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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: The Disney Corporation has lost its political battle in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis has now signed a bill into law stripping the theme park of its special privileges in the state. But the debate over corporate meddling and political targeting is just ramping up. I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, April 25th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Claims of war crimes by Russian forces grow even more numerous and alarming. Ukrainian officials say they have evidence of a mass grave containing thousands outside of one besieged city. We have the latest on the conflict.
--:-- John Bickley: And murder rates soared nationwide in 2020. But new data reveals that Black Americans were disproportionately affected. Just how big were the increases? And what do experts believe caused the trend? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group. The market's slow decline has now worsened, and you need to make sure that your savings are protected with alternative investments. Hedge your savings today before it's too late with Birch Gold. Text the word WIRE to 989898 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver today. Again, text WIRE to 989898 to protect your savings with Birch Gold today.
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--:-- John Bickley: This company had a deal unlike any company or any individual in all of the state of Florida and probably anywhere in the United States. Florida Republicans, led by Governor Ron DeSantis, have dealt a major blow to Disney, passing a measure that will soon strip the company of its privileged status in the state.
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--:-- John Bickley: Joining us now to discuss is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. All right, Cabot, there's a lot going on here. So first, give us a quick recap, if you would. How did we get to this point?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So over the last few months, Disney's been in a very public feud with Florida Republicans over a new bill concerning sex education in public schools. We've talked about it a few times now on the show.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, last week, the Florida legislature responded, passing a law that would strip Disney of the special legal privileges they've enjoyed for the last 55 years in Florida. Remember, they're essentially able to operate their 25,000-acre property as an independent city with their own government.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They have their own fire and EMS services. They can build new structures without going through the normal permitting process. They can even levy their own taxes and issue bonds.
--:-- John Bickley: So on Friday, Governor DeSantis signed a bill that would eliminate all special districts like this one in the state by 2023, but specifically targeted Disney. He addressed the bill on Friday, referencing Disney's decision to push what he called woke content as a main reason for the action.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And you know, I'm just not comfortable having that type of agenda get special treatment in my state. I just can't do it. And so...
--:-- John Bickley: Now, on Thursday, things got pretty contentious in the Florida House where the bill was being decided. Democrats tried to shout down the Republican speaker as he was conducting the final vote, which passed by a margin of 70 to 38.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Have all members voted? Have all members voted? Clerk will lock the machine. Now it's a vote. 78, 38, nice, Mr. Speaker. Show the bill passes
--:-- John Bickley: As you noted we talked about this before on this show but walk us through the main reasons Florida Republicans took this action in the first place.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, there were two main fronts here. First was Disney's opposition to the new parental rights and education bill, which in large part kept teachers from discussing sexuality and gender identity with five to eight-year-olds in the classroom.
--:-- John Bickley: DeSantis said Disney's mobilization to try and block that bill was an example of them, in his words, subverting democracy and countering the will of Floridians.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The other part of this is Disney content itself. That series of leaked videos over the last month, which showed Disney executives and employees discussing their intention to insert leftist sexual ideologies, among other things, into their kids' content, was also referenced repeatedly by Republicans opposing Disney's special treatment in the state.
--:-- John Bickley: To this point, what kind of reaction have we seen from Disney?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Disney hasn't addressed the bill publicly yet, despite being quite outspoken at first when they started their push against the parental rights bill. But from what we're told, there is a good chance that they mount some kind of legal response to this new bill.
--:-- John Bickley: The official wording of the law does leave some room for negotiating between Disney and the state when it comes to infrastructure and other services like zoning and utilities. So we'll have to wait and see there. But we haven't had to wait on seeing what type of economic impact this will have.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Disney's stock price has taken a major hit, major, since they waded into all of this. Over the last month alone, as conservatives nationwide have really turned against them, their stock is down nearly 15% in one month.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, many Republicans have started using this term, get woke, go broke, and they feel this is the perfect example of the consequences of pushing these controversial ideologies.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Speaking of the conservative response, what has been some of the reaction to this?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, one thing the vast majority of conservatives agree on is that Disney has gone too far in pushing what they view as inappropriate, often overly sexualized content in their programming.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But there were some disagreements over the weekend on how Republicans ought to respond. Many said that a billion-dollar corporation like Disney doesn't need or deserve special tax privileges, and that if anyone should have the benefit of less regulation, it's small business owners.
