At a time when cancel culture is ever-present, lurking around the corner ready to end the career of anyone who dares to challenge the status quo, engaging in conversations on controversial topics is more difficult than ever. We’re here to change that. This collection offers exclusive interviews on topics you won’t hear discussed on the nightly news. From politicians, to thought leaders, pastors, actors and authors, we’re bringing you conversations with those unafraid of the outrage mob.

EXCLUSIVE

Dan Crenshaw

EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Dan Crenshaw Talks Lockdowns, Dem Hypocrisy, Conservative Ideas On Covid

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Gavin Newsom

Lockdowns

Readers Pass

The most accurate information always comes from a first-hand account. That’s why commentator, journalist, and youtuber, Tim Pool started his journalism career on the ground. Traveling the streets, Pool captured the political upheavals that transpired overnight in Egypt, Ukraine, and Sweden. 
But Pool’s trip to Sweden was unlike his others.
At the time, Pool had just ended his contract with the newly “wokified” Fusion news-site and began an independent youtube channel with his own on-site reporting. He was vlogging on Sweden’s crime and refugee crisis, when Trump made his now-famous &#8220;look at Sweden&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/19/516097504/trump-says-look-whats-happening-in-sweden-sweden-asks-wait-what">remark</a> during a Florida rally, causing the media to blow up. Pool then began receiving messages from journalist colleagues urging him not to investigate the story in Sweden. 
“Don&#8217;t do this one,” they would read, “Trump’s lying.” 
From this point on, Pool knew something was changing in the world of journalism. “They got really, really mad at me and that was when I could see this weird split starting to emerge,” Pool recalled. 
Now deep in the political media world as host of “Timcast,” Tim Pool is all too aware of the struggle for truth among the tangle of narratives spun by the legacy media. In last week’s “Sunday Special” interview, Pool met with Editor Emeritus, Ben Shapiro, to talk about this ongoing tension and the hard-hitting facts about the election, Antifa, and the continued efforts of the mainstream media to obscure those facts.
It’s challenging to put a political label on Pool, who acknowledged that he holds “a weird position.” 
“I&#8217;m kind of this heterodox individual — don&#8217;t really fit necessarily anywhere. Although I think I&#8217;ve been classified as like cultural right-wing, whatever that means. But my political positions are kind of just like where Democrats used to be,” described Pool. 
But with the rise of the cancel culture mob, Pool has found this works to his advantage as a commentator and journalist. “It doesn&#8217;t really work very well for the mainstream media to smear me as some kind of conspiracy theorist, when I don&#8217;t make an assertion beyond ‘here&#8217;s a fact,’” Pool told Shapiro.
Pool’s journey from street to studio was not freely chosen. While reporting on a variety of movements, including Occupy Wall Street, Proud Boys, and Antifa, his desire was to purely “cover what [was] happening on the ground.” 
Yet, Pool explained, “by telling the truth, these extremists and Antifa-type people were attacking me and threatening me.” 
“So I slowly stopped doing it because it was getting more and more dangerous,” Pool concluded.
But this hasn’t stopped Pool from answering the hard questions about 2020 politics. 
The election turmoil brewing in the nation was a major point of issue for Pool, who affirmed that we are witnessing a “kind of millennial bias” in the post-election processes.
“This is a really, really close race,” Pool noted. “It doesn&#8217;t make sense to say, ‘Joe Biden won,’ when there&#8217;s a legal process, you know, happening. Several states are too close to call still. The media has just decided this is it, ‘Joe Biden won, it&#8217;s over!’”
So while Trump is fighting battle’s in court, “it&#8217;s almost like they&#8217;re trying to tell us ‘Joe Biden won’ to convince us,” suggested Pool. 
One of Pool&#8217;s greatest fears is that the legitimacy of our election process could be threatened if the media continues to leave important questions unanswered.
“You&#8217;re gonna find a bunch of people saying in a sworn affidavit, ‘I saw this thing happen.’ You can&#8217;t just ignore that and say, ‘we will do nothing,’” urged Pool. “You have to let people know we&#8217;re doing everything in our power to clean up any potential errors so they view this election as legitimate. I mean, if Joe Biden really does get certified as the winner, he gets inaugurated, but they don&#8217;t look into this stuff, it would undermine his presidency, because you&#8217;ve got 72.2 million people now who have voted for Donald Trump.”
“I think everybody deserves to look at these affidavits or these whistleblowers and just say, ‘you know, is it going to change the election? Maybe it won&#8217;t. But we should investigate,’” argued Pool.
Despite Biden-favoring results, the uncertainty of the election has brought Trump supporters to the streets in recent days, along with opposition from Antifa.
“Apparently the media calling it for Joe Biden did nothing to change their minds,” observed Pool. 
“And in fact,” Pool continued, “I think it&#8217;s only likely to escalate if we do enter a Joe Biden administration. Because certainly, Joe Biden won&#8217;t be strong enough to deal with these groups that are pressuring him, and attacking him, and getting violent.”
Antifa has often been reduced to simply an idea and, while Pool agrees that it does encompass an idea, he also says there is much more to it. 
“It&#8217;s not necessarily wrong to say that they&#8217;re a movement or an idea but it&#8217;s the individual cells that we&#8217;re talking about,” said Pool. Antifa members, many of whom are authoritarian communists, he added, “typically agree with each other on their cause and their means to the end.”
“So you actually have a loose-knit group of various cells that coordinate with each other using violence against their political opponents — for the most part instigating it outright to win.”
The difficulty, Pool alludes, is bringing these facts into the public light. 
Because the Left is far more successful at “street-level organizing than the Right,” he told Shapiro, the media either cannot figure out what Antifa actually is or “outright defends them on purpose.”
“So long as you have these mainstream resistance-type Democrats who hate Trump, they won&#8217;t call these groups out,” maintained Pool.
Their actions, Pool claims, have been able to so easily slide under the radar because they claim they use a “diversity of tactics.” “The reality is these groups say ‘respect our diversity of tactics’ because that&#8217;s code for getting violent and hurting people.” 
Pool believes the key is not getting caught up in the semantics of the name Black Lives Matter or anti-fascist, the cloaks under which Antifa often hides, but rather focusing on the actions themselves. 
“Most people just read the headline,” Pool asserted. “They just they don&#8217;t actually investigate what the story is.” 
But those that Pool know who have made the political transition from liberal to conservative, no Trump to Trump, or those who just left the “woke cult,” did it “because they started doing their own research.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-107-tim-pool">Watch Pool’s full interview with Shapiro </a>

USA – Occupy Wall Street – Day of Action

From Street To Studio: Tim Pool Fighting Antifa And Media Bias

Antifa

Ben Shapiro

Media Bias

Sunday Special

Tim Pool

System of a Down, the esteemed alternative hard rock band, has returned after a long-awaited, fifteen-year hiatus from releasing original music. The Los Angeles based group, comprised entirely of ethnically Armenian musicians, released a double A-side single this week, “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz.”
The band’s beginnings trace back to Los Angeles in the early 90s, where Serj Tankian first met guitarist Daron Malakian. Bonding over their shared culture and passion for music, the Armenian duo decided to start a band, recruiting Shavo Odadjian on bass and John Dolmayan on the drums. Tankian, a descendant of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, was also an ardent political activist, especially on issues surrounding Armenia. It was the convergence of these passions, seasoned with an array of musical influences, that birthed System of a Down.
Bursting onto the hard-rock scene in 1998 with their eponymous debut, SOAD’s music was, from its earliest epoch, brimming with both ferocity and creative melodies. SOAD crafted a unique sound born of its members&#8217; influences, with heavy, overdriven riffs that hark back to Slayer and Metallica, and distinct scales echoing Armenian folk. The drums, similarly, eschew typical orthodoxies of metal and swing – a characteristic of jazz, which the band’s drummer, John Dolmayan, has cited as an early influence.
Throughout their career, despite being a Los Angeles band, SOAD has never demurred from their roots, instead, they proudly intertwined their image as a band with their ethnic Armenian heritage. In the music video for their 2001 hit, &#8220;Toxicity,&#8221; they featured a scene of all four band members eating sunflower seeds – a stereotypical Armenian past time according to the lyrics &#8212; with their discarded shells forming an effigy of Mount Ararat, a national symbol for the Armenian people. The video for their 2005 single, &#8220;B.Y.O.B.&#8221; (&#8220;Bring Your Own Bombs&#8221;), featured a giant Armenian flag waving in the background.
In addition to using their platform to promote Armenian culture, System of a Down has also never shied away from using its art as a vessel for addressing political and moral issues. In “Holy Mountains,” off their 2005 album, Hypnotize, they wrote a rock song about the Armenian Genocide – exposing reams of otherwise unaware music fans to what, especially in the early 2000s, remained largely a concealed facet of history. In &#8220;B.Y.O.B.,&#8221; SOAD penned a contemporary antiwar anthem as an upbeat hard rock song – much like Creedence Clearwater’s “Fortunate Son” or Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”
Citing creative and artistic differences, the band announced an indefinite hiatus from making music in 2006, after releasing a pair of albums in 2005, Mesmerize and Hypnotize. More recently, political differences had flared and wedged themselves between members. I spoke with the band’s songwriter and vocalist, Serj Tankian, about music as a form of political commentary, the current state of System of a Down, and its future.
Tankian shared his insight on how music &#8212; especially good music that can withstand the test of time and become ingrained in our cultural fabric – can be wielded to motivate cultural and political change, explaining, “Music, especially with strong intentional messaging, can be a potent form of soft power. Our intuitive senses first process it and if we’re moved, it then in turn affects our reasoning which itself can shape the world that we live in or at least our worldview.”
Expounding on the contention within the band surrounding the American elections and President Donald Trump, Tankian stated, “The band may not agree on American politics, but we are all on the same page with Armenia and Artsakh. That does not mean we no longer have artistic or political differences.” 
During his time away from SOAD, Tankian has remained dedicated to his advocacy, embarking on numerous film and solo music endeavors. But nothing generated the excitement that came from SOAD reuniting, with the release of new music leading to a frenzy from fans. I asked Tankian for his thoughts on System of a Down as cultural phenomenon and as something greater than the sum of its parts, he explained, “SOAD is a unique phenomenon that has resonated resolutely with people around the world in a beautiful and powerful fashion that cannot be replicated. That said it doesn’t mean we can’t as artists pursue all our individual pursuits as not everything can be accomplished within one group.”
When asked about his plans to continue making music with System of a Down, he emphasized that currently creating music for solely artistic and creative ends is not the band’s focus. Tankian added that Armenia is still in the midst of an unnerving war with Azerbaijan and Turkey that has, to date, displaced more than <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/azerbaijan-makes-gains-in-conflict-with-armenia-setting-back-peace-efforts-11604683127">sixty percent</a> (over 90,000 civilians) of Nagorno Karabakh’s indigenous Armenian population. “Right now, we’re focused on what’s happening in Artsakh; we didn’t record these songs for us as artists, nor each other as friends. We did this for our people, our nation, suffering a horrendous humanitarian catastrophe due to Azerbaijan and Turkey committing war crimes against Artsakh and Armenia. So, no, we have not discussed the future of SOAD. It’s not what’s pertinent to us right now.”
It was against this ominous backdrop that Serj, Daron, Shavo and John, under the banner of System of a Down, began recording sessions for their new singles, “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz.”
The first of the double A-side singles, “Protect the Land,” was written by the band’s guitarist, Daron Malakian, and features Tankian on backing harmonies where he supplies his far-reaching vocal range in spates. The song pays homage to Armenian soldiers past and present, with Tankian and Malakian harmonizing to form a blend of vocals with immense musical deftness.  In his lyrics, Malakian repeatedly queries the listener, asking, “If they will try to push you far away, would you stay and take a stand? Would you stay with gun in hand?” Malakian is quick to draw a distinction between himself and the men and women on the front lines whose bravery he extolls in the third person, &#8220;They protect the land.&#8221;
“Genocidal Humanoidz” exudes the very essence of System of a Down; it is the band at their most primal. At just two-and-a-half minutes long, it never lingers. The song is terse and precise, maximizing its effect. It wastes no time, opening with Malakian’s distorted, crunchy guitar riff over John Dolmayan’s thumping drumbeat. Tankian’s vocals shimmy into the mix as he moves in and out of his hypnotic staccato cadence and unleashes his mammoth vocals in the chorus. Tankian goes on to express his disdain for NATO and the U.N., saying &#8220;prostitutes who prosecute have failed us from the start.&#8221;
While diverging artistic visions and political squabbles splintered System of a Down, it was their initial source of camaraderie: a deep passion and ardor for their Armenian culture that brought them back together.
Underscoring their decision to overlook and set aside trivial disagreements in pursuit of a common goal, the band issued an official statement on their website, writing that both songs “speak of a dire and serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia.” Proceeds from the double A-side single as well as the accompanying merchandise, all available on System of a Down’s <a href="https://systemofadown.com/splash/">website</a>, will be donated to the Armenian Fund.
<a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6">Follow Harry Khachatrian on Twitter</a>

