Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano
>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano. And welcome back, everybody. Ed Battagliano sitting in for Tim Wildmon this week. I'm joined in studio by Fred Jackson, Tony Battagliano, and now Steve Jordal.
>> Steve Jordahl: Hey, everybody back.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Welcome back. You just gone for one day and, definitely with the paisley today.
>> Steve Jordahl: Got the paisley on. Gotta keep up the. Gotta keep up the, image there.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, once you become a celebrity, Steve, you have to own it. Yeah, you have to own it.
>> Steve Jordahl: I'll be stopping by your office later on to get the lesson to how to do that.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right.
>> Steve Jordahl: Well played.
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, what, let's. I guess let's get right back to the news. I have no other announcements. We might as well get to what's cooking.
Stop Nick Shirley act in California legislature passes; fines for investigative journalism possible
>> Steve Jordahl: All right, I. I understand you guys talked about this yesterday, which is the Stop Nick Shirley act in the California legislature. Yes. And, it passed. I have the news today. Is it pass in the California Assembly? California's legislature is divided into the Senate and the Assembly. The assembly being like the House. Yeah. And, it passed the California assembly and it would. So it would make it criminal to, And with $10,000 fines, imprisonments, misdemeanors, to expose fraud in the state. So I, And you guys talked about it yesterday, but I just want to let you know it has passed.
>> Ed Vitagliano: It's got to be some fin. Print in this. I just find this hard to believe that even Democrats that, that have fear, no political blowback in a state like California, they can just about do whatever they want. And that state is going to be run by Democrats. I just find it hard to believe. Fred, I'll just check with you first. how do you. How do you pass a law that punishes people who expose fraud? What's the justification for that?
>> Fred Jackson: I think on the front end of this and early on in reading what was being proposed, it had something to do with the possibility of slander, that sort of thing, that you might get pictures of individuals who are innocent, to the alleged crime being committed, that kind of thing. But the reason it's being called the Nick Shirley Law is because, gee, they didn't think about this until Nick Shirley came along and started exposing the fraud, particularly there in Minneapolis. So I think that's. They're trying to coach this. They're trying to coach this as interference with people's private lives, et cetera, et cetera. but really what they're trying to do is protect certain portions of the electorate that they depend upon, which is, you know, which has been going on in Minneapolis. You know, part of the story, California. Part of this. Yeah, part of the story in Minneapolis is that the Attorney General of the, of the state, Keith Ellison had meetings with some of the people who were being investigated for fraud. And the story goes that these people asked Keith Ellison make these people back off. So these people leave Keith Ellison's office and the allegation is a check was written to Keith Ellison's reelection campaign. That's the story that's been out there.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well Tony, I think Fred is probably exactly right in explain. I mean their defense of this is well, we got to protect people. Blah. All of what just Fred just said, I don't want to repeat it. But, but all of all of those dangers, slander, you know, people's pictures being all that applies to regular media.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I mean that, that is a danger that someone who is going to do investigative journalism always has to be aware of.
>> Ed Vitagliano: But it's clear this was targeted to one person and his efforts. And the shamelessness with which Democrats who control entire states like Minnesota and California, the shamelessness by which they tax monies to basically fund members of constituent groups even though it's fraudulent. It's like payoffs.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And we're going to, we're going to, we're going to funnel money to to the Somali community. we know it's fraudulent. but you make sure you turn out Somalis to vote for, for me and my party. That seems to be what's going on. Going on here.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Oh one hundred percent. This is what this is a classic strategy of, of Democrats is to present a law, like Fred said, as something that is a good thing. Can't we all agree we don't need to you know, dox people's personal information, post in publicly post images of them, you know, and innocent people could be hurt. We all agree on that. Right. I mean that's. And a lot of people would say well yeah, that is a good thing. Well that's all this bill does. and also secretly here it imposes ten thousand dollar fines if you do that. Right. If you. And but what it's actually doing is cutting off a means of people being able to go out independent journalists and conduct investigative hard hitting journalism. that mind you, the mainstream media should be doing. Let's, let's just say this, the mainstream media is not going to be hurt by something like this in California.
>> Fred Jackson: No.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Because first of all They've stopped doing hard hitting investigative journalism to begin with. So they're not going to be harmed by it. But it cuts off real investigative journalists, from breaking stories. It'll make them harder. Make it harder for them to break stories. that might put a bad light, shine a bad light on the people in charge of the state and overseeing, this, this fraud. Not, maybe not directly, but it's happening under their watch.
>> Ed Vitagliano: So yeah, it's, it's, it's ridiculous, but it's unbelievable. Shameless. Steve, I know this store. This story is brand new in terms of passing. Please keep us, excuse me.
