Morning Wire XX
[0] A continuing resolution to keep the government funded past September 30th is making its way through Congress, but Democrats plan on making some addendums.
[1] We will have a vote on marriage equality.
[2] We break down what's in the legislation and the strategy behind it.
[3] I'm Daily Wire, editor -in -chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Wednesday, September 7th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] Millions of Americans are facing eviction in the next two.
[6] months.
[7] What led to the looming rental crisis in which cities will be hard to sit?
[8] And despite intense pressure from China against it, a UN report detailing appalling human rights abuses by the Chinese government has finally been released.
[9] We discuss the report's alarming findings.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] We have the news you need to know.
[13] One of the best things you can do to prepare for the unknown is to have a will in place.
[14] If you're a parent, a will gives you the power to decide who will raise your kids should something happen to you and your spouse.
[15] Go to epicwill .com and use promo code wire to save 10 % on epic will's complete will package.
[16] It's incredibly easy and well worth $119 to secure your family's future.
[17] Go to epicwill .com and use promo code wire today.
[18] Senate Democrats are reportedly planning to add language that would enshrine a right to same -sex marriage to the spending bill.
[19] This is the continuing resolution intended to keep federal agencies funded past the September 30th deadline and avoid a government shutdown.
[20] Here to explain the Democrats' thinking behind this tactic and what it means for gay marriage is Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
[21] So, Megan, we have a new spending bill coming up.
[22] Congress is going to have to agree on a variety of spending priorities.
[23] That's already a tall order.
[24] But will they potentially now also have to agree on gay marriage in order to keep the government funded?
[25] Yes, potentially they will.
[26] And, Republicans will essentially have to cede ground on gay marriage in order to pass this other, you know, largely mundane funding.
[27] And what's the rationale for adding a social measure to a spending bill?
[28] Well, you know, from a strategic standpoint, Democrats believe they have an advantage on these social issues.
[29] So they really want to keep those key issues where they have strong approval in the headlines ahead of midterms, including gay marriage and the spending package will not, of course, actually impact the legality of same.
[30] sex unions in any way.
[31] The Supreme Court, as we know, has ruled on that in the Obergefell case.
[32] And the only justice to suggest that that decision should be reconsidered was Clarence Thomas, and that wasn't a concurrence that no other justice joined.
[33] But the Democratic base is still likely to see it as a symbolic win.
[34] Now, is gay marriage expected to be on the ballot in some states in November?
[35] No, not really.
[36] There is a pending piece of legislation on gay marriage called the Marriage Equality Act, and that's already passed the House.
[37] Now, it has a good chance of passing the Senate, also given that Democrats need 10 Republicans to break the filibuster, and five moderate Republicans, and that includes Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, Ron Johnson, Wisconsin.
[38] Well, they've all signaled that they're going to vote for it.
[39] So instead of bringing the Marriage Equality Act bill to the floor, Democrats are apparently considering folding gay marriage into the spending package.
[40] So you could argue that that streamlines their agenda by creating an end run around bringing gay marriage up on its own.
[41] But again, without an overruling of Obergefell, which is nowhere on the horizon, it's really a moot point.
[42] Gay marriage is the law of the land, and it's likely to stay that way with or without the Marriage Equality Act.
[43] Now, you mentioned midterms.
[44] Is that what this is primarily about?
[45] I think so, yes, to a large extent.
[46] But it's also a strategic way to get some spending.
[47] priorities passed.
[48] There are always spending fights in these continuing resolutions as senators typically push for pet projects that will benefit their states.
[49] And if Republicans balk at funding any of those, what it does is allow Democrats to frame it as a refusal to codify gay marriage.
[50] Now, as for the actual spending in the spending bill, are there any other items that are expected to be contentious?
[51] Yeah, there are.
[52] So President Biden is already asking for around 47 billion in emergency funding for issues like Ukraine, COVID -19, monkeypox, disaster relief.
[53] He wants all of that to be added to this package.
[54] And you've got a number of Republicans who are balking at that.
[55] And then there's the deal that Senator Schumer made with Joe Manchin of West Virginia to make his reform proposal for fossil fuel permits part of the continuing resolution.
[56] Lindsay Graham of South Carolina is calling that a political payback scheme.
[57] So he's threatened that he's not going to vote for the package because of that.
[58] Now, when will they have to decide on this by in order to keep the government funded?
