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[0] The Department of Justice has announced that it will investigate threats against teachers and school board members nationwide.
[1] Is the DOJ being weaponized against parents who want accountability from their children's schools?
[2] 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.
[3] We're talking about the FBI.
[4] You're using the FBI to intervene in school board meetings.
[5] This is extraordinary.
[6] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[7] It's Wednesday, October 6th, and this is Morning Wire.
[8] The federal government has sued the state of Texas over its new pro -life law.
[9] As arguments in the case begin, we'll take a look at its national implications.
[10] And a Facebook whistleblower testified before Congress on Tuesday, leveling accusations of a cover -up and calling for more censorship of content.
[11] What is the whistleblower alleging, and do her ties to a Democratic PR firm, play into her allegations against the social media company.
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
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[20] technicians of America.
[21] On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI to investigate an alleged increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members and teachers.
[22] Without citing specific examples, Garland directed the FBI to partner with local law enforcement to develop measures to discourage the alleged threats and prosecute those involved.
[23] Here to discuss this development is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
[24] So, Ash, what led to Garland memo.
[25] Well, to start, over the summer, we witnessed a surge of parents all over the country attending school board meetings to argue against mask mandates and controversial content in the classroom, the biggest examples being left -wing racial ideology and pornographic content.
[26] And with that said, have there been incidents of, you know, the harassment, intimidation, threats of violence, as Garland suggested?
[27] In some cases, groups of parents did become unruly, But in the rare cases where someone was actually arrested, one would have to stretch the definition for their behavior to fit the claims made by the attorney general.
[28] So, for example, a parent in Loudoun County, Virginia was arrested after the group that attended the school board meeting refused to quiet down.
[29] The meeting was abruptly ended and people were told to leave, but some parents refused.
[30] And as a result, one man was ticketed for trespassing.
[31] And another allegedly, quote, displayed aggressive behavior towards.
[32] another attendee, and then, quote, physically resisted arrest.
[33] He was charged with disorderly conduct in a resisting arrest.
[34] So even in that case, the aggressive behavior wasn't actually directed toward a public school official.
[35] By the way, the parent in that case said he was arrested after telling police he wouldn't leave until everyone had been able to voice their concerns at the meeting.
[36] So this all happened over the summer and somewhat in last spring.
[37] why is the DOJ taking action right now?
[38] Well, a few days ago, the National School Boards Association demanded the Biden administration step in.
[39] 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.
[40] I mean, terrorism and hate crimes, did they give examples of these?
[41] Sort of.
[42] In their letter, the NSBA cited more than 20, as examples, though all but one of them were just examples of parents getting loud and angry without actual threats or intimidation.
[43] And that one case?
[44] Well, that was a letter addressed to a school board member that forcefully objected to mask mandates, saying the school board was forcing children, quote, to wear masks for no reason in this world other than control.
[45] And for that you will pay dearly.
[46] I mean, that could be taken in a few different ways.
[47] Right.
[48] So the school board Association sent the Biden administration that letter highlighting basically that one example of a threat of violence and now the DOJ is acting?
[49] Looks that way.
[50] And what are people's reactions to the memo so far?
[51] Well, you know, it's mixed.
[52] Those who support mask mandates and left -wing political content in classrooms are applauding the move.
[53] But those on the other side are saying this is the Biden administration attempting to control dissent, since Democrats disagree with what the parent protesters are demanding.
[54] Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri voiced his concerns with the memo during a hearing on Tuesday.
[55] And you are attempting to intimidate them.
[56] You are attempting to silence them.
[57] You are attempting to interfere with their rights as parents and yes, with their rights as voters.
[58] This is wrong.
[59] This is dangerous.
[60] So, Ash, where do we think this is going to lead?
[61] I mean, should we expect to see FBI agents showing up at school board meetings?
[62] What it sounds like is they're going to empower local officials to crack down on dissenting parents and aggressively pursue investigations.
[63] 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.
[64] Now, suddenly, the FBI, which doesn't handle local affairs, are going to treat this as a multi -state conspiracy.
[65] It's quite concerning.
[66] Sounds like it.
[67] Ash, thanks for keeping us informed.
[68] You're welcome.
[69] That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Ash Short.
[70] Coming up, the DOJ sues Texas over its new pro -life law.
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[76] The Justice Department argued against a new abortion measure on Friday after they sued the state of Texas for its recent pro -life law.
[77] The new heartbeat law effectively outlaws abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which is typically around six weeks of pregnancy.
[78] It also allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and people who aid and abet illegal procedures.
[79] But the DOJ wants it overthrow.
[80] own.
[81] Here to discuss is Daily Wire Charlotte Pence Bond.
[82] Morning, Charlotte.
[83] Morning, John.
[84] So, Charlotte, what's the latest with this DOJ lawsuit?
[85] Yeah, so it's difficult to say how this is going to play out.
[86] So on Friday, Judge Robert Pittman of a U .S. District Court in Texas heard arguments from lawyers from the state and from the Justice Department regarding the lawsuit.
[87] The judge reportedly questioned the Justice Department on the details of whether it's able to sue a state directly in order to stop one of its laws, but he also called the private cause of action, quote, very unusual.