Nick Shirley says California is going after journalists exposing California corruption
Informed about whether or not Nick Shirley sues. Yeah, because he's named. I would think he would. I'm not a lawyer. Maybe this is a question for Abe or Jenna, Abe Hamilton or Jenna Ellis. but I would think he would immediately have standing to sue to protect his journalistic rights because he's actually named in the bill. Or is he named in the bill? Or is that just what they're calling it?
>> Steve Jordahl: One of the Republican assembly, members, Carl, DeMaio, has named it the Scott Mc Shirley Act. But this is what he said. He did put a post out. he says exposing California's corruption. Stop Nick Shirley act instead of going after the fraudsters, California is now going after, the people exposing the fraud. Let me read that again with emphasis in the right spot so it makes sense. Exposing California's corrupt. Stop Nick Shirley act instead of going after the fraudsters, California instead of going after the fraudsters, comma. California's, now going after the people exposing the fraud like himself. The bill was created by the Attorney General's wife, Mia Bonta, to stop fraud from being exposed. Please like and share this video everywhere. By trying to silence and intimidate journalists, they're trying to hide the truth from you. Expose the fraud. So he is commenting on. Is not officially named after him. So I don't know if there will be a. but I will keep it up.
>> Ed Vitagliano: So it may. So this is the difficult thing. If he, if. And I think you. We said this yesterday. That was just. I think Krish mentioned that was not the official name of the bill.
>> Steve Jordahl: One of the bill's opponents has named it. That is truthfully account truth in advertising.
>> Ed Vitagliano: So, in terms of standing, Nick Shirley may have to actually be charged under it or fined under it because it's civil. It's not criminal. Right. It's civil penalties, $10,000 fine or whatever. He may have to. And I don't know Whether he wants to fight that, you know, in court. But it would be. I'd be a tremendous fight to say, listen, you can't stop citizen journalism. Yeah. And you can't, you know, this is a First Amendment issue, and you can't, you can't chill it. listen, if Nick Shirley wants to be even more famous, he ought to take this on.
>> Tony Vitagliano: I know. It's, it's. It's. It's a case. If it were. If it, if this did, develop into a case that eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court, clearly it would be shot down as a violation of the First Amendment. The point is, is it's an intimidation tactic.
>> Steve Jordahl: Right.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Because not everybody would have the resources of, you know, someone like a Nick Shirley who is, you know, well known, would probably could crowdfund, you know, legal fees to push it through and get free representation. This is to intimidate other up and coming, you know, Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley's who don't have the money to pay a $10,000 fine or go to court.
>> Steve Jordahl: Court.
>> Tony Vitagliano: So that's, that's what they do.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, what's the guy's name? Oh, go ahead.
>> Steve Jordahl: I was gonna go to the next story, but you have to.
James Keefe is the man who investigated Planned Parenthood
>> Ed Vitagliano: Okay, let me just. What's, the guy who investigated Planned Parenthood, James, what is it?
>> Steve Jordahl: O'. Keefe.
>> Ed Vitagliano: O', Keefe. Yeah.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Steve Jordahl: He.
>> Ed Vitagliano: He's had. He's been in a lot of battles over this because the, the. The. The system went after him. Yeah, it's like fighting the mob. You know, you try to expose Planned Parenthood, you get the full weight of whatever it is, local, state, sometimes federal, government, coming after you. So. He's had a long slog through it, too, so.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson criticized teens for team takeovers on social media
>> Steve Jordahl: All right, well, I'm going to say it's not the only time. The only example of Democrats hiding the ball. There's a new and dangerous trend coming around, and it's called. It's being called by the name of team takeovers. Have you seen these online? Where a bunch of.
>> Ed Vitagliano: we have an article on afn.net, about it. You wrote it?
>> Steve Jordahl: Wrote by yours truly.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yes.
>> Steve Jordahl: and, so it's happened in several spots, and I wanted to highlight one of the ways that they're hiding the ball. So, basically what this is, is teens in several areas. Usually, these announcements come on social media at a site or an app that all the teens are using. Gather here. We're going to have a good time or whatever they say. But they know, they're told where to gather. And, it has resulted in shootings, it has resulted in assaults. some cops were run over. At this point, fortunately, no one's been killed, but it's not for lack of trying, as they would say. And I want to tell you though, this is how Democrats, who, because this is happening in large cities, which are mostly always Democrat run, and this is how they're kind of hiding the ball. Chicago, has been the target of some of these. And this is Mayor Brandon Johnson's way of going after this, problem cut 17.
>> Maria Haddon: We prevent the vast majority of these from ever taking place. You know, there is an effort in city council to hold these social media apparatuses accountable. I believe that we should continue to explore that and I'm going to continue to work with Alderman hall around that. it's why we're actually taxing these big tech companies for the role that they have played in, in harming the mental health and well being of our young people.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, my goodness.
>> Steve Jordahl: So what's happening is teens are going out and they're wilding and they're breaking the law. So go, let's go ahead and punish social media for it. you want to talk, let's not tackle the teens. Can't blame them. It's not their fault.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Fred, I almost don't know what to say. There's so much wrong with what Mayor Johnson just said. Okay. it's, listen, rather than talk about the fact that your city is in chaos and that young people, who apparently don't have much parental oversight, I mean, when I was growing up, my parents always wanted to know, where you going? Who you going with? What are you going to do? Why are you going somewhere? my dad wouldn't even let me go if I didn't have a plan.
>> Fred Jackson: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: He said, why are you going to. We're just going to hang out. No, you're not going to just hang out. My dad, who at the time we weren't Christians, didn't even believe in the devil. But he said, idle, hands are the devil's workshop. So I had. So listen, I made stuff up, but I was accountable to my parents, especially my dad. So I would say we're going over to play basketball. Okay? Because you didn't, you just didn't just go and hang out. But these are clearly young people who are not accountable to their parents. So rather than talk and some. And I'm guessing that with a lot of single parents and listen, I have great respect for single moms who are trying the best they can to make the best of a bad situation, that some of them work two, three jobs. I understand all that, okay? I'm not trying to pick on someone who's got a bad thing and trying to make something out of it. But there's a lot of missing dads in these homes. I lived in fear of my dad, okay? I always in the back of my mind thought, what happens if I get caught by my dad? Yeah, all right, that was always in the back of my mind.
>> Steve Jordahl: And.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And so obviously that's not going on. But Mayor Johnson can't say that. No, he can't talk about the parents who are missing in action. he's got to talk about the way the kids communicated in order to show up to run over cops with their car.
>> Fred Jackson: Yeah. Juxtapose what the mayor of Chicago is saying to the public about this against, Jeanine Pirro, the Trump appointed district attorney in Washington, D.C. she held a news conference last week after one of these teen episodes and says, enough is enough. We're going to start to hold the parents accountable for what their kids are doing. so I think that's one aspect some people criticize that saying, the parents sometimes don't know. And you got kids that come from broken homes. The other problem with this is that we're allowing court systems are allowing these kids to get away with stuff.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right, because they're underage.
>> Fred Jackson: Well, yeah, the schools allow them to get away with it. They don't discipline the students anymore. and then these kids get out and they say, well, we get away with it at school. And, you know, in certain jurisdictions, whether it's Washington D.C. or Chicago or Los Angeles, whatever the case may be, hey, the cops may arrest us, but we'll go down to the police station, slap
>> Ed Vitagliano: on the wrist, we'll do a little
>> Fred Jackson: bit of paperwork, and then we go home and we can do it again. And then you have mayors and you have district attorneys in certain jurisdictions that say, you know, we can't charge these kids. There'll be a record of something there. And, so. But like I say, Jeanine Pirro has got. Somebody's gotta be held accountable. So we're gonna start with the parents. But also, it would help if we had district, attorneys that would take these 15 and 16 year olds and say, we're not gonna let you get away with this. Plain and simple.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Tony, you grew up in a tough home, too. Okay?
Fred: Probably the overwhelming majority of kids participating in this are coming from fatherless homes
All right, so, no, listen, I. When I said in the last segment that the best thing a lot of Republicans have going for them is crazy Democrats and their crazy policies. One of the worst things the people of Chicago have going for them as an example are crazy Democrats who aren't going to do anything about this. Fred saying the local district attorneys, at city councils ought to pass laws, all these kind of things. They're not going to do squat.