[59] September 30th, so it's coming up.
[60] And if they can't pass something by then, we will see a government shutdown.
[61] So pretty high stakes.
[62] Right.
[63] All right.
[64] Well, Megan, thanks for bringing us this story.
[65] Of course.
[66] Happy to do it.
[67] That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.
[68] Coming up, a wave of evictions is on the horizon.
[69] Do you like to be the first to know about trendy news and current events?
[70] If so, you got to get the Daily Wire Plus app.
[71] Not only will you receive mobile notifications whenever something's happening, but you'll also have access to the best commentary to break it all down.
[72] Download the DailyWire Plus app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
[73] As eviction moratoriums and other pandemic era policies for renters end, what's being described as a rental crisis is looming across the country.
[74] Millions of people say they will likely be evicted from their homes in the next two months.
[75] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Mairead, Alorty, is here with the details for us.
[76] So, Marade, what is the evidence for this problem and how many people is this expected to affect?
[77] Hi, Georgia.
[78] So this is a problem that really only reached crisis level in the last few months.
[79] According to Census Bureau data, about 3 .8 million people say they are somewhat or very likely to be evicted over the next two months.
[80] Millions more, about 8 .5 million people are behind on rent as of the end of August.
[81] There's also data suggesting that evictions are spiking as well, especially in major cities.
[82] In Tampa, Florida, evictions were 52 % above average in August, according to the eviction lab at Princeton University.
[83] In Houston, they were 90 % above average.
[84] And in Minneapolis, St. Paul, they were 94 % above average.
[85] In Maricopa County, Arizona, one judge said he is seeing upwards of 75 eviction cases daily.
[86] Now, what factors are driving this?
[87] Well, a major culprit is expiring eviction moratoriums and rent payment relief programs.
[88] The federal eviction moratorium ended in August of 2021, and because the eviction process takes several months to a year in some cases, we are starting to see a growing bubble of cases.
[89] There are also some cities that continued past last summer.
[90] For example, New York only ended the moratorium in January of this year, and L .A. still has not lifted the moratorium.
[91] So that's more than two years of back payment that some renters owe at this point, and many are finding themselves in a tight spot right now.
[92] Well, and if they do need to find a new place, rents have gone up significantly in that time, correct?
[93] That's right.
[94] Rent prices are still ticking up.
[95] In June, the median rent topped 2 ,000 a month for the first time on record.
[96] Since before the pandemic, rents have increased by almost 25 % and 15 % in just the past year, according to Zillow.
[97] Renters tend to have lower incomes than homeowners, so significant rent hikes can be difficult for them to handle.
[98] The median income for renters across the country hovers around 42 ,500.
[99] Quite a bit less than the national median household income of 67 ,500, according to Zillow.
[100] Nearly half of renters have had their rent raised in the last year.
[101] That's about 30 million people attempting to pay often hundreds of dollars more a month.
[102] Nearly 20 % of renters are being charged at least $100 more a month, and 4 % are trying to pay as much as $500 a month more every month.
[103] month.
[104] This has led to some high -risk situations like renters resorting to using credit cards for rent, dipping into their savings, or even slashing their retirement accounts.
[105] Now, how has all of this affected landlords?
[106] Yeah, well, many landlords are breathing a sigh of relief.
[107] Many spent months housing tenants who stopped paying long ago.
[108] In some places like Los Angeles County, the local government was sluggish in dispersing emergency funds to landlords who lost money when tenants stopped paying.
[109] In Southern California, some landlords described the nightmare situations they found themselves in when eviction moratoriums allowed their tenants to stay and not pay, sometimes for years.
[110] One Pasadena couple said they were unable for months to collect rent from a tenant who leased a new car and allegedly bought new clothes and got food delivered frequently.
[111] Another couple purchased a house last summer in nearby Carson.
[112] Months later, they still could not move in because a tenant from the previous owner refused to leave.
[113] Yet another couple, in Riverside, California, was unable to move into their new house when the cellars became squatters and continued to live in the home for more than a year.
[114] In New York City, one woman lived rent -free in the trendy West Village in Manhattan for more than three years, making life extremely uncomfortable for her landlord, who was also her roommate.
[115] She was finally evicted last week.
[116] So many tenants are in a tough situation now, but a lot of landlords are hoping to finally start recovering financially.
[117] Well, just another hangover from the COVID era, Marade, thanks for reporting.