System Of A Down

Rock Band ‘System of a Down’ Puts Aside Political Disagreements on Trump, Reunites For New Music

Armenians

Donald Trump

A little over a month after the state imposed stringent “lockdown” policies in the name of combating COVID-19 — and after multiple failed attempts to get Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom to respond to requests for guidance — Pastor Jack Hibbs decided the best thing he could do in this time of national crisis was to give people in his community access to the most “essential” of institutions: the church.
On May 21, Hibbs and more than 1,200 other pastors in the state <a href="https://www.tylerbursch.com/press-release/a-letter-to-governor-gavin-newsom-from-churches">notified</a> Newsom of their plan to reopen the doors of their churches by the end of the month. On May 31, Hibbs’ Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, along with hundreds of other churches in the deep blue state, did something that had somehow become an act of defiance — they offered people from the community a chance to worship together. The doors of Hibbs’ sizeable church have remained open since, with thousands of believers flocking to the place of worship every weekend. The outcome, Hibbs told me in a raw and revealing interview, has been the opposite of what state officials warned would occur. Reopening has resulted in countless lives saved — physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually.
When we first sat down for our recent hour-long discussion, it quickly became clear that Pastor Hibbs fears no question — in fact, he jumps at the chance to tackle the thorny issues, and he isn’t interested in soft-pedaling or platitudes. This is a time for direct speech and — particularly in the year of COVID-19 and widespread unrest — a time to embrace with even more vigor the biblical mandate to “cast out fear.”
The country in general and California in particular, Pastor Hibbs said, is at a “tipping point.” But rather than despair and the instinct to retreat which has overwhelmed so many, he explained, his Judeo-Christian worldview, grounded in Scripture, gives him a sense of hope. And that hope and action are being justified in real time.
Hibbs says he’s witnessed people seeking God in numbers he hasn’t seen in his community before, and he’s also seeing new levels of political engagement. “When you look around and see what I call the &#8216;catastrophe of everything,&#8217; I have never seen interest like we do now,” he told me.
Asked about the accusation that it’s “anti-Christian” to hold worship services amid the pandemic, Hibbs pushed back.
“Christians will cite Romans 13; we are to obey the laws of the land. That is correct,” he explained. “If you want to read Romans carefully, it says that the authorities that are in power have been placed in power by God so that they may be ministers of what is good.”
“When Donald Trump asked for 15 days, we gave him 15 days. We submitted to the government,” he said. “We didn’t know what we had. We didn’t know what was going on. When Trump asked for another 15 days, we gave him another 15 days. For 30 days our doors were shut. When jurisdiction went to the governor, he refused to lead and would not give us the answers. We offered to even help him with the plan for the churches of California. He refused that offer.”
The various restrictions became “such a clear partisan thing” that it didn’t make any sense, said Hibbs. Meanwhile, people’s lives were on the line.
“We’re the ones dealing not with the politics but the fallout,” he said. His team couldn’t afford to miss “a single day of work — because we are the ones fielding calls from people in a panic.” Since his church has the financial means, “we kept people in their homes when they couldn’t make their payments.”
In a video he directed at the governor, Hibbs said he was inviting other churches in the state to join him in reopening “because the level of suicide, the level of counseling was higher than it’s ever been in 30 years for us.”
“Life is risky, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “I’m not stupid. I love my people more than Newsom loves my people, so I want the best for them. I just know something that he doesn’t know — and that is the emotional, spiritual and mental welfare that people need.”
<div id="attachment_160966" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-160966" class="wp-image-160966" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-864x576.jpg" alt="Jack Hibbs" width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/11/Jack-Hibbs-2-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Photo by Gregory Woodman</div>
“We have shut down church. We’ve even debated if it’s essential or nonessential, which to me is a flawed argument because the church is transcendent,” he said. “And Jesus said, ‘Behold I’ve set before you an open door that no man can shut.’ It’s His church. So I personally believe that we’re actually saving lives because we’re preventing with hope teens from killing themselves — because that’s an epidemic right now — and people losing their families and their lives economically because we’re paying for a lot of stuff.”
“I get it. If you’re fixated on CNN’s version of Covid, you’re terrified of what we’re doing,” he said. “But if you look at the science, we’re doing the right thing.” Hibbs noted that the church has experienced “zero outbreaks.”
In pronouncing who is “essential” or “unessential,” Hibbs maintained, political leaders have done severe harm.
“Think of the psychological damage when you turn to that guy who’s built that company, and say that just because he’s only got seven employees and they polish hubcaps, Newsom doesn’t think it’s important. It’s that guy’s life. And you say, ‘You’re not essential.’ You’ve fed him a bullet to the mouth. You’ve insulted him, while all the while you’re taking the money out of his pocket, taxing him. And you tell him, ‘You’re worthless, so go home.’ I can’t think of anything more cruel — yet we’ve done it.”
Since reopening, some 10,000 congregants come to Chino Hills every weekend to gather together for its various services. The church recently held baptisms and saw an unprecedented 1,004 people publicly declaring their faith for the first time.
Church leaders have also witnessed a significant political response in the community. “We&#8217;ve never seen so many people register to vote and change their affiliation,” said Hibbs.
The reason, he suggested, is the downward trajectory of the Democrat-controlled state, which the pandemic has made only more dramatic.
“I believe California has hit rock bottom,” he said. “And people are saying, ‘This is enough.’”
The election, said Hibbs, is extremely important “because as much as the politics are important, California is going to make a decision about if it’s going to survive or not.”
“They’re already talking about inventing a COVID tax where they can recover what has been lost by the lockdowns,” he continued. “We’re fighting to protect our property tax here. And we’ve just heard from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors that their income as a county is down so much — as though they’re surprised— that they need to take emergency actions, and they’re going to be meeting to discuss what that means.”
“I’m a native Californian; I’ll tell you exactly what that means,” added Hibbs. “Under perpetual Democratic rule, it means taxes. … If there’s not a change, it will be a veiled social agenda which will result in taxing the wealthy and the middle class to death until it implodes. And the state might cry out for federal aid from time to time, but that’s going to dry up. That’s why I’m thinking we’re at the brink — it’s the tipping point.”
As an example of its failed progressive policies, Hibbs pointed to the state’s perpetual roadway problems. “The most taxed piece of content in America is California gas,” said Hibbs, yet on the freeways he finds himself dodging potholes and rubble and struggling to read decrepit signs.
“We were promised that through taxes we were going to maintain our highways — it’s never happened.”
Likewise, California’s schools are “supposed to be the best schools in the nation” due to the money flowing in from the lottery and other sources; instead, they’re forever failing. “It’s not that they underperform, they don’t perform,” he said.
“They pillage, they redirect,” he said of the state’s progressive lawmakers. “How can they do that? It’s because California is a state that’s governed by a supermajority with superpowers. Meaning they don’t have to take anything to the voter. The Democrat Party has absolute control and they can do things by fiat — and they do it, and they’ve done it. They’re passing laws and bills that make Californians cringe.”
But for those who want to see California turn around, said Hibbs, there have been some small glimmers of hope from an unexpected source: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“There’s a strange thing that’s recently happened, where this monolith in which the deck has been so stacked against what is good or what is in any way constitutional in California, where, thank God because of Donald Trump, there has been some reappointments in the Ninth Circuit,” said Hibbs, who is a member of President Trump’s faith advisory team. “And because of that shakeup in the Ninth Circuit, there has actually been some decisions made regarding California that have been spectacular. That monolith that is California is starting to see some cracks in it; we’re seeing the opening throes, and it’s starting with the decisions of the Ninth Circuit.”
On a more national scale, Hibbs also sees several reasons for measured optimism. The polarizing nature of 2020 has made some formerly cloudy issues more clear. The oppressive instincts of many political leaders have been put on full display, as have the radical goals of some national groups, most notably Antifa and the leaders of the Black Lives Matter organization. In the process, many have come to recognize the increasingly troubling direction of the Democratic Party.
The official platform of the Democratic Party “has deliberately left God out,” said Hibbs. “I’m not picking on Biden, Harris, or anyone else. I’m talking about a document. This is their statement of faith, and they agreed that when we write this platform, we will not have God in it. Contrast that with the Republican Party, the platform of which specifically mentions God.&#8221;
The most important issue that differentiates the two platforms, he argued, is abortion. The Democratic Party is “hyper-active against the unborn child,” increasingly embracing abortion on demand and even abortion up until birth in some cases, he said.
Regarding Israel, while both parties say they support that crucial ally in the Middle East, “Which party actually does something about supporting Israel?” the pastor asked.
Perhaps most relevant to riot-torn 2020 are the two parties’ views on the nuclear family, he argued.
“The problem that plague many communities, particularly minority communities, is the dissolution of the family,” said Hibbs. “You look at anyone who has gone wayward, regardless of race, it is often the result of the absence of a father figure,” he said.
Hibbs is speaking from personal experience. He was deeply impacted by what he described as “an absence of fatherly input” in his life, which manifested early in his life “in anger.”
Both the Antifa movement and the Black Lives Matter organization are targeting all forms of traditional authority and order, including the family.
Speaking of Antifa’s anti-authority, anti-tradition message, Hibbs said he noticed “a sense of white supremacy” within the movement. “If you watch some of the police footage of the Seattle riots, you saw white males stoking the flames of black fear or black hurt or black anger. They stoked it. … Are you telling me Antifa cares about the lives of black people? Absolutely not.”
Antifa activists are taking advantage of various minorities — “almost as an insect might latch onto something as a host” — in order to push their radical agenda. “They’re being used as a slave trade operative to Antifa,” he said bluntly.
As for Black Lives Matter, Hibbs is careful to make a distinction between the general sentiment, with which everyone should of course agree, the well-meaning people who echo that sentiment, and the radical activists connected to the organization.
“Yes, black lives matter. Yes, there is an innocent group of people that have been swept up in that banner. But the actual organization behind the movement is evil,” he said. “It is an incorporated 501(c)(3) sucking hundreds of millions of dollars [in donations], and yet it is out to destroy the United States and the family and all that is good. And in the end it’s going to destroy the black family.”
“Look at the businesses that are being destroyed by this movement: it’s black businesses,” he underscored.
Fueling anger among many in the black community, Hibbs suggested, is the message promoted by those on the radical Left: that black people are bound to fail in America not just because the system is stacked against them, but because it is out to get them.
“You tell a kid you’ll never amount to anything. Well, guess what? You’re right.”
As a contrast to that hope-killing message, Hibbs cited the life story of Dr. Ben Carson, who rose out of extreme poverty and an illiterate family to become one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world, as well as a presidential candidate.
All these cultural issues, he said, are also political. That’s why the uptick in political engagement is so crucial. We’ve all heard that we should “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” and “to God what is God’s.” In the West, we interpret this as an argument for the separation of church and state, but Hibbs says we are getting exactly the wrong message from this famous passage. Jesus is saying that everything — Caesar, Rome, the government — is God’s. Christians should be more politically engaged, not less.
Asked if he thinks more Christians will vote for Trump this time around, Hibbs said, “Yes. There’s an amazing amount of people who are going to vote for him this time around in spite of his tweets because of his policies and what he has done.” Biden, said Hibbs, has simply been a “pawn to the party.”
As for the primary message he hopes to convey to people during this turbulent time, Pastor Hibbs said, “You cannot live your life fearful.”
“I’m a Christian and I know what God can do in someone’s life, and He can change your life,” he said. “I encourage everyone to look at the nature of God in the Bible. You will find out that He is literally for you. Jeremiah 29:11, God speaking: ‘I know the thoughts I think toward you, thoughts of good, not evil, to bring your life to a full and glorious completion.’ That dispels fear. People need to get their thoughts under control and throw off fear and embrace hope.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-macarthur-against-the-world">MacArthur Against The World</a>