--:-- John Bickley: They also say that if corporations are going to use their power to push leftist ideologies, that elected Republicans should use their power to push back.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The conservatives who disagreed with the Florida law expressed concern about the long-term precedent that's being set by a state government going after a business for political speech.
--:-- John Bickley: They worried that Democrat leaders in other states would follow suit and, you know, go after conservative businesses.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, obviously, many Republicans pointed out that we've already seen a good bit of that. So they say it's more a reaction to a trend Democrats already started.
--:-- John Bickley: But as we saw over the weekend, definitely a few different sides to this.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, and it's definitely far from over.
--:-- John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for the reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
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--:-- John Bickley: That's Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. Coming up, Ukrainian authorities say they have more evidence of Russian war crimes. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news. And you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
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--:-- John Bickley: With the city of Mariupol still under siege, Ukrainian authorities say more evidence has emerged that Russian forces are committing human rights abuses and war crimes. Here with the latest from the conflict is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Ian, what are we seeing particularly in Mariupol?
--:-- John Bickley: First, we're hearing even more about the brutal human cost of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since the beginning, the city of Mariupol has been one of the epicenters of what can only be described as the true horrors of war. And this has only gotten worse after being besieged by Russian forces.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well now Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of burying up to 9 Ukrainians in mass graves. According to satellite imaging taken late last week a cemetery a few miles outside the city shows around 200 graves. And if the allegations are true, this would mean that almost 50 people were buried in each grave.
--:-- John Bickley: The mayor of Mariupol says Russia has committed the greatest war crime of the 21st century in his devastated city.
--:-- Ian Howarth: New satellite images appear to show a mass grave in a nearby village. The mayor says Russian forces are dumping truckloads of corpses at the site in an effort to hide their atrocities. 9,000 people, truly horrific if true.
--:-- John Bickley: This also isn't the only such allegation of war crimes, right?
--:-- Ian Howarth: No, not at all. Now, we've seen reports since the beginning of the war that Russian forces were engaged in war crimes ranging from targeting civilian areas with airstrikes to the deliberate and widespread rape and murder of civilians.
--:-- John Bickley: You'll remember earlier this month, we reported on Ukrainian President Zelensky's speech to the United Nations Security Council, where he shared gruesome images of alleged human rights abuses, including burned or partially burned bodies, mutilated bodies, and shallow mass graves.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And this speech was a precursor to Russia being kicked off the UN's Human Rights Council. Days before, the mayor of Bukha, a town northwest of Kiev, claimed that 280 people had been buried in a mass grave there.
--:-- John Bickley: Meanwhile, the Russian military claim that accusations of a massacre of civilians was nothing more than a media hoax.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But the difficulty here, of course, is that it's really hard to determine the reality on the ground during an ongoing conflict.
--:-- John Bickley: Shifting back to Mariupol, civilians are still trapped in the city, with reports that some are on the brink of starvation. With that in mind, it will unfortunately be pretty much impossible to uncover the true impact of this war until full access to the city is possible again.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Right. Now, changing gears for a second for a special episode of Morning Wire yesterday, you discussed the danger Russian dissidents have found themselves in historically when they stand up to the Russian regime.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah. Many of those cases happened in the early 2000s with links to the war in Chechnya, but we've seen reports that the same may also be true for Russian oligarchs during the war in Ukraine, correct?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah, what's pretty disturbing here is that a surprising number of oligarchs have been found dead, often in mysterious circumstances, since the beginning of this year.
--:-- John Bickley: One former energy executive was found hanged while on vacation with his family in Spain over Easter. His wife and daughter were found stabbed in their beds.
--:-- Ian Howarth: The day before, a former vice president of the third largest bank in Russia was found dead, also in Spain and also with his wife and daughter. Both of these cases are being investigated as murders or as murder suicides.