>> Steve Jordahl: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And, and, and they are going to do what the mayor said, where they're going to, they're going to sue, they're going to sue the social media companies and, and the poor people who live like, go. The footage in the Chipotle restaurant with another takeover.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Terrorizing people. They're going to live under this.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: until they decide to elect people who have some common sense.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Well, and honestly, this is a, you look at this and we know, being Christians, that this is a spiritual issue. Because at the heart of this, and what no Democratic politician is going to talk about, is, is that a lot of these kids. I'm just, I don't. I feel comfortable saying this. Probably the overwhelming majority of kids who are participating in this are coming from fatherless homes. And the way God designed marriage and family is that, you know, the, the mother and the father are our two counterparts to instill different, to provide different, forms of, of, of upbringing. And the mother is there to nurture and to be, you know, kind and tender and to teach, you know, compassion, passion. And the father is there to represent authority. He is the authority figure that you grow up under. What he says in the house goes, and that trains a child from until when they're old enough to start being disciplined. That there is, I will always be under some form of authority. And if you're a Christian, obviously that father should be pointing to the ultimate authority being God. But if a kid is not brought up under any type of authority structure, they have no, first of all, no concept of what that means of punishment for wrongdoing or consequence. And they have no respect for the authority structures that exist when you leave the house. Because, my job as a father with my kids right now, I tell my kids, look, I'm trying to teach you to listen when you, when I tell you to listen and obey me, it's because if you can't learn to listen to me, person who's physically here with you day in and day out, you're first of all going to have a hard time listening to God, you know, your heavenly Father. But second of all, when you get out of my house, someone's going to be over you. It's going to be your boss at work. It's going to be the police driving down the street, the government that sits on top of you with their laws and legislations that you have to follow. So if there's none of that, then this is. This is just the result that you get. I mean, you get these kids who just have no concept of what it means to follow authority. they've grown up, matter of fact, being anti authority, and so when they do this, there's no consequences. And, that, to me, is due to growing up in a fatherless home, which is something that Mayor Johnson's never going to go out and say.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Tony Vitagliano: The problem is obviously going to be tech companies, and we need to sue them for, you know, just presenting a product that someone uses, that someone misuses. Which, by the way, none of these. I'll mention this real quick. I'm assuming Mayor Johnson and other Democrats like him are all for punishing parents whose children take their firearms from the home and use them to commit acts of violence.
>> Fred Jackson: Right.
>> Tony Vitagliano: We're all for going after parents who are. You're irresponsible. You left your firearm there and your child got it, and they committed a horrible act. So we're going to hold you accountable. Right. The responsibility is with the parents in the home. Well, none of that is to be found. When you're talking about these, riots and mass gatherings, there's no one saying the responsibilities with the parents at home.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, suing the tech companies is like suing Chevrolet because bank robbers used a car to drive up to the bank and then leave.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: It's absurd on its face, but he's left with nothing else because he can't say what everyone knows to be the reason this is happening.
>> Tony Vitagliano: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right. I don't want to continue beating on this. I feel bad for the people of Chicago, but like Tim often says, then vote for someone else. Vote for a Republican if you don't
>> Tony Vitagliano: want this insanity, and be in favor. If Donald Trump says, I'll send in the National Guard and you can have a few months of peace, then don't fight that either.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Tony Vitagliano: I'm sure a lot of people in Washington, D.C. were like, you know, this is pretty nice, being able to walk down the street for a while and not have to worry about being mugged.
A former politician in Belgium is convicted of hate speech over Muslim immigration
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, Steve.
>> Steve Jordahl: Well, same. This kind of. Same rubric happens in countries. I want to take you to Belgium, where there's A former, politician who is being described as a right wing hate speech type person. But basically, he is giving speeches against the open borders immigration that Belgium and many other European countries have had. And basically he's pointing out that, in the way he does this is to point out that not all cultures are equal. There are Western civilization. Western culture has some benefits that it brings to the world, that some of the cultures from which these other countries come don't have, the value of equality. The status of women might be one. and so when you get, Muslim immigration in these countries is specifically what he's talking about. they don't assimilate well into Western culture. So he's talking about, he's lecturing. Ah. And he is about what he's calling the great replacement Muslims coming in and replacing the current culture. He has been, charged and he's sentenced. And I wanted to read you a little bit about what the sentencing said because he talked about the different cultures and what they bring. And so from his sentencing verdict, they wrote Vanliere Landinghove, and that's his name. Has there ever been a more Dutch name?
>> Ed Vitagliano: That is a great name. Vanliere Landinghove.
>> Steve Jordahl: Vanliere Landinghove is not charged with spreading false information. He's charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred against persons on the grounds, that are one or more of the protected categories. So what he's saying about the Muslims and what they're doing to our country isn't wrong. It's just making them feel bad. So we're putting you in prison.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I don't think I've ever heard something said like this has been said. He's not, he's not being arrested for saying something wrong. He's being arrested for saying something true
>> Steve Jordahl: and that we don't like. That we don't like exactly having the facts to back it up.
>> Tony Vitagliano: All right, well, that in 1984, right?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.
A new AI dog collar claims to translate animal sounds into human language
In the last 60 seconds. I want to just mention something, folks, that my news team that I told for the last two days to cover has not covered. And that is that there is a new AI dog collar that claims to translate the barking of a dog with remarkable accuracy. They're saying 95% accurate. Now, it is a Chinese company, okay, A communist Chinese company, but they claim that their device can translate animal sounds into human language. I watched the video. so if you want to find out more, you can go and look that up. squirrel. Yes, squirrel. but my news team didn't want to cover that. All right. Folks, Lord willing, to see you tomorrow for Trivia Friday.