Jack Hibbs

Pastor Jack Hibbs: ‘We’ve Never Seen So Many People Register To Vote and Change Their Affiliation’

2020 Election

Black Lives Matter

Christianity

Democratic Party

Republican Party

Seth Dillon oversees one of the web’s funniest destinations, but there’s an edge to his voice that’s hardly comic. Dillon, the CEO of The Babylon Bee, is at war with social media. Again. It’s an odd place for a humor site to be, but it’s in sync with the current wave of Big Tech bullying.
Dillon says the trouble began two years ago when Facebook aligned with third-party fact checkers like Snopes to battle misinformation on the platform. That seemingly noble stance led to Snopes and, by extension, Facebook, labeling a satirical Bee article as “false.”
“Facebook treated us as purveyors of Fake News,” he says, tied to a farcical story about CNN buying industrial strength washing machines to better spin the news.
“Nobody believed the story was true,” Dillon says. Facebook disagreed, threatening the company’s social media monetization if the Bee kept producing fake news stories.
The Babylon Bee, a Christian humor site that politically leans to the Right, generates revenue from Facebook in several key ways. Facebook traffic comprises a large part of the Bee’s overall clicks.
Plus, publishers can utilize Facebook’s subscription tools to generate new customers or leverage its “instant articles” feature. The latter lets users click on a story and the article appears, but the process taps into Facebook’s ad network structure.
“When they demonetize you, they turn all of them off,” he explains.
Cooler cyber-heads prevailed, but recently Facebook once again threatened The Babylon Bee over its content.
The story in question <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/facebook-removes-babylon-bee-satire-mocking-sen-hironos-treatment-of-amy-barrett-says-it-incites-violence">poked fun at Sen. Mazie Hirono</a>, a Hawaiian Democrat, for grilling Judge Amy Coney Barrett about any sexual assaults she may have committed in the past.
The Bee piece’s headline, “Senator Hirono Demands ACB Be Weighed Against A Duck To See If She Is A Witch&#8221; referenced a classic Monty Python routine.
&#8220;Oh, she&#8217;s a witch alright, just look at her!&#8221; the Bee fictitiously quoted Hirono. &#8220;Just look at the way she&#8217;s dressed and how she&#8217;s so much prettier and smarter than us! She&#8217;s in league with Beelzebub himself, I just know it! We must burn her!&#8221;
The Bee satire triggered Facebook’s algorithms, a process that eventually gave way to a manual content review.
The results?
The story “incites violence,” and Facebook pulled the article from the Bee’s page on its own.
“We were told we would need to edit it or else we would remain in violation of their community standards,” Dillon says. “We appealed [the decision] and lost.”
So The Babylon Bee reached out to the media to amplify both the conflict and their side of the argument. Days later, Facebook changed its mind and apologized, noting the difference between satire and Fake News.
“It’s always a mistake,” Dillon says sarcastically. “They’re reaching, stretching to make us in violation of their community standards.”
Facebook’s cyber-bulling represents an existential threat to The Babylon Bee. A large portion of the site’s revenue comes from ads served on the main site. If Facebook were to prevent social media users from clicking on Bee stories shared on Facebook, it would be devastating.
“Fortunately, we’re not stupid. We’re not using all their monetization tools. It’s way too risky,” he says. “We’re doing all we can to generate revenue outside the Facebook ecosystem.”
Dillon is grateful to press outlets for amplifying their concerns about Facebook, but not every reporter is eager to do so. It’s typically right-of-center outlets like National Review and Fox News sharing their plight.
The mainstream media, in sharp contrast, ignores their struggles.
Reporters did rush to cover the Bee recently, but only after President Donald Trump shared a Bee satire, presumably thinking it was a true news item. That got the attention of sites like MSNBC, Vox, and others, Dillon says.
USA Today recently addressed the site’s mission in an “explainer” style story, but it noted the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/16/donald-trump-tweets-babylon-bees-satirical-news-story-joe-biden/3676071001/">publication mocked Black Lives Matter</a> as if that group should be untouchable to satirists.
The paper even activated its own fact-checkers after the Bee published this story: “Ninth Circuit Court Overturns Death Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
Otherwise, mainstream reporters look away from the Bee when social media slams the brakes on its satire.
The Babylon Bee is hardly the first website to poke fun at the news. The Onion’s satirical work dates back to 1988. That site routinely shreds the latest headlines, too, although from an increasingly left-of-center perspective.
Dillon has been researching his competitor to see if it ever runs afoul of social media giants. So far, he’s seen nothing remotely similar to his own site’s woes.
“Even world leaders get duped by Onion stories,” he notes, but reporters react with glee when it happens.
Not so with the Bee.
“You get these New York Times hit pieces [that say] we are capitalizing on confusion,” he says. “They put our motives in question. ‘Are they spreading disinformation on purpose?’”
Dillon says his company draws support from the creative community, albeit in modest ways. Think private messages from fellow artists offering moral support and law firms eager to have their legalistic back.
Prominent players like “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams and political gadfly Michael Malice also speak out on the Bee’s behalf, along with “disaffected liberals” like Dave Rubin.
It isn’t only Facebook that threatens the Bee’s ascent. Google previously flagged select Bee stories for violating its terms against hate speech, putting “strikes on our account,” he says. “That can put you in jeopardy of losing Google ads.”
Plus, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/twitter-briefly-suspends-babylon-bee-then-apologizes">Twitter suspended The Babylon Bee’s account</a> in August “out of nowhere,” he says, claiming the company violated Twitter’s “spam and platform manipulation” policies.
“They said it was a mistake,” he says, noting the social media giant eventually restored the account.
“We did hear there were other conservative sites caught up in that spam filter. What kind of spam filter was that? What really happened?” he asks. “It’s one more mistake that affected us and not The Onion.”
For now, getting media coverage from conservative outlets is enough to prevent Facebook from censoring its content completely. That’s not possible for everyday Americans who lack the Bee’s clout.
The site has nearly 758,000 Twitter followers, half a million on Instagram, and more than 800,000 “likes” on Facebook.
“We’re just blessed to be in that position … so many people are just out of luck,” he says of social media suspensions. “I get people all the time messaging me. They’ve been suspended and put in Twitter jail. It’s over for them. How many people has this happened to?”
The situation puts a fresh light on next month’s presidential election.
Dillon says the Trump administration cares “very much about free speech and for conservatives to have a voice in the public discourse.”
“The Left tends to stamp out disagreement,” he adds, worrying the matter could get worse under a Biden administration.
“The progressive Left assuming more power is a serious threat to conservatives and free speech,” he says. “Look at that’s happening to the New York Post.”
The Manhattan tabloid remains blocked on Twitter for investigating Hunter Biden’s mysterious business ties, a story that has yet to be debunked in any fashion.
“The Right is much more willing to tolerate opposing opinions,” he says.
For now, The Babylon Bee will keep offering a counterpoint to modern comedy sans apology.
“We fill the void,” he says. “It’s kind of cool to be the one outlier. It’s healthy for society to have multiple outlets to give a different perspective. We need more of that.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/conservatives-dont-dominate-facebook-despite-the-lefts-insistence-they-do">The Left Is Lying About Facebook &amp; Conservatives. Here’s The Truth.</a>

Facebook

EXCLUSIVE: Babylon Bee’s CEO Pushes Back Against Big Tech Bullying

Babylon Bee

Big Tech

Twitter

Kristy Swanson’s decades-long film and TV career began by reading lines from a “Bad News Bears” script.
The pre-teen Swanson knew some of her school mates had tried out for commercial appearances and figured she could, too.
And then some, as it turned out.
She ended up starring in genre-defining comedies like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” crushing cameos in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and, later, becoming one of Hollywood’s few, proud conservatives.
The latter paved the way for “ObamaGate: The Movie,” a film excoriating the FBI’s malfeasance in the Russian collusion hoax.
Swanson says she first got the acting “bug” by singing in church and appearing in local productions in Downey, California. Her parents, unabashed Christian conservatives, eagerly supporter her passions.
To a point.
They weren’t clamoring for their daughter to go Hollywood, given the negative influences that could await her.
She persisted. They relented.
Her family met with a children’s agent and Swanson landed the first two commercial gigs that came her way, thanks partly to her impressive reading of a “Bad News Bears” scene.
“I was on a roll at the very beginning,” she says, but her parents were watching every step of the way.
“They weren’t helicopter parents, but they were cautious and careful,” she recalls.
Young Swanson could sing and dance, but she eventually focused her energy on acting.
Smart move.
Commercial work eventually gave way to film and TV roles in her teens, made possible, in part, by being emancipated at the age of 14. Her parents homeschooled her while she kept piling up the acting credits.
“I had more freedom to work longer hours on set,” she explains of her legal status, adding that producers benefited by casting someone like her rather than 18 year olds playing down their ages.
Two small but consequential roles in John Hughes films — “Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” — pushed her profile higher, leading to sizable acting gigs in movies like “Flowers in the Attic” and “Mannequin: On the Move.”
Some of her peer group fell victim to 80s excess, but Swanson avoided those detours.
“I never brought my work home with me … I tried to have a normal life and not be attached to the Hollywood scene,” she says. “I just loved working.”
She still saw those unsavory influences around the edges of her Hollywood life.
“I was fortunate enough to never fall into any trouble, like casting couches or inappropriateness,” she says. “I certainly have stories, but they were always nipped in the bud in the get-go.”
She credits “instincts” with helping her avoid career pitfalls, adding many of the dubious characters in the industry left her alone.
“They knew I wasn’t easy to persuade,” she says.
All the while Swanson hid a secret so overwhelming she feared it might derail her career. She suffered from learning disabilities that made script reading a challenge.
“If everybody ever knew I was dyslexic I wouldn’t get hired,” the original “Vampire Slayer” says. “I hid it my entire career.”
Home schooling helped, but the accompanying shame wasn’t so easily conquered.
Swanson didn’t give much attention to politics early in her career. Some projects, like her work on TV’s “Call to Glory,” exposed her to glimpses of Beltway politics. She “loved” President Ronald Reagan and, later, felt uneasy about President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.
Still, she kept her focus on her art and hid any right-of-center sentiments.
“I’d get the evil eye,” she says after sharing a smattering of non-liberal views. “I learned to keep my mouth shut.”
Then she met a prominent member of Friends of Abe, a secret society of Hollywood conservatives.
“Everything changed,” she says. “I got to know those guys and I found a family. I was shocked to find some of the people I didn’t know were conservative.”
She didn’t go “public-public” with her conservative thoughts, though, until a certain real estate mogul ran for the presidency.
“Chelsea Handler said something horrible about Melania [Trump], ‘She can’t even speak English,’” Swanson recalls. “I was like, ‘Way to make Hollywood look tolerant.’”
Suddenly, Tucker Carlson was calling to have her on the air.
“I’m never nasty to someone unless they’re nasty first,” she says of her social media demeanor.
Swanson brings some of that swagger to the role of Lisa Page, the disgraced FBI agent, in “ObamaGate: The Movie.” The role found Swanson recreating Page’s “performance” during congressional testimony as well as her now-infamous flirtations with fellow agent Peter Strzok, played by Dean Cain.
“She was doing bad things and was very arrogant about it. She wanted to make herself look human,” she says.
Swanson had to improvise while creating the character since there’s little video footage of Page from which to work. So she spent 45 minutes on the phone with someone who worked with Page. One word echoed through the conversation:
Arrogant.
Swanson reprises the Page role from last year’s play, “FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers,” which focused on Page’s relationship to fellow agent Peter Stzrok and their attempts to pin Russian collusion on President Trump. Only Swanson had never performed on the stage prior to the production.
“I can’t do that. I have stage fright. I’m not used to being in front of a live audience,” she told her potential co-star.
“You can do it!” Cain told her. “He’s such a cheerleader.”
The effort behind both productions mattered more than just conquering a personal fear.
“It’s important for people to hear that story … I’m not forcing it on anybody. It’s there, it’s real, and I know because I read it,” she says of a film that could have been three hours long given all the verbatim testimony, texts, and tweets compiled for the production.
As is, “ObamaGate: The Movie” does what film so often does — process reams of information into digestible bits.
“It’s an easier way to understand it and learn about it. Who’s going to sit down and read all of that?” she asks. “It takes an hour to watch it … it may inspire someone to dig deeper [into the matters].”
Swanson can next be seen in “Courting Mom and Dad,” a Pure Flix original co-starring fellow conservative actor Scott Baio. The current pandemic hasn’t helped snag her many new roles, but she appreciates being part of a MAGA movement filled with positive vibes.
“Everyone wants to make America great again and focus on our country,” she says. “I really enjoyed meeting all those people.”
The life of a working actress involves ebbs and flows, but she’s grateful for even the slower than usual moments in her career.
“Being able to work, to make a living, get married and have a baby, it’s been comfortable. I get to raise my child. I’m not away from him. That’s been great,” she says. “I consider myself blessed.”
And, as the now 50-year-old star ages into different roles, she’s ready for the challenge.
“I look forward to playing the grandma one day,” she says.

