The Daily Signal

Alabama Republicans have told teachers unions to stay out of their school-related elections.The Alabama Republican Party recently voted to ban GOP candidates for the Alabama Board of Education, local school boards, and county school superintendent from accepting donations from teachers unions.John Wahl, chairman of the Alabama GOP, says the change was needed to ensure that parents, and not special-interest groups, have control over their children’s education.  “There's only one purpose that these education unions exist, and that's to lobby for their facet of the education system,” Wahl says. “There's only one reason school boards and superintendents exist, and that is to put forth the policies that regulate the school systems, so it's a direct conflict of interest.” Wahl joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what this change means for protecting parental rights in Alabama. Wahl also weighs in on the priorities of Alabama voters and what we can expect at the first GOP presidential debate on Aug. 23. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: The investigation into Hunter Biden took a sharp turn today. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the probe of Hunter Biden.  Trump’s lawyers were in court in Washington, D.C. today for the first hearing in the case related to Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 Election. The judge issued a ruling that is being described as mixed.  After a long first day of school Wednesday, hundreds of students in Louisville, Kentucky, were stuck on school buses until almost 10 p.m. Tony’s story: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/10/students-stuck-on-school-buses-late-at-night-as-superintendent-enjoys-75k-raise/ Suicides in the U.S. hit a new record in 2022. The death toll in Maui ticks up to 55 people Elise’s story: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/11/climate-activists-warm-up-as-wildfires-burn-in-hawaii/ Relevant LinksListen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday aimed at restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese high-tech, including artificial intelligence, microelectronics and semiconductors, and quantum information technologies. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., however, “[thinks] it’s a little late.” “China has been stealing our technology for decades,” says Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “The problem is the high-tech stuff is now fueling their military expansion.”“So, I know about two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago, there was a robotics company that was bought out of Massachusetts,” Green says. “They didn’t buy it for the robotics. They bought it to get the [artificial intelligence] out of the company, and China’s just been doing this left and right.”Green joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to further discuss the executive order, a laboratory in California that reportedly has connections to Chinese pharmaceutical firms, and the Chinese-owned app TikTok.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Rep. James Comer says the House Oversight Committee will subpoena Hunter and Joe Biden.  The president reaches a $6 billion deal to free Americans in exchange for jailed Iranians. Former President Donald Trump and his longtime aide Walt Nauta plead not guilty to charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that inflation was 0.2% in July with a year-over-year rate of 3.2%.  Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance says some colleges and universities might be finding ways to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.  A catastrophic wildfire continues to take over the Hawaiian island of Maui.  An Ecuadorian presidential candidate is assassinated after speaking at a rally.  Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, recently tweeted a lengthy thread in hopes of exposing Americans to the so-called Facebook Files. Using all capital letters, Jordan wrote July 27: “THE FACEBOOK FILES, PART 1: SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE.”Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also has tweeted about other parts of the “Facebook Files.”Asked by The Daily Signal what the most shocking discovery is so far, Jake Denton, research associate in The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, replies that “none of this really came as a surprise, necessarily.” (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)“It’s egregiously obvious they were violating our First Amendment rights,” Denton says of the Biden administration, adding:There’s this huge interplay collusion between Big Tech and big government, and then a week later, no one’s talking about it. And I think that the shock factor has gone away, because we just keep seeing it happen. If you’re looking for one element of the [document] drops that kind of stand out from all of them, [it] is the correspondence trying to take down a meme, which kind of just shows you the comedic scale that this has reached, where you have government employees whose daily job is to scroll through Facebook [and] Twitter and critique a meme’s role in the information environment.Mark Zuckerberg heads Meta, parent company of Facebook. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, recently renamed it X.Denton joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the secrets exposed by the “Facebook Files,” why Americans should be concerned, and what the revelations say about the relationship between social media companies and the Biden administration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: President Joe Biden continues to be hit with corruption allegations by House Republicans who have been digging into the Biden family’s business dealings. Tyler O’Neil reports that FBI Director Christopher Wray may have lied under oath concerning the FBI Richmond office’s Jan. 23 memo citing the Southern Poverty Law Center in urging investigation of “radical traditional Catholic hate groups,” Rep. Jim Jordan suggested in a letter sent Wednesday. Tyler’s article: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/09/fbi-director-lied-oath-memo-targeting-radical-traditional-catholics-new-memo-suggests/  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used an executive order on Wednesday to suspend Monique Worrell, the state attorney for the state’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, for under prosecuting criminals in her district. The pro-life movement has suffered a loss in Ohio.  After a seven-year legal battle that ended with a victory at the Supreme Court, Joe Kennedy will be back on the field Sept. 1 coaching football and taking a knee in prayer.   Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

INTERVIEW: The English Romantic poet Percy Shelley, who died in 1822 at age 29, played a significant role in developing the ideas of the feminist movement, author Carrie Gress says. Ideas of the “the occult, smashing the patriarchy, and free love” played a significant role in Shelley’s writing and ideology, says Gress, author of the new book “The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us.”Shelley was a “barbaric man” who was “involved in the occult,” Gress says. His wife was Mary Shelley, author of the 1818 novel “Frankenstein,” she notes, and Shelley drew on the ideas of her parents—a vision of a “women’s revolution where there’s no monogamy, there’s no marriage, all of these things are just erased, and people just live this bucolic life without any reference to their human nature.” Shelley’s ideology contributed to the modern feminist movement, a movement that has led to what Gress calls “The End of Woman.”Gress, also a fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the history of feminism and explain how the feminist movement has harmed women and left women unfulfilled.Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in a case relating to the Biden administration’s so-called ghost gun restrictions.  Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has declared a state of emergency because of the “rapidly rising numbers of migrant families arriving” in her state “in need of shelter and services and a severe lack of shelter availability in the state,” according to the governor’s office.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has a new manager.  An Ohio school district’s policy enabling students to use the bathroom based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex surpassed a legal battle this week. Relevant LinksListen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parents Defending Education’s new report, “Little Red Classrooms,” offers some worrisome information about China’s reach in U.S. K-12 schools through so-called Confucius Classrooms.The report notes that Parents Defending Education “uncovered contracts that show Confucius Classrooms, or other Chinese government-backed programming, are still in operation” in a number of schools throughout the U.S., including Tulsa Public Schools in Oklahoma. “On July 11, 2022, the Tulsa Public Schools board of education approved entering into an agreement with the Confucius Classroom Coordination Offices, which [operate] out of the International Leadership of Texas Global nonprofit,” the report says. “The Chinese International Education Foundation would cover the cost of the program. Carver Middle School offers students a ‘Confucius Connection’ through its ‘Global Awareness’ programming.”Ryan Walters, Oklahoma state superintendent of public instruction, says, “What we did is, we — immediately upon finding this out — we have required the district to turn over any contracts, any curriculum, anything that’s been handed out through this course.”“So, we are actively compiling that from the district right now to do a deep dive into, ‘Hey, what was the Chinese government trying to get in this classroom? What were the teachers discussing in these classes?'” Walters says, adding:So that’s what we’ve required of the district right now. So, we are going to be looking for that information to have a better understanding of what was being funneled into these classrooms.Walters joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the Parents Defending Education report, whether he has spoken with any teachers, parents, or students at Tulsa’s Carver Middle School, and Tulsa Public Schools’ response to his Twitter video, “China will not be allowed in Oklahoma schools.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: 2024 Presidential Candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says former President Donald Trump lost the election in 2020.  Ohioans are headed to the polls Tuesday and will vote on an initiative to protect the state’s constitutions.  The Washington Free Beacon reports that A University of Kentucky clinic has performed gender reassignment surgeries on minors. A pro-LGBTQ organization has awarded grants to more than 70 public and charter schools in the U.S. and Canada.  Ukrainian officials arrest a woman who allegedly was helping plan an assassination plot against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Former Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao is sentenced to almost 5 years in prison.  Relevant LinksListen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices