--:-- Georgia Howe: A hearing on the topic of censorship pits Democrats against one of their own, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. Censorship is antithetical to our party. It was appalling to my father, to my uncle, to FDR, Harry Truman, to Thomas Jefferson.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe. It's Friday, July 21st, and this is Morning Wire. An influx of legal and illegal immigrants into the U.S. has overwhelmed cities and states. Now, Massachusetts Governor Mara Healy is asking residents to help house the immigrants while she sends others to cities around the Commonwealth.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Cambridge, home of Harvard and MIT, they have a lot of hotels, but they're getting no illegal aliens. Same with Nantucket. And a small Southern California school district is under attack after rejecting new curriculum and textbooks supported by Governor Gavin Newsom.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: It's an egregious overstep. We, with local control, have the ability to choose what's best. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: On Thursday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic candidate for president, offered explosive testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, clashing with Democratic lawmakers.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, we've talked about this committee before, which, among other things, is investigating alleged collusion between the government and big tech companies to censor speech, often at the behest of the Biden administration.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, in the past, the committee has heard from journalists who allege their reporting on things like the Hunter Biden laptop and COVID origins was censored. But on Thursday, they brought in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's challenging President Biden in the Democratic primary.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Kennedy has been outspoken about concerns he has regarding COVID vaccine side effects, and he claims he's been the victim of online censorship over the last few years.
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--:-- Jim Jordan: The White House sent an email to Twitter. The email said, "Wanted to flag the below tweet, and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP in all caps."
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the tweeting question was in reference to the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, who passed away a few weeks after publicly receiving the COVID vaccine. In the tweet, Kennedy says, "Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines."
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Jordan and other Republicans said there was nothing factually inaccurate in the tweet and that the Biden administration's effort to remove it were a blatant example of federal powers being weaponized against ideas that they did not like.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: So what did Democrats on the panel have to say?
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, it was interesting. They did not really push back on the claims that RFK had been censored. Their basic theme was more or less that he was spreading dangerous misinformation and essentially deserved to be censored.
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--:-- Stacey Plaskett: Now many of my Republican colleagues across the dais will rush to cover that they have Mr. Kennedy here because they want to protect his free speech that they do not believe in American censorship.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Later on in the hearing, Democrats also implied that Republicans brought Kennedy to testify because they viewed him as a means of weakening the re-election efforts of President Biden, not because they actually cared about addressing censorship.
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--:-- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: These are defamations and malignancies that are used to censor me to prevent people from listening to the actual things that I'm saying.
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, how did Republicans respond?
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--:-- Cabot Phillips: The general message from Republicans was one we've heard from them throughout the committee's existence, that the government should have no role in determining what speech is and is not allowed in public discourse.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: So, Cabot, thanks so much for reporting. Anytime.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Coming up, Massachusetts residents are asked to house migrants in their homes. President Biden has overseen a massive expansion in legal immigration since taking office.
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--:-- Tim Pierce: Immigrants on parole are either allowed in or allowed to stay in the United States on a short-term basis, usually one to two years before getting a court hearing to adjudicate their case.
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--:-- Tim Pierce: It's a legal pathway to reside in the U.S. that's typically reserved for major events like war, or it's offered to immigrants on a case-by-case basis.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: Parole has been abused in the past, but to my knowledge, it's never been abused to this extent. These are programs outside of the legal immigration system that Congress has created.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: And the executive branch does have broad authority on immigration, especially when it comes to keeping people out. Think of something like Title 42, a pandemic.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: But when it comes to opening up new legal channels, that's Congress's job. Whereas the executive branch has parole authority, it's supposed to be on a case-by-case basis and not allowing people in en masse.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: And that's what we're saying. Half a million immigrants have taken advantage of these legal pathways over the past two years, but it's worth noting that these programs are nowhere close to maxing out.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: The CBP One app currently allows up to 530,000 immigrants to apply annually. Sponsorship programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans allow room for 360,000 immigrants.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: And the program for displaced Ukrainians has no cap. So that leaves a lot of space left for taking more immigrants to use these parole programs.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: Should we expect more of that in the future? Most likely.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: Gallup did a survey over a decade ago and found that 150 million adults living outside the United States would move here if given the opportunity.
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: So pair that huge demand with the parole pathway and you have a recipe for mass legal migration.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Now the Biden administration will every now and then say something like, "Hey, this is not a free pass. The border is not open. In fact, we are going to get really tough."