Kristy Swanson

How Kristy Swanson Embraced Being A Conservative, Brought ‘ObamaGate’ to Life

Hollywood

Lisa Page

Grace Community Church lead pastor John MacArthur recently sat down to talk with The Daily Wire about his legal battle with Los Angeles officials, the media’s Covid fearmongering, and the response of most Christian churches to the virus — and the chances are none of them are going to like what he had to say.
To be honest, I found myself struggling to pay much attention to the old school praise and worship ensemble on the stage. While the band clearly had practiced hard to perform with excellence for that Sunday service, the truly captivating spectacle was in the pews.
The rows and rows of pews of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles that Sunday morning were packed with people — unmasked people, thousands of them — all there to hear an 81-year-old pastor offer his emphatically not “seeker friendly” biblical teaching.
If I had looked closely enough, perhaps I could have spotted the government auditors who had been attending the services for weeks to chronicle the church’s mounting Covid-19 health order infractions. While most of the rest of the country is now mostly open, Los Angeles is still in strict “lockdown” mode, including forbidding full in-door church assemblies — the type Grace has been defiantly hosting since August.
When Pastor John MacArthur finally took the stage, the most striking thing about him was that his demeanor was unchanged from two days earlier, when we’d met at the Daily Wire offices. There on the stage was the same man; no aura of special status or sense of self-importance. Rather, standing in front of the 7,000 congregants was a man who has spent decades delivering the same message in the same mode, warning of the consequences of rejecting God’s truth — and in many ways predicting the converging crises of which he was quite publicly now in the center.
MacArthur&#8217;s an even busier man these days than usual, adding regular appearances on Fox News and the courtroom to his already jam-packed schedule, so when we sat down on Friday we quickly got to the subject that’s been dominating the headlines for months. When I asked him if America is in the throes of the biggest media-pushed false narrative in the country’s history, MacArthur said without hesitation, “Oh yeah.&#8221;
“We all heard the same thing: give us two weeks and we’ll stop the hospitals from being overrun. But that never happened,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think that’s why people keep coming to Grace Church — because they just don’t believe the narrative.”
While he said he had understood historically something as seismic as this clampdown on individual freedom was possible, the swiftness and magnitude caught him off-guard.
“There was never even an attempt to do something like this before,” he said of the liberty-restricting and economy-crushing lockdowns. “There was never even a short-term act like this, let alone going on for six, seven months.”
“We all saw coming the ability of powerful people to control us in ways that had never been possible before. We’re dealing now with a whole pile of unintended consequences,&#8221; he said, citing the power of the internet in promoting fear. “The decision that Fauci made, they made a decision in a complete vacuum. They made a decision to do one thing and never considered the massive implications that would go all over the place, that were far worse than them doing that one thing. And they’re still beating that drum, and people are still acquiescing.”
“What we saw was the most graphic illustration in history of the fact you don’t need an army to conquer a nation, you just need fear — and it doesn’t have to be a real fear, and it can be completely deceptive,” he observed. “You have all these generations of people who gave their lives in war to get freedom for generations that they wouldn’t even know. They were sacrificing their lives for future generations. Now people will give up every freedom if you’ll protect them from a virus that won’t kill them.”
While the virus, of course, can be deadly, MacArthur said, the chance of dying of it — particularly for those under 65 without any co-morbidities — is a fraction of a percent. In a recent Sunday service, he even went so far as to declare “there is no pandemic.” As evidence, he cited the <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/09/cdc-did-not-admit-only-6-of-recorded-deaths-from-covid-19/">CDC report</a> that of the 200,000 people who have died in connection to the virus, “for 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.”
When I asked him if his critics among the Lockdown Left would declare that he was selling false hope if he were to get infected and die, the pastor shrugged off such a claim.
“For me, to die is gain,” he replied, quoting the apostle Paul in the Book of Philippians. “That is not even a relevant thought to me. Far better to depart and be with Christ… The Lord’s in complete charge of my life. When it’s over, it’s over, and it’s up to him.”
While MacArthur dismissed cynical attempts to undermine the larger message about the freedom of religion, he said that he does not want to be “irresponsible” in his approach to coronavirus. “The good news is I haven’t pronounced that I can heal people,” he joked. But he also made a point of noting that no one has died of COVID-19 from going to his fully reopened church.
At its core, the pastor suggested, his battle with the county is about the battle for truth — about whether we live in a society that embraces it or rejects it. “Once truth breaks down, everything is lost, and all you can do is fight — all you can do is fight with the truth for the truth,” he said.
Teaching the truth is the mission of the church, but too many churches are failing to carry out that mission, he said.
<div id="attachment_153845" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-153845" class="wp-image-153845 size-open-graph-image" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/John-MacArthur-4-1200x800.jpg" alt="John MacArthur" width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/10/John-MacArthur-4-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/10/John-MacArthur-4-1800x1200.jpg 1800w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Photo by Gregory Woodman</div>
So how did it come to this — MacArthur against the world, a modern-day Athanasius at odds not just with the state but other church leaders?
In late July, MacArthur <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/compliance-would-be-disobedience-prominent-california-church-defies-state-lockdown-to-resume-in-person-assembly">announced</a> that he was reopening the doors of Grace Community Church in defiance of Los Angeles County’s ongoing restrictions imposed on houses of worship. Within days, the county issued a <a href="https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Ex.-5-1_Cease-and-Desist-Letter.pdf">cease and desist letter</a> threatening $1,000 daily fines and even imprisonment if MacArthur failed to comply with the county mandate. In response, the church filed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/church-sues-california-after-being-threatened-with-fines-and-jail">lawsuit</a> against the county asking for a declaration and judgment that the health order is unconstitutional, both on face and as applied.
MacArthur’s team maintains that they simply cannot comply with an unconstitutional order. The county, on the other hand, says that the church’s legal arguments, based on the First Amendment, are a mere “sideshow” and have demanded exorbitant fees and possibly jail time. On Sept. 24, the L.A. Superior Court <a href="https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/macarthur-prevails-california-court-says-church-and-pastor-entitled-to-trial/?#more-12931">ruled</a> in MacArthur&#8217;s favor, agreeing that he is entitled to a full trial before the county can seek contempt against him.
The pastor made clear during our talk that he is not defying state orders lightly. The mission of his life, as it is for all believers, he said, is to spread the Gospel to the best of his ability and to responsibly carry out the ministry he’s been given during this brief stint on earth. And he certainly won’t fail to carry out his ministry for a law that flies in the face of the First Amendment.
For those who study the Bible, he said, much of this looks familiar. “Of course, as a Christian, we see in Scripture prophecy of the world eventually becoming global,” said MacArthur, pointing to the Book of Revelation. “One world government, one world economy, one world ruler. That is more possible now than it has ever been in human history, and you can see just how it lays out.”
But while he could see that there was “a prophetic picture that would unfold at some point,” he did not see “this level of capability of that being a reality.”
“The ramping up of the incessant media generating fear — and still doing it. It’s what P.T. Barnum said, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute,’” said the preacher. “People can be deceived … How do you explain Nazi Germany? How do you explain Christian people in Christian Germany massacring millions and millions of people almost unconscionably? It’s amazing the power that can be exerted over people if you have enough fear or if you get them in enough depressed situations.”
The true crisis behind the crisis, he suggested, is that ours is now an era of lies. “Lying is so ubiquitous and everybody knows that everybody is lying,” he said. “Of course, Satan’s the author of lies, so this is his world. He is the ultimate force behind it all, supernaturally.”
So what are we to do in a &#8220;world of lies&#8221;? There is but one recourse, MacArthur told me. “Once truth breaks down, everything is lost — and all you can do is fight,” he said. “All you can do is fight with the truth for the truth.”
And this is where the solemn biblical scholar offered a glimmer of hope. What he has seen in his church in the middle of a valley dominated by leftist politicians and activists is a thirst for the truth, particularly among young people.
Grace has seen about 100 new members a month for years, he said, and 90% are 30 and under. He&#8217;d thought that his congregation would get older as he aged and as his church consistently rejected the “seeker-friendly” approach. But the opposite has been true.
“Conservative millennials are truth-seekers — that’s what marks them, that’s their conservative character. They want the truth,” he explained. “They don’t want to be lied to. They have values. They have morals. They have convictions. &#8230; Liberal millennials just want to burn, tear down, destroy what exists. The separation is massive.”
When it comes to churches, he believes this year has been a “sifting time,” when “the weak” will fall away.
“There are churches that have been irrelevant, but it wasn’t obvious until crisis came and they don’t have any answers. You can’t make daisy chains when people are terrified — not so much terrified by the virus, but terrified that they’re losing the world they’ve always known; that the future is totally out of their hands and it’s not going to be good because people are lying to them. If people want anything, they want the truth.”
“One out of five churches are predicted to never come back,” he said. “That’s not all bad. Maybe they were getting away with sentimentalism and superficiality because there was no reason to fear things, to feel like you’ve lost everything.”
“I’ve watched guys who have commanded the Christian internet — nobody listens to them,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Because they’re woke, and if they’re woke, they won’t say a word. If they bought into being woke, if they bought into CRT [Critical Race Theory], if they bought into ‘systemic racism,’ if they bought into social justice, they can’t make a peep. Because they’ll be alienated. They picked sides, and from my standpoint, as a truth-seeker, they picked the wrong side.”
Some of his friends from other ministries will not speak to him anymore because he’s spoken out against the social justice and CRT agenda, said the pastor. “This is very positive: What’s coming out of this is stop with the nonsense and give me the truth.”
That&#8217;s why Grace is seeing more than 2 million sermon downloads a month, he asserted. “There’s only one common reality: they want to hear the truth.&#8221;
&#8220;And Christians need not fear offending people — indeed, they should embrace it when it comes to the gospel,&#8221; he advised. “There is built-in offense to the truth, and I don’t think we need to sneak up on them. We need to be up-front.&#8221; Speaking the “offensive truth” presents a “stark comparison” to the falsehoods people are hearing. They need to be “knocked off the comfort level of just buying into the narrative.”
That is, after all, what Jesus did, he noted. “Jesus said you hate me because I tell you you’re sinful. That’s why you hate me… That’s the most jarring thing you can say to people: You’re sinful, you need a Savior, you’re going to perish, you’re going to be judged, you’re going to eternal punishment. There&#8217;s no more jarring reality than that. In fact, it’s so jarring that the pragmatic megachurch will never say it.”
This, the pastor argued, is no time for pragmatic, self-help sophistry. It&#8217;s a time for a fearless, tireless commitment to countering the lies of the world with redemptive truth.
“We have the responsibility of proclaiming the most jarring message that’s ever been proclaimed — and it not only cost Jesus his life, it cost all the Apostles their lives, as well, and all the other Christians in the early church who were being slaughtered and martyred,” he said. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t that they were offensive people. It was that they were traveling around telling everybody that there was only one redeemer, and it was Jesus Christ, and if you didn&#8217;t put your trust in him, you were going to hell.&#8221;
People will come to churches that preach that message unashamedly, said MacArthur. They will come because of this “strong desire to find out is the Gospel true — and what else is true.&#8221;

