philadelphia.
[57] Arrest for illegal possession of a firearm is up three times from its 2017 rate.
[58] So the police are doing their job, but convictions have fallen from 65 to 49 percent because they're not pursuing those charges.
[59] Now, is there clear evidence that the lack of prosecution is actually incentivizing crime?
[60] I mean, is this something that's openly discussed among criminals?
[61] It is openly discussed, and I think the primary example of that is in Los Angeles, where a person who was convicted of murder, had the murder downgraded to, I believe, manslaughter, actually got George Gascon's name tattooed on his forehead because he wanted to thank George Gascon for letting him out of jail.
[62] So do people know what's going on in the criminal element?
[63] You've also reported before that this is having a profound effect on officer morale.
[64] Tell us about that.
[65] I think that's another thing that goes largely unreported.
[66] If you look at my hometown of Chicago, over 3 ,000 police officers have left the force since 2019.
[67] Half of them have been replaced.
[68] The other thing that we're seeing in Chicago, and it's a terrible situation, is that the suicide rate amongst Chicago police officers is 60 % higher than national average.
[69] More than 20 policemen and women have killed themselves through suicide since 2018 under the rule of Kim Fox as the state's state's.
[70] attorney for Cook County.
[71] And it's unreported.
[72] No one's talking about it.
[73] And it's a shame because these folks work really hard.
[74] They put their lives in danger every single day.
[75] They don't make a lot of money.
[76] And they need the support of the prosecutors, not the disdain of the prosecutors.
[77] All right.
[78] Well, Jim, thanks so much for coming on.
[79] My pleasure.
[80] Thank you for having me. That was Washington Examiner contributor, Jim Nell's.
[81] A private Christian college in a small Kentucky town is experiencing what many are calling the first true religious revival since the 1970s.
[82] What started as a routine chapel service evolved into a continuous prayer and worship that has now been going on for more than a week, drawing thousands of visitors from as far away as Singapore and Indonesia.
[83] Here to tell us more about what's happening at Asbury Christian University is Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
[84] So, Megan, to start, can you give us a quick description of what's being called the Asbury revival, how it began, and exactly how much attention it's now getting?
[85] Yeah.
[86] So Asbury is a small Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky, and it has fewer than 2 ,000 students total.
[87] So on Wednesday, February 8th, the school held one of its usual midweek chapel services.
[88] And they have these services three times a week, and the event is going to sound pretty familiar to anyone who attends church.
[89] It began with singing some acoustic praise songs, a faculty member delivered a short sermon.
[90] That was followed by prayer.
[91] But as the service ended, a couple dozen students stayed and continued praying and singing.
[92] And then as the hours went by, more joined them.
[93] And some started posting videos to social media where they went viral.
[94] Right now, the hashtag Asbury Revival has 34 million views on TikTok.
[95] And it's also drawing a lot of outside visitors to the school who've been arriving reportedly by the thousands to take part in this round -the -clock service.
[96] Now, I think it's natural when people hear about something like this to feel some measure of skepticism about whether this is a genuine religious movement or just a social media fad.
[97] I do think that's very natural.
[98] And for that reason, I asked Lexi Presta, a senior at Asbury and executive editor of the campus newspaper, about that.
[99] And she was in the initial chapel service and has returned daily.
[100] And she told me that the school has been very welcoming of visitors, but it's also been careful to protect the integrity of this service.
[101] So to that end, only faculty like the school's president or already scheduled chapel speakers have been allowed to preach in the service, for instance?
[102] I've never witnessed anything like this before in my life.
[103] And if I wasn't here from the beginning, I would have a lot of skepticism too.
[104] But if you're feeling led to come and see, not for the experience, but to just meet Jesus and embrace Jesus, then you're going to understand why this is a big deal and why it's important.
[105] and then the good news is once you encounter Jesus, then you can go wherever you're from and then share it with the people around you.
[106] It's just beautiful.
[107] There are reports now that students from at least 22 other schools have started similar services on their own campuses after visiting Asbury.
[108] And I spoke to Joe Rigney, pastor and president of Bethlehem College in Minneapolis, which is another small Christian school, about the great awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries that shaped America's religious culture for generations.
[109] Those also involved colleges, and here's how he said theologians of the past evaluated that news of revival.
[110] If you look back at historic revivals in American history, like The Great Awakening, this is one of the things that Jonathan Edwards, for example, was very concerned about in the First Great Awakening, is he believed it was a real work of God, but that any time you had a real work of God, you would have a counterfeit, you would have fakes, you would have both a sort of demonic influence that might seek to sow seeds of falsehood and destruction.
[111] And so in these kind of moments, that sort of thing is what you would expect next.
[112] And I think the test is whether the revival, the awakening, leads to real, deep, love for Jesus and an enduring obedience to him in every area of life.
[113] If it's a real revival, that will be the fundamental mark.
[114] People will love Jesus, trust in him, and obey him in every area of their lives in an enduring way.
[115] So the best way to know if we're witnessing a revival, I guess, is to see what comes of it over time.
[116] Right, absolutely.
[117] Megan, thanks so much for reporting.
[118] Yeah, my pleasure.
[119] That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.
[120] Despite a growing reliance on smartphones for directions, sales of paper maps are spiking.
[121] What's leading to the trend and who in particular is behind it?
[122] Here are some answers as DailyWire's Charlotte Pence -Bahn.
[123] So Charlotte, paper maps are back.
[124] That's right.
[125] It might seem like paper maps would be out of use by now with smartphones, but that's not actually the case.
[126] A spokesperson for Ordnance Survey, which is Great Britain's National Mapping Agency, told the Wall Street Journal that custom -made map sales are spiking.
[127] They went up in 2020, 144 % compared to 2019, and in 2021, they saw another 28 % surge.
[128] And it's not just one company.
[129] AAA reportedly made 123 % more maps last year than the year before, and believe it or not, a company rep said that it's younger generations that are showing fresh interest.
[130] One map shop owner in North Carolina even said that year over year, sales are still up 20 % to 30%.
[131] He said people are using maps for art and also as a fun way to come up with ideas for where to travel to next.
[132] And a USA Today report from 2020 show that paper maps and road atlases had actually been selling at a five -year compound yearly growth rate of 10 % per the NPD book scan.
[133] In 2019, the grouping for travel maps and atlases sold 666 ,000 units, and its year -over -year sales had risen 7%.
[134] So my first thought here is this sounds kind of like a retro hipster trend.
[135] Does that sound about right?
[136] That might be part of it, but for a lot of people, paper maps feel like a break from tech.
[137] There's also a growing concern about phones tracking our movements, so some people may feel more comfortable turning location services off, which means they can't use the navigation apps.
[138] There's also the reliability of having a paper road atlas in the car.
[139] And there's also some evidence that Gen Ziers are more map savvy than millennials.
[140] A survey from 2019 in the UK reportedly found that only 18 % of millennials felt very confident that they could read a classic map.
[141] And amazingly, 15 % of millennials stated they had never even read a printed map.
[142] For comparison, 44 % of people over 38 years old reported feeling very confident they could use one.
[143] But a more recent survey in 2021 show that more than two -thirds of Gen Zers could read a map.
[144] So it looks like paper maps really went out of style with millennials, but they could be coming back with Gen Z. Well, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that there's a return to hard copies on some things like this.
[145] Charlotte, thanks for reporting.
[146] Thanks for having me. That was DailyWire's Charlotte Pence Bond.
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