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: And so you better do it you know quote unquote the right way. But then they turn around at the same time and say, "And here's an app. And if you make an appointment with the app, we'll let you in."
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--:-- Jeremy Beck: If you don't make an appointment with the app, we'll kick you out. But we'll also remind you to make an appointment with the app. And then you can turn back around and come back and make an appointment with the app or use one of these other programs that we have to get you.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: So the message is out there and the word gets out. And all this immigration is overwhelming cities. For instance, New York City is now handing out flyers along the southern border telling immigrants that they won't have guaranteed housing if they come.
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--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. So we have communities that are inundated with people they can't take care of. What kind of impact is that having?
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--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, the Massachusetts governor, Democrat Mara Healy, actually asked residents to take immigrants into their homes. She called it a temporary measure.
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--:-- Tim Pierce: Meanwhile, she's shipping thousands to be housed in hotels in various towns without their approval.
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--:-- Howie Carr: One day the hotel was there, rooms for rent, vacancy. The next day, every hotel room, 155 hotel rooms were occupied by illegal aliens, mainly from Haiti.
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--:-- Howie Carr: And the mayor got through a FOIA request, the contract. The state is planning to spend $10 million at this one single hotel in a medium-sized city in Massachusetts on illegal aliens housing.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: The contract can be renewed through 2030. And the illegals, Haitians, are also getting three meals a day from the state, delivered to them, room service, you might say.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Sounds like a recipe for frustration from longtime residents. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: The latest social studies books that are being made available quite literally to hundreds of thousands of kids all throughout the state of California are being denied to the kids of the Temecula District.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So, Amanda, let's back up here. Why did the school board reject this curriculum?
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Hey, Georgia. In a nutshell, the board thought the curriculum was too sexualized for young kids.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The curriculum material is from the Teachers Curriculum Institute, TCI, and had actually already been accepted in the Temecula School District for older grades.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: But on Tuesday night, the board voted to reject the curriculum for elementary students. TCI was piloted by some Temecula teachers, but it wasn't ruled out fully.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So along with some controversial LGBT content, this seemed to be one main issue parents and board members raised. They wanted more time to test out the curriculum before adopting it for those younger students.
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--:-- Jen Wiersma: We may end up on TCI in the future with modifications, or maybe we have policy in place that says for K no sexualization no topics having to do with gender orientation and confusion Stick to the academics
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The Temecula School Board meeting was extremely contentious including closed session. It lasted nine hours, well past midnight, and lots of parents spoke out.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Just one example, parents took issue with lessons about Harvey Milk. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, but he also notably had a series of sexual relationships with young boys when he was in his 30s and was accused of rape.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: There was other LGBT content that parents felt was age inappropriate, including the mention of the Gay Liberation Front, which parents connected to NAMBLA. That's a pedophilia advocacy group.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Generally, parents viewed much of this material as ideological or politically biased.
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--:-- Parent: Boys cannot be girls. Girls cannot be boys. Men do not get pregnant. Now you're justifying the sexual perversion of young children.
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--:-- Parent: Governor Gavin Newsom, pharaoh of California, wants to spend $1.6 million on textbooks in Temecula to facilitate the deviant sexual behavior of Harvey Milk because children must learn gay pride.
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--:-- Parent: After observing our poor excuse for a governor verbally attack our school board president, I decided that enough was enough.
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--:-- Parent: I was once willing to die in a foreign land for what I believe this country to be. So now that the government has brought this social war to my front door, you couldn't begin to comprehend how hard I will dig my heels and fight for what I know to be right.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: So why and how did Governor Newsom get involved?
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Newsom is claiming that the school board vote to reject the curriculum is effectively censorship and book banning.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And more than that, seems to claim that the materials students used just last year now run in violation of state law.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: According to the LA Times, Newsom is so inspired to take on the Temecula conservatives, he's writing a new law which will give the state power over textbooks and the ability to fine school districts.
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--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Newsom also announced that he's entering into a contract to secure these textbooks, will give them out to elementary students and parents, and will bill the district for the curriculum and also fine the district an additional $1.5 million.
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--:-- Jen Wiersma: I think the law is on our side with California Ed Code, with being an elected official. And the question will be in the court of public opinion to decide where are you going to fall on this.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, Amanda, thanks so much for bringing us this story. We're going to continue to monitor. Yeah, anytime.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