John MacArthur

MacArthur Against The World

California

Christianity Today

COVID

Los Angeles

Shortly before traveling with President Donald Trump on Air Force One to dedicate Wilmington, North Carolina, as the nation&#8217;s first World War II Heritage City in September, Marine Corps veteran Hershel Woodrow &#8220;Woody&#8221; Williams met with the president in the Oval Office.
Williams recounted that the president sat down at his desk, pulled out two handsome boxes made of walnut, and offered him a choice. &#8220;You can take either one,&#8221; he recalled Trump telling him. In one there was a skillfully crafted medallion embossed with the presidential seal. In the other was a key to the White House. &#8220;Which would you like?&#8221;
Williams told Trump, “Well, I&#8217;ll take the medallion because I have keys at home to several cities in West Virginia that have been presented to me over the years, and none of them will open anything. I don&#8217;t imagine the White House key will open the White House, either. So I’ll take the medallion.” The key, Williams points out, he convinced Trump to give to his oldest grandson who was with him.
Echoes Of The Past
Almost exactly 75 years earlier, Williams, who turned 97 on Oct. 2, was at the White House to receive something else from a different president. On Oct. 5, 1945, he was one of 13 soldiers who assembled on the White House lawn to receive the Medal of Honor from President Harry S. Truman.
Williams remains not only the last survivor of those 13, but also the last living Marine Corps recipient from World War II, as well as the last from the Pacific theater.
Williams had returned from the Pacific just a month before and has claimed he had no idea at the time why he had been summoned to Washington, D.C. According to his <a href="https://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/keeble/medal/citations23.htm#W" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Medal of Honor citation</a>, Williams distinguished himself &#8220;above and beyond the call of duty&#8221; for his actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945.
Two days after landing on the volcanic island over which American and Japanese forces battled fiercely for weeks, the 21-year-old Williams was assigned the daunting task of using a flamethrower to neutralize the Japanese machine gun fire that spewed from the reinforced concrete pillboxes and kept American tanks from advancing.
&#8220;Covered only by four riflemen, he fought desperately for four hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flame throwers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out one position after another,&#8221; his citation reads.
Two of the riflemen who covered him were killed.
&#8220;Much of what went on that day, I have absolutely no memory,&#8221; Williams <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9TqQWLtBJk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Memoirs of World War II</a>. The men who gave their lives to enable his mission, he still believes, are the true recipients of his Medal of Honor, and that he is merely its caretaker. &#8220;I wear it in their honor because they certainly gave more than I did. And I would have never perhaps received it had they not been in that position.&#8221;
&#8220;It Had To Be Divine Intervention&#8221;
During a recent interview with The Daily Wire about his life, his faith, and his thoughts on the country&#8217;s present troubles, Williams described how his act of gallantry and the Marines who made it possible changed him in ways he never could have foreseen.
&#8220;It had to be divine intervention, I think,&#8221; Williams said, regarding why he survived. A devout Christian now, he maintains that he &#8220;didn&#8217;t know God&#8221; during his time in the Marine Corps, but nevertheless found himself talking to him. &#8220;I just knew there was a power that I talked to and I didn&#8217;t know what that power was. I just wanted to live. I wanted to survive. Even though I didn&#8217;t know God, I&#8217;m still talking to some force that I think can keep me alive.&#8221;
After the war, Williams married his high school sweetheart, Ruby Meredith, and had two daughters, Travie Jane and Tracie Jean. His wife, he explained, had been raised a Christian and was raising Travie and Tracie as Christians, but Williams resisted coaxing from his girls that he attend church with them.
Despite recurring, horrific nightmares that had him <a href="https://www.uso.org/stories/13-a-tale-of-two-brothers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fighting walls of fire in his sleep</a>, he described his attitude as a &#8220;self-sufficient&#8221; one, which convinced him that &#8220;I didn&#8217;t need God in my life.&#8221;
Williams remembers in vivid detail the Easter of 1962, when he reluctantly agreed to go to church with his family. &#8220;It was just because they were putting pressure on me,&#8221; he said. He was irritated, first of all, that his wife bought new white outfits for the girls every Easter, as was customary at the time. &#8220;I can remember resenting that, to do it just for one day.&#8221;
His plan to hide somewhere in the back pew fizzled when the packed church forced them to sit &#8220;in the fourth pew on the right,&#8221; he still recalls. Then, during the sermon, Williams found himself transfixed by the message from the large, powerful preacher, who spoke &#8220;of the sacrifice of the Lord.&#8221;
&#8220;I thought he was looking straight at me all the time that he was talking,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure he wasn&#8217;t, but in my conscience, he was.&#8221; His thoughts returned to that day on Iwo Jima and the two young men who sacrificed their lives for him, which made his Medal of Honor possible.
&#8220;That all started running through my mind that day. And then he mentioned that the Lord had also sacrificed his life for me.&#8221;
By the end, Williams said, &#8220;I just got up out of my pew and walked up front. The Lord just grabbed me and took me up there.&#8221; Asking the pastor to pray with him, the 38-year-old Williams became a Christian. &#8220;That day, my life changed. I walked out of that church a different person than I walked in.&#8221; He gave up smoking, drinking, and swearing. His nightmares stopped.
&#8220;I Could Not Forgive Myself&#8221;
Williams became very active in his church in the decades afterward. Though he found his life transformed, his spiritual wounds did not heal overnight. He maintained that as he delved into a deeper understanding of his faith, he found it harder to forgive himself than those who were his enemies.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t hold the enemy responsible,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They were doing what they were trained to do, and I was doing what I was trained to do. We were trained differently, but those were our beliefs. That&#8217;s what we had been taught.&#8221;
Williams believes he developed a guilt complex after what he had to do during the war, which he credits his faith for helping him overcome. &#8220;I could not forgive myself,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I did after the Lord came into my life, but I felt that he would forgive me because I wasn&#8217;t doing this because I wanted to do it. I was doing it because I was trained to do it. And that&#8217;s what we were supposed to do in war. So I finally forgave myself.&#8221;
&#8220;And what a relief that was,&#8221; he added. &#8220;My guilt went away and it gave me a peace that I never had before.&#8221;
Williams has dedicated most of his life to helping other veterans, serving as a Veterans Affairs counselor for 33 years and the chaplain for the Congressional Medal of Honor Society for 35 years. To this day, he remains active in honoring Gold Star families through his nonprofit, the <a href="http://hwwmohf.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hershel Woody Williams Medal of Honor Foundation</a>, which seeks to erect monuments in every state honoring those who have lost a loved one fighting for the United States.
So far, 69 memorial monuments have been raised in 49 U.S. states or territories, and 73 remain in progress. &#8220;Everything else is taking the place of news and newspapers, but almost every day, we have somebody in the armed forces lose their life. We don&#8217;t talk about it. We don&#8217;t advertise it, we don&#8217;t let people know, but it&#8217;s happening.&#8221;
&#8220;We Can Return To The Foundations Of This Country&#8221;
As Williams surveys the state of the country he loves so much, he is grieved by the turmoil that has roiled it in recent months. He believes the riots that have left major cities torched and businesses destroyed are &#8220;absolutely atrocious,&#8221; and symptomatic of a generation that is bereft of values.
Williams goes beyond the hand-wringing that older generations have always done about young people, instead going so far as to lament a society whose foundations are seemingly being destroyed.
People know only what they have been taught, Williams said, for which reason blame falls in part on those individuals and institutions that have failed to pass on the country&#8217;s legacy to posterity.
&#8220;They do not have values of being an American,&#8221; he said of the rising generation. &#8220;The love of country that we were taught as we grew up in school; the respect that we would have for our country, for our flag, for our laws, for our being. We&#8217;re not teaching any of that today.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re not teaching civics in any form, so they don&#8217;t have any values that I had,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I would never disrespect the flag ever, because I was taught not to.&#8221;
Nevertheless, Williams remains hopeful. The youth today, he said, lack &#8220;those very bedrock, basic values of country, appreciation of each other, of preservation of life. I think that&#8217;s slipped away and I don&#8217;t know how—I&#8217;m not smart enough to bring it back. But somebody will, somebody can.&#8221;
&#8220;It is my hope and my prayer that somehow we can return to the foundations of this country,&#8221; he concluded. &#8220;We&#8217;ve existed for over 200 years and we have existed because others made it possible for us to continue to exist.&#8221; As he has done throughout his long life, he keeps an eye to the many who have sacrificed their lives to that end. They died, he said, &#8220;just so we can be the country we are, the America that we love.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s my prayer, my hope, that we can come back to those foundations, reestablish those values to really realize that we do live in the greatest country on the globe,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And there&#8217;s no other country like us.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/in-memoriam-fiske-hanley-world-war-ii-veteran-and-special-prisoner-1920-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">In Memoriam: Fiske Hanley, World War II Veteran And ‘Special Prisoner,’ 1920-2020</a>

Hershel Woody Williams

EXCLUSIVE: WWII Medal Of Honor Recipient Hershel ‘Woody’ Williams Talks War, Faith, And The Nation