[88] The state's lawyer defended the law, saying it's not some kind of vigilante scheme, and it uses the normal and lawful process of justice in Texas.
[89] The lawyer from the federal government claimed that, quote, women have been left desperate, forced under sometimes harrowing circumstances to get out of Texas if they even can.
[90] Judge Pittman didn't offer a timeline on when he'd make his decision, but he said they'd get to work on it.
[91] So no concrete timeline.
[92] No. Tell us about the lawsuit itself.
[93] What is the DOJ arguing here?
[94] Yeah, so the federal government essentially sued the state of Texas, saying that Texas acted unconstitutionally by enacting a law that bans abortion before viability.
[95] The lawsuit also argued that the law conflicts with federal law by purporting to prohibit federal agencies from carrying out their responsibilities.
[96] Okay.
[97] So they're saying that federal workers won't be able to do some of their jobs as it relates to aborting.
[98] abortion because of this law.
[99] So remember, the Supreme Court decided not to stay the new law, so they let it take effect, saying it was because it's enforced by private citizens.
[100] Right.
[101] Okay, so that's the latest from Texas.
[102] We're also seeing a lot of abortion -related discussion on the federal level.
[103] What's going on there?
[104] Yeah, so the House of Representatives narrowly passed the Women's Health Protection Act last month with a vote of 218 to 211.
[105] Right now, there's no national legislation securing the right to abortion in this country.
[106] So this was trying to change that.
[107] It would eliminate state's abilities to regulate abortion before fetal viability and take away lots of the restrictions already in place.
[108] Fetal viability, so we're talking 20 to 24 weeks.
[109] Right.
[110] The law could also streamline access to late -term abortion by allowing a health care provider to approve it.
[111] So the goal here is to really restrict state's ability to limit abortion.
[112] Is there any chance this is actually going to become law?
[113] Chances are slim, especially in the Senate because it would need 60 votes to get passed a filibuster by Republicans.
[114] The vote in the House was seen as a mostly symbolic gesture.
[115] It could have been an attempt to show progressive voters that Democrats are seeking to secure a right to an abortion in light of the highly anticipated Mississippi abortion law case that will be heard in the Supreme Court this year.
[116] The court's decision on that case could decide the legality of all pre -viability abortion bans across the country, which could allow states to make their own abortion laws again.
[117] There's been a lot of big developments in recent months on abortion that could really determine the direction on the issue in this country.
[118] Charlotte, thanks for the reporting.
[119] Happy to do it.
[120] Daily Wires, Charlotte Pince Bond.
[121] On Tuesday, a former Facebook employee testified to the Senate, saying she thinks the company has allowed people to post too many, quote, hateful.
[122] and polarizing messages.
[123] Yesterday we saw Facebook get taken off the internet.
[124] 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.
[125] 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.
[126] Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak did some research on who Howgan is.
[127] Luke, first, what are Howgans' specific claims about Facebook?
[128] Basically that they're not censoring enough.
[129] She says based on her insider knowledge, Facebook only censors about 3 % of problematic content when presumably she believes they should be censoring 33 times that much.
[130] She claims the reason that the company is not censoring more people is because it, quote, puts profits over people.
[131] She says she became concerned about all this when she saw a friend get so -called radicalized to be far right after seeing misinformation online and that it's what she called dividing America.
[132] So she's basically saying Facebook is not censoring enough content, but specifically conservative content.
[133] Yeah, and this is the same Facebook that suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election because of fears of misinformation, even though that story was true.
[134] Right.
[135] She also says Facebook is damaging children by lowering them in.
[136] Howgen 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 up to woke ideals, too.
[137] When she worked at Pinterest, she added a feature so that people could search by skin color.
[138] At another employer called Gigster, she steered the company towards inclusion.
[139] In 2015, she said Google was not inclusive enough of women, saying, quote, the last team I was on at Google, it had a transsexual engineering director, and as a result, we had more transsexual women than cis women on our team.
[140] Was that a complaint or a boast?
[141] It was a complaint.
[142] Okay, so she appears to be sort of a political activist.
[143] Yeah, she's given at least 20 campaign contributions, all of them to Democrats, including to Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
[144] So as more information's come out about Howgan, you know, the obvious question here is this, is this coordinated, is this politically motivated?
[145] 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 jansaki worked right until she became biden's press secretary one of the company's other clients is a non -profit seeking to regulate facebook into censoring more political content okay how it 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 politically loaded situation here with heavy Democrat connections.
[146] Exactly.
[147] Well, thanks for the reporting, Luke.
[148] Anytime, John.
[149] That was Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak.
[150] Other stories we're tracking this week?
[151] Despite existing staffing shortages, the healthcare industry continues to conduct mass firings as major hospitals terminate employees who don't comply with their new COVID vaccine mandates.
[152] New York's largest hospital system, Northwell Health, announced Monday that it has laid off 1 ,400 employees.
[153] Northwell defended the move, saying that the mass firing was necessary in order to, quote, enable all our facilities to remain open and fully operational.
[154] And on Monday, 98 % of members of one of Hollywood's largest labor unions, Ayatzi, voted to authorize a strike if necessary.
[155] The union is pushing for higher wages on streaming projects and for shorter production hours.
[156] If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five -star review.
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[159] We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
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