--:-- John Bickley: Another oligarch was found stabbed to death along with his wife and two sons in Russia. Meanwhile, another oligarch was found hanged in his garage in the United Kingdom.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And yet another oligarch was also found hanged in St. Petersburg, again in his garage. And all of this is just in the last few months.
--:-- John Bickley: So even if one of these deaths is linked to the Kremlin, as many are starting to believe, it appears that yet another war is being used by Russian authorities as an opportunity to try and eradicate internal as well as external threats.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Really disturbing stuff.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for the report, Ian.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Of course. Thanks, John.
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--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire's Ian Howarth. 2020 saw a steep increase in murder nationwide, and new data reveals that Black Americans were disproportionately affected. FBI data shows that far more Black Americans were murdered in 2020 than in 2019, following violent riots in cities across the country after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
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--:-- John Bickley: Here to discuss the statistics is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short. So Ash, how much of an increase are we talking about here?
--:-- Ash Short: A pretty big one. In 2019, about 7,484 Black Americans were murdered, but in 2020, that number jumped to 9, so almost 2 more.
--:-- John Bickley: And that despite the increased attention on racial issues.
--:-- Ash Short: So that's a huge jump, about 30 higher.
--:-- John Bickley: Did other groups see similar increases?
--:-- Ash Short: Yes, but not nearly to that extent. For whites, the increase was 21% from 2019 to 2020. The same FBI data show about 7,000 white people were murdered in 2020. That's almost 3,000 fewer than the number of blacks who were killed in 2020.
--:-- John Bickley: And when we look at longer term trends, we do see an increase in black and white murders in 2020.
--:-- Ash Short: So between 2010 and 2019, an average of 5,954 white people were murdered each year. So the 2020 figures represent an 18% increase over the previous 10-year average.
--:-- John Bickley: Those numbers were even more significant for black Americans. Between 2010 and 2019, an average of 6,927 black people were murdered each year, meaning that 2020 represented a 43% increase in murders compared to the previous 10-year average.
--:-- John Bickley: A lot of pundits are pointing to the defund the police movement as the cause. Is there any merit to that? Or were these deaths spiking even before the George Floyd protests?
--:-- Ash Short: The large spikes in the murders of Black Americans do appear after the summer riots. And many cities did cut police budgets at the same time. So there may be something to that theory.
--:-- John Bickley: But it may also have to do with changed behavior among police. Researchers who study crime rates note that spikes often occur in the wake of riots.
--:-- Ash Short: It's been hypothesized that police pull back and become more passive after riots because they don't want to risk their careers on a deadly mistake.
--:-- John Bickley: For example, we also saw a spike in 2015 following the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, which both incited violent riots.
--:-- Ash Short: This phenomenon has been called the Ferguson effect, a term coined by St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson.
--:-- John Bickley: But it sounds like the 2020 spike was a lot larger.
--:-- Ash Short: Right, and that may have to do with the scale of the riots. Rather than just staying local, they went nationwide.
--:-- John Bickley: And as you mentioned, several cities defunded their police departments, although most of them ended up refunding them within a year.
--:-- Ash Short: So there's the Ferguson effect and defund the police.
--:-- John Bickley: Are there any other factors that could be contributing to this?
--:-- Ash Short: Well, some experts insist the pandemic is the main culprit. They cite the destabilization caused by health concerns as well as the isolating effects of the lockdowns.
--:-- John Bickley: Others, including Manhattan Institute Heather MacDonald, say this theory doesn't make sense because the spike in crime coincided with the riots rather than the lockdowns which started months earlier.
--:-- Ash Short: Crime generally rises in the spring and summer months, and April and May of 2020 did show murders were ticking up, but those months were still in line with previous years.
--:-- John Bickley: But in the months after Floyd's death, particularly in July, we saw a spike that far outpaced previous years.
--:-- Ash Short: Do we have any statistics for 2021 yet?
--:-- John Bickley: Not yet, but it will be very interesting to see.
--:-- Ash Short: Yeah, you'll have to come back when those numbers come out.
--:-- John Bickley: Ash, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Ash Short: Anytime. That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Ash Short. We'll see you next time.