Medal of Honor

Religion

Veterans

World War II

Evangelist Franklin Graham warned that the prevailing agenda of the Democratic Party poses a threat to religious liberty and urged American Christians to join with him in prayer as he leads the first Prayer March in the nation&#8217;s capital this weekend.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Wire, the 68-year-old Graham spoke first of the upcoming <a href="https://prayermarch2020.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prayer March 2020</a> in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, during which thousands of Christians plan to walk the length of the National Mall in a symbolic act of prayerful supplication for a nation in turmoil.
Participants will stop at seven landmarks along the way to offer up specific requests, according to <a href="https://static.billygraham.org/sites/prayermarch2020.com/uploads/prod/2020/09/Wshtn-Prayer-March-Map-9-22.pdf?_ga=2.235727361.184282641.1601052382-820837723.1601052382" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">literature on the Prayer March website</a>. Topics of prayer range from repentance at the Lincoln Memorial to intercession for military and law enforcement at the World War II Memorial; pleas for racial reconciliation feature at the African American History Museum, and entreaties for religious freedom at the National Archives.
The march ends at the Capitol, where prayers will focus not just on Congress, but also the Supreme Court. That the march takes place on the same day that President Donald Trump is slated to nominate a new Supreme Court justice is a coincidence not lost on Graham, who is thankful that it &#8220;gives us a chance to pray for her, whoever she is, and ask God&#8217;s help getting her nominated and passed into the Supreme Court.&#8221;
The march is not the only Christian group meeting on the Mall this weekend, but Graham emphasized that the apolitical event he organized is focused solely on prayer. &#8220;Every person who comes participates because they all get to pray, and we all walk and do this together,&#8221; he said, adding that he hopes the unity that characterized the marches of the 1960s will prevail. &#8220;The church needs to be united, and we need to pray and call upon God and ask him for his help. There&#8217;s no other solution to the problems we face as a nation other than God.&#8221;
Noting that Americans are more divided now than at any other time in his life, Graham reflected soberly on the magnitude of the complex crises facing the country. Speaking specifically about the protests that have sprung up in major cities nationwide over the summer, Graham said, &#8220;We have seen unrest boil out onto the streets as a result of the police marginalizing citizens in their communities. And we have seen people tragically lose their lives who should never have lost their lives. And so I understand this unrest and I understand the turmoil.&#8221;
&#8220;But there have also been people who have taken advantage of this and, as a result of taking advantage of it, are trying to use it for their own agenda,&#8221; he warned.
Graham discerned the dangers behind the Black Lives Matter organization in particular, which he said &#8220;has certainly gotten the attention of many people, but unfortunately it was started by people who are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-black-lives-matter-founder-goal-is-to-remove-trump-reveals-marxist-ideology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">devout, avid Marxists</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;The concept that black lives matter is true,&#8221; Graham clarified. &#8220;Black lives do matter. But so does everyone&#8217;s life. And, for me, as a Christian, that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m pro-life, and that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m against abortion. I&#8217;m pro-life. And we look at the black lives that are aborted every year. There&#8217;s a disproportional number of black babies that are terminated over any other race. And so, yes, black lives matter, and we need to address the abortion issue in this country.&#8221;
More broadly, Graham also expressed deep concern regarding the trajectory of the Democratic Party&#8217;s agenda, which he says &#8220;is going toward socialism.&#8221; Acknowledging that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is not a socialist, Graham nevertheless observed that many of the people around Biden are socialists and that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joe-biden-and-bernie-sanders-debut-unity-guidance-that-pulls-from-sanders-agenda" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">he has had to make concessions</a> to far-left figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
&#8220;The socialists want to turn our country into Venezuela,&#8221; Graham said. &#8220;They want to turn it into something like a Cuba. And, of course, the church is their number-one target because they want to shut the mouths of pastors and they want to stop people from getting together and worshiping. And they&#8217;ve done that very successfully throughout eastern Europe and throughout every socialist country in this world. And they will do the same to the United States of America.&#8221;
Regarding what the future may hold for American Christians, Graham reiterated the warning of freed pastor Andrew Brunson, who will be attending the march and offering the prayer at one of the stops along the Mall. A year ago, Brunson told the Washington Examiner that <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-think-were-very-close-freed-pastor-andrew-brunson-urges-young-american-christians-to-prepare-for-persecution" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">he believes persecution is possibly &#8220;very close&#8221; for the American church</a>, a prediction about which, Graham said, there is &#8220;no question.&#8221;
Graham condemned the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-church-relents-to-county-demands-after-fines-exceed-100000" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lingering lockdowns of churches</a> in states like California as illegal and unconstitutional. &#8220;The Constitution guarantees us the right to worship without interference from the government,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For a governor just to arbitrarily say that Lowe&#8217;s, Home Depot can be open, or Walmart can be open on Sunday, but churches have to be closed, and they can&#8217;t have more than 100 people or 50 people or whatever, it just shows you that they are targeting churches.&#8221;
&#8220;Businesses can stay open, but churches cannot. I appreciate the president saying that churches are essential,&#8221; Graham added, commending Los Angeles pastor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/an-inexplicable-ruling-john-macarthurs-church-cannot-hold-indoor-services-l-a-judge-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">John MacArthur</a> especially for taking a stand against state and local authorities, despite continuous court battles. &#8220;He&#8217;s right,&#8221; Graham said. &#8220;We have the right to worship, whether pandemic or not a pandemic. We have the right to worship and the government can&#8217;t stop us.&#8221;
&#8220;Our country needs God&#8217;s help,&#8221; Graham said. &#8220;Only God can fix these problems. And there&#8217;s no easy answer to it. It&#8217;s going to take a solution from on high, which I believe God can give if the church prays and seeks his face.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/high-hypocrisy-5-cited-3-arrested-at-outdoor-church-service-in-idaho-after-not-wearing-masks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">‘High Hypocrisy’: 5 Cited, 3 Arrested At Outdoor Church Service In Idaho After Not Wearing Masks</a>

Rev. Franklin Graham Brings Evangelical Message To California Before Primary

EXCLUSIVE: Franklin Graham Talks D.C. Prayer March, SCOTUS, BLM, Church Lockdowns, And The Democrat Agenda

Franklin Graham

Supreme Court

Spencer Klavan’s new podcast takes a page out of Prager U’s playbook.
The latter’s YouTube channel promises, “We teach what isn’t taught.” Klavan’s <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/young-heretics/id1513602173">“Young Heretics”</a> podcast shares “lessons that have been taught less and less over the last 50 to 60 years,” the podcaster says, “But in reality they’ve been taught for millennia.”
They’re also under fire from the woke Left, something he hopes to combat one episode at a time.
“Young Heretics” leans on the wisdom of T.S. Eliot, John Milton and other intellectual giants to process modern life.
Klavan, son of author and Daily Wire podcaster <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/andrew-klavan-another-kingdom-interview/">Andrew Klavan</a>, says people are “hungry” for a classical education, “without even knowing it.”
It’s why he’s received a robust response to the podcast, now all of 12 episodes old. That also explains how a 30-plus minute program swiftly expanded to a full hour, and often longer.
“People are sick to death of Twitter, bite-sized pieces of content,” he says. It helps that the podcasting world isn’t chockablock with conservatives expounding on classical literature.
“I do believe if offers something unique,” the Oxford-educated Klavan says of his podcast. “There isn’t an accessible, deep dive western culture show like ours.”
Klavan, Assistant Editor of the <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/">Claremont Review of Books</a>, brings a rich, resonate voice to “Young Heretics” to match his academic chops. He doesn’t want the latter to nudge any potential listeners away, though. Great art, he says, belongs to the masses.
“I love when people say, ‘You know, I’m a fireman and nobody ever told me I could read Shakespeare or Milton … now. I’m actually going away and reading it,’” Klavan recalls. Classical literature is “food for the soul, not just an academic pursuit.”
“We think of literary art as this arcane thing. It’s been made into that by an incompetent academy,” he adds.
Klavan’s show regularly mines the past to speak to the present, letting historical truths wash over the listener. “Young Heretics” also hopes to relish the material in question while learning from it. He quotes C.S. Lewis, who once said, “A man can’t be always defending the truth; there must be a time to feed on it.”
“We spend so much time arguing that it’s O.K. to read Homer and Shakespeare. We don’t actually read Homer and Shakespeare,” he says.
“Young Heretics” is over the heads of very young listeners, but Klavan hopes those messages reach them eventually.
Once you really grasp the glory of western culture it’s incumbent on parents to share it with their children, he says, especially as elementary and high schools remove critical lessons from their curricula.
Klavan’s show is still young by podcast measures, but he’s particularly proud of Episode 6, “The Pride Before the Fall.” The installment looks at the “cycle of regimes” and the “rise and fall of different societies.”
It sounds depressingly relevant as major American cities burn on a near nightly basis.
“It’s the kind of education I’m trying to offer, with a historical sweep to it,” he says.
When Klavan isn’t behind the podcast mic he’s engaged in intellectual chats with Papa Klavan.
“He’s a huge influence on me,” the son says, their conversations flowing like podcast brainstorming sessions. “It’s a joy that I’ve moved back to L.A. … we go on these long hikes and bat ideas back and forth.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/klavan-the-politics-of-c-s-lewis">Spencer Klavan on the Politics of C.S. Lewis</a>
A version of this interview was also published on HollywoodInToto.com.