[118] Thanks, Georgia.
[119] That's Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty.
[120] The U .N. Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights published a long -awaited report last week, detailing severe human rights violations in China's Xinjiang province, where the government has oppressed largely Muslim minorities under the guise of anti -terrorism.
[121] Here to discuss the report, and China's attempt to suppress it is Daily Wire's Tim Pierce.
[122] So, Tim, let's start with this UN report.
[123] they find?
[124] Hey, John.
[125] The report alleged pretty horrific treatment of Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups in China's Xinjiang province.
[126] The report cited interviews and testimonials from dozens of people, as well as an extensive body of documentation, concluding that Chinese authorities abused and tortured minorities in Jinjiang between 2017 and 2019.
[127] The report has a limited focus of only those years, but of course we've heard similar stories coming out of Xinjiang for longer than that.
[128] Right, lots of alarming stories going back several years now.
[129] What are some of the specific accusations made in the report.
[130] Well, China essentially has a no tolerance policy for Muslim worship in Jinjiang.
[131] Under its anti -terrorism laws, the government destroys religious places and arrests people caught praying in public.
[132] Those arrested, if they don't wind up in prison, probably end up in state -run vocational education and training centers.
[133] The Chinese claim that these centers are for de -radicalization and re -education, but people who have been in them say they are just prisons with a fancy name.
[134] And some of the stories coming out of those prisons sound like stories you'd read about Soviet torture tactics.
[135] People interviewed by the UN said that guards would strap inmates into what are called tiger chairs that would immobilize the prisoner's arms and legs.
[136] The guards would then beat or tase the inmate until they got what they wanted, whether that be a confession or punishment of some kind of alleged crime.
[137] At other times, inmates would be waterboarded, forced to sit on a stool or put in isolation for long periods.
[138] The day -to -day life in the centers is like some form of psychological torture.
[139] Former inmates said that they were always hungry and under constant surveillance.
[140] guards would patrol throughout the day and night to make sure inmates weren't engaged in any illegal activity such as praying and cell lights would be turned on at odd hours in the night to keep the inmates from sleeping all right so that's inside those facilities what's the government doing outside of the centers according to the report the chinese government seems to be running a pretty extensive system of intimidation it launched what the report calls a homestay program in which it pairs state agents with families across the province the government says that the program is supposed to boost social cohesion and community development, but the participants say that it's involuntary.
[141] Families are forced to accept and house the agents for at least a handful of days every few months, where the agent sits and watches everything the family does.
[142] One person described the program this way, and I'm quoting, they ate with us, I prepared food with them.
[143] They were there all the time, even when I was doing homework with my kids.
[144] The children had to be educated against their father because they said he had bad ideas.
[145] There was surveillance all day long.
[146] this government pressure seems to be having an impact on society at large.
[147] According to official population figures, the birth rate in Jinjiang have from 2017 to 2019.
[148] Wow.
[149] Now, U .S. officials and human rights watchdogs have said this report really should have been published much earlier.
[150] Why was the report so long incoming?
[151] Well, because China didn't want to seeing the light a day, and after reading it, you can see why.
[152] The report coincidentally, or maybe not, came out literally minutes before UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet's term ended.
[153] She has said that she was under tremendous pressure when trying to get the report out.
[154] China, which viewed a copy of the report ahead of publication, lobbied intensely to kill it, claiming that the report was severely flawed and claimed it was an attempt to meddle in China's internal affairs.
[155] Now, the report is obviously very critical of China, but some critics pointed out that it could have been tougher.
[156] The U .S. has accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang, and that word genocide never appeared in the 48 -page report.
[157] Well, Tim, thanks for breaking that down for us.
[158] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter, Tim Pierce.
[159] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[160] Police in Memphis, Tennessee, have identified a body found early Monday evening to be that of 34 -year -old Eliza Fletcher.
[161] This comes more than a day after police said they arrested 38 -year -old Cleotha Abston for the alleged abduction.
[162] Abston now faces a first -degree murder charge.
[163] U .S. intelligence officials say the Russian Ministry of defense is in the process of purchasing millions of rockets in artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing attack on Ukraine.
[164] This comes after the Biden administration confirmed, Russia took delivery of Iranian manufactured drones.
[165] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
[166] We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation.
[167] If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five -star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
[168] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[169] Thanks for wake up with us.
[170] We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.