Morning Wire XX
[0] I'm Georgia Howe.
[1] It's Thursday, July 20th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
[2] Congress hosted a House weaponization of the federal government hearing today, featuring testimony from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other public figures.
[3] Almost immediately, Democratic members of the committee motioned to effectively censor RFK Jr. from speaking.
[4] I moved that we were moving into an executive session because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable anti -Semitic and anti -Asian comments, as recently as last week.
[5] Rule 11 Clause 2 says, whenever it is asserted by a member of the committee that the evidence or testimony at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person, or it is asserted by a witness that the evidence or testimony that the witness would give at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate the witness, and it goes on.
[6] A vote ensued after Representative Thomas Massey moved to table the motion, and another Republican, Representative Mike Johnson, made a point.
[7] point of order to ask, quote, is it the custom of the committee to censor viewpoints that we disagree with from witnesses?
[8] By a 10 -8 vote, the GOP majority's motion to table succeeded, allowing the hearing to continue as planned.
[9] Here's Representative Massey.
[10] Wow, the irony and cognitive dissonance from the other side of the aisle, it's deafening.
[11] You could cut it with a knife.
[12] They are at the same time denying that censorship is occurring, but suggesting that there's more material that needs to be censored.
[13] This is a hearing on censorship that began with an effort, with a formal motion from the other side of the aisle to censor Mr. Kennedy.
[14] They do not want him to speak.
[15] Yet that is the topic of this hearing.
[16] The hearing led by Chairman Jim Jordan was, according to the weaponization panel, convened to, quote, examine the federal government's role in censoring Americans, the Missouri v. Biden case, and Big Tech's collusion with out -of -control government agencies to silence speech.
[17] The other two witnesses at the hearing were Breitbart News Politics editor Emma Joe Morris and D. John Sauer, special assistant attorney general at the Louisiana Department of Justice.
[18] Morris, then with the New York Post, broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was censored on social media under suspicion of being Russian disinformation.
[19] The story has since been verified.
[20] I can't even believe this is a conversation.
[21] This is not controversial or taboo.
[22] We live in the United States of America, and you have the right to say whatever you want, to print whatever you want, and to read whatever you want.
[23] A government that can censor its critics has licensed for every atrocity.
[24] It is the beginning of totalitarianism.
[25] There's never been a time in history when we look back and the guys who were censoring people were the good guys.
[26] Once you start censoring, you're on your way, dystopia and totalitarianism.
[27] Senator Chuck Grassley released a bombshell document on Thursday detailing an alleged bribery scheme involving then -vice -president Joe Biden and a Ukrainian business executive.
[28] Daily Wire, senior editor, Joel Needler, has more.
[29] According to Grassley, the document shows that a Ukrainian oligarch claimed he was coerced into making a payoff to the president and his son.
[30] According to the redacted FD -1023 form reported by the New York Post, the owner of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, Mikola Zlovchewski, told the FBI informant in 2016 during a meeting that it cost $5 million to pay one Biden and $5 million to another Biden.
[31] House GOP members had previously threatened FBI director Christopher Ray with contempt of Congress for not sharing this document earlier, forcing Ray and the FBI to release it.
[32] Homeland Security admitted in a court filing that prior to the expiration of Title 42, 80 % of illegal aliens apprehended and released into the U .S. under the Biden administration's parole program were not given immigration hearing summonses by ICE.
[33] These illegal immigrants were told to check in with ICE within 60 days, but were never actually given a legal notice.
[34] Data shows just 40 % of illegal immigrants actually go on to check in with ICE.
[35] A big win for parental rights in Virginia this week.
[36] The Virginia Department of Education is moving to prohibit school staff from using a different name or pronoun for students without parental permission.
[37] The new policies revealed on Tuesday also mandate that students must be on the athletic teams and use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex.
[38] GOP governor Glenn Yonkin has made parental rights a cornerstone of his administration.
[39] My message to parents is this.
[40] You have a fundamental right enshrined in law by this general assembly to make decisions with regard to your child's upbringing, education, and care.
[41] And we will protect and reassert that right.
[42] And Tyrion Steinbach, the Stanford DEI administrator who went viral for her behavior during a guest speaker engagement with sitting judge Stuart Kyle Duncan on campus has departed from the university.
[43] Duncan was invited by Stanford's Federalist Society to speak and faced heavy opposition from left -wing students who disrupted his talk, acted unruly in the auditorium, and demanded that his speech be banned from campus.
[44] Steinbach, then the school's DEI administrator, encouraged the disruptive behavior and did nothing to stop the protesters.
[45] She was placed on leave shortly after and is now out of the post.
[46] Those of your drive home updates this afternoon.
[47] To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire .com.
[48] And for more in -depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.
[49] Thank you.