Spencer Klavan

Spencer Klavan Takes A Stand Against Woke Academia

Education

In a Daily Wire exclusive interview, Lt. Col. Allen West sat down with Ben Shapiro to discuss how to push back on the identity politics and &#8220;victim culture&#8221; dominating American discourse and what it&#8217;ll take to keep the red states from turning blue.
Allen West grew up in the same neighborhood as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an area more commonly known as the “Old Fourth Ward Neighborhood.” Despite being born a generation later, former U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, former U.S. Representative and now Texas Republican Party Chairman, Allen West continues to echo the same transformative message of Dr. King  — content of character and not the color of your skin.
But in a January 2019 “Sunday Special Interview” with Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro, Allen West stated that the narrative has since shifted. 
“For whatever reason, America has reversed and we&#8217;ve gone back to talking more so about the color of skin issues instead of the character of people,” West explained. 
With a family history of service to the country, West acknowledged that his value system is distinct from the rest of society. From a young age his father instructed him, “Son, when you go into the military, it ain&#8217;t about the color of your skin, it is all about what you can do out there on the battlefield.”
“And that&#8217;s how it should be,” West argued.
As a college campus speaker who tours the country with Young America’s Foundation, West has witnessed a different perspective sweeping the halls of higher education, one that promotes victimhood and “dependency on the Left.” 
After one night speaking on the Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal and American foreign policy, West was shocked by the first question he received from a young black female. “Do you identify as black?” she asked. 
Such thinking, West told Shapiro, is the product of the Left pushing people into an ideological box based upon their ethnicity or gender. There is an “effort on college campuses to say that if you&#8217;re Jewish, you&#8217;re supposed to think a certain way. If you&#8217;re black, you&#8217;re supposed to think of a certain way,” commented West.
And if you have any opinions that run contrary to the Left’s, then “you&#8217;re bad or you’re confused or, you know, maybe you&#8217;re mentally disturbed,” he remarked.
West said the Left’s message is clear: “No matter where you come from, we need more people to be victims.” 
“Why? Because the Left needs more people to be dependent upon them,” he explained.
According to the retired congressman, the way to counter this thinking is two-fold. First, “start to fight that culture war.” And second, “stop allowing the Left to define everything.”
West is confident there is more to the story than the Left’s dominant societal narrative. “Everybody wants to be a part of an American dream,” he asserted.
“I don&#8217;t believe that people wake up every day in life and say, ‘I want to stay here in Section 8 housing and get a check from the government.’ But if that&#8217;s the only message that they hear, if that&#8217;s the only people that are going into those communities and talking to them about being victims and not victors, then the Republicans are always chasing their tails.”
Victors look like West’s wife. She is the daughter of immigrant parents from Jamaica and her father fought in the U.S Military for 24 years. They laid a foundation for her to earn her PhD, MBA, and go on to teach as a business professor. 
“But those aren&#8217;t the stories that the other side wants to have,” West pointed out.
Rising above victimhood includes shaking off what West views is equally as repulsive as racism — “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
To be told by someone, “Well, you probably can&#8217;t achieve it, so we&#8217;re going to lower the standards so you can get out there and play.” To this West responded bluntly, “That’s racist.”
Counteracting low expectations with high expectations is key. “You know, you find out what the standard is, what it means to get to the A, and then you get an A-plus,” asserted West. “And that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m driven to do.” 
For West, this means even if he has to brave the hate. 
“You know if you&#8217;re not willing to sit down, have that intellectual debate, then you&#8217;re irrelevant. I don&#8217;t hear names. I&#8217;ve been shot at. Okay. Names don&#8217;t bother me,” West told Shapiro.
This level of perseverance is evident by his recent mid-July win for Texas Republican Party Chairman. 
West is the author of, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hold-Texas-Nation-Victory-Death/dp/1612542980">Hold Texas, Hold the Nation: Victory Or Death</a>” and its pages point to Texas as the crux of future conservative election victories.
West said that Texas is following the same path that Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada went down, a path that leads to red states becoming blue. One of the causes, he told Shapiro, is California residents moving to red states because of their own state’s “failed tax and regulatory policies.” 
“And what is happening is that the greatest export that comes out of California is not avocados, wine, or walnuts — it&#8217;s progressive socialism.” West is sure that “they&#8217;re flipping them because they&#8217;re, once again, holding onto these same failed policies.”
The looming danger is that Texas, along with California, which the Left already dominates, are the two largest electoral states. “And the Left without a doubt have their sights on Texas. As a matter of fact their mantra is ‘Turn Texas Blue,’” West said.
“And if the Left is successful in turning Texas, the national-level elections, they’re done. You&#8217;re never gonna be able to reverse that cycle,” he warned.
West believes this calls for serious action by the Republican Party to intentionally fight for voters in large urban cities and present them with the rationale of conservative policies and values. 
“And so we need to challenge the status quo,” he urged, “and we need to have a whole-hearted effort to go into these communities and show ourselves and show these policies.”
But for some reason, this seems to come easier to the Left than the Right, West noted. And he respects them for it. 
“One of the things that I admire about the Left and the Democrat Party — they&#8217;re tenacious, even in the minority. They&#8217;re tenacious because they&#8217;re true believers in what they believe in, even if it&#8217;s wrong,” he said. “But for us, we don&#8217;t show that we&#8217;re true believers. And I think at some point in time we have to have those elected representatives in the Republican Party that are true believers. I don&#8217;t know if we&#8217;re going to get there within the next four years, but this is my real vision that I think will happen.”
West’s confidence in the party stems from his larger positive vision for the country. “I&#8217;m always optimistic, man, because if you’re pessimistic why wake up,” he told Shapiro.
After all, West stated, “we didn&#8217;t fight for America to look like a Venezuela.”
Lt. Col. West believes that fighting for America is a privilege and passionately seeks to make the next generation better than the last. To that generation, he said, “stand on a mountain.”
“Sometimes you&#8217;re going to be down in the valley — but always keep your eyes on the mountain.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/sunday-special-ep-34-allen-west">Watch West’s full interview with Shapiro</a>
More exclusive interviews from The Daily Wire: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ted-cruz-on-the-fundamental-fight">Ted Cruz On ‘The Fundamental Fight’</a>

Allen West

Allen West On Living As ‘Victors Not Victims’

In the latest exclusive Daily Wire interview, Fox News star Greg Gutfeld discusses his unorthodox rise to media prominence and how to counter the &#8220;bully machinery&#8221; of Cancel Culture.
Greg Gutfeld remembers the time in high school where he feared he was a fraud.
The future Fox News superstar entered a debate on nuclear energy confident he could defend his anti-nuke bona fides.
“Bombs are made for killing,” the young Gutfeld said en route to what he predicted would be a sure victory on the nuclear freeze topic.
Not exactly.
“In the middle of it I realized I was a fraud. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was a superficial clown on this topic,” Gutfeld says.
“I think I won, but It was so obvious that I didn’t,” Gutfeld recalls of the applause-driven metrics, adding his opponent “beat me to death” during the debate.
Years later, when he became a print journalist, he learned the rigorous research required to share data with the public. And, along the way, he discovered too many reporters weren’t much better than his teen self at getting the facts straight.
“I’ve been on every side of an interview. People look for stories to shape and match their assumptions,” he says. “It taught me to be super skeptical.”
And careful, of course, particularly when writing medicine-based stories for publications like Prevention Magazine.
“You make a mistake in these magazines, and you could kill somebody,” he says.
Today, the TV star draws a sizable crowd on both his Saturday night Fox News program, “The Greg Gutfeld Show” and “The Five” weekday roundtable. The latter crushed all of CNN’s daytime and prime time programming as well as most MSNBC shows for July, averaging 3.3 million viewers (including 489,000 in the 25-53 age demographic), according to Fox News.
“The Greg Gutfeld Show” lapped the combined audiences of MSNBC and CNN during the same period in total viewers. It also was the second most-watched late night program in all of television behind CBS’s “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.
Former President George W. Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino credits Gutfeld for coaxing her out of her Beltway-built shell. “The Five” co-host wasn’t the only one Gutfeld helped along the way.
“He’s very good about spotting talent early and helping grow that talent,” Perino says, citing rising Fox News stars like Kat Timpf and Tyrus. “He really does give people opportunities. He doesn’t push them too far or too fast. He brings them along. It’s a skill that not that many people have.”
Her co-host also connects with audiences in a way that’s both plainspoken and pure.
“He doesn’t use big, fancy words to make his points,” she says. “He’s really honed skills over the last several years in terms of persuasion.”
Gutfeld’s irreverent presence, snarky but substantive, took root during his childhood.
“I was kind of a weirdo. My interests were pretty eclectic,” says Gutfeld, recalling how punk music “consumed” him. He cherished “Monty Python,” Mad Magazine and the group known as <a href="http://www.srl.org/">Survival Research Laboratories</a>, which created moving sculptures from mechanical doodads.
He longed to hang with people from the proverbial fringes but simultaneously learned how to understand people along the way.
“It’s a weird combination of traits,” says Gutfeld, who once played “Candyland” on air with the <a href="https://lbj.utexas.edu/he-was-human-tape-measure-ex-navy-seal-who-killed-bin-laden-says-they-confirmed-his-identity-asking">man credited with killing Osama bin Laden</a>, Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill.
Gutfeld credits his late mother, Jackie Gutfeld, for forging core elements of his personality. She got him hooked on the “usual gang of idiots” at Mad Magazine, encouraged him to write what he calls “crazy little short stories.” In turn, he made her a part of his professional journey.
She contributed a tips column to Stuff Magazine (where her son increased circulation from 750,000 to 1.2 million) and even served as a “senior” correspondent on “Red Eye.”
Those days in the print magazine trenches, including stints at Men’s Health, Prevention and Maxim magazines, prepared him for his Fox News duties. He thought he was ready for the gig long before he actually landed it, though.
“Dude, I can really work here,” he recalls telling a Fox News contact after the network had him on as a guest. He laughs at his chutzpah now, but it took another gig for the Fox News connection to take root.
He started writing columns for The Huffington Post, mocking the people who wrote for the liberal site. That caught the attention of Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart, who had connections with a Fox News affiliate in Los Angeles.
That led to his first Fox News gig, hosting the late, late night show known as “Red Eye.”
He trusted his curious instincts, and it paid off in unexpected ways. Consider the recurring bit around “<a href="https://redeyebonusroom.fandom.com/wiki/Pinch">Pinch</a>,” a puppet made of old New York Times newspapers meant to mock the liberal news outlet.
“I learned there are people as weird as I am,” he says. So he trotted out unusual bits without trying to over-explain them. Audiences, at least those on a similar wavelength, bonded with him and the show.
He also received “tons of hate mail,” he notes, letters pleading with his bosses to fire him.
The gig came with heaping helpings of anxiety, even if the on-camera Gutfeld took it all in stride.
“You’re getting up there and doing it without a net, making a fool out of yourself on TV,” he says. “I hadn’t performed [before]. I’ve never gone on stage and done bits. People assume that I did, but I was always a print dude.”
The “print dude” racked up impressive ratings for a 3 a.m. EST production, routinely topping competitors’ shows airing at much more friendly time slots.
The usual suspects didn’t immediately savage the show. In fact, the progressive Slate.com wrote a <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2007/04/the-bouncy-pleasures-of-red-eye-w-greg-gutfeld.html">tempered love letter</a> to “Red Eye” months into its improbable run. The site called it “a tabloid gabfest and a dumbfounding frat party—a production so light and crude that it seems to have been adapted from the margins of a spiral-bound notebook, right down to its hair-metal-indebted logo and that indifferent w-slash.”
That’s a compliment. So is this:
“[Gutfeld] tries to play the boor here, with Sarah Silverman shock tactics and one eye on the gutter, but there’s a nerdish twist to his sense of humor and a good-natured twinkle in his eye.”
Fox News eventually retired “Red Eye,” leaving Gutfeld with both “The Five,” and later his self-titled show. The host’s predilection for the printed page never faded. Best sellers like “Not Cool,” “The Joy of Hate” and “How to Be Right” showcased his wit in a retro, albeit familiar, format.
The older, wiser Gutfeld’s new book, “The Plus,” offers a different side of the media personality. His publishing contact targeted a 2021 release date for a new Gutfeld tome, but he saw too many culture fissures that demanded his attention now.
Cancel Culture. The pandemic. Mobs gone wild. Social media rage-a-thons.
“If I wait any longer on this it’ll be old,” he feared. Only he didn’t want to merely recite the modern ills damaging society. He had ways to deal with them, ways to put our best selves forward.
Meet “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Plus-Self-Help-People-Who-Hate/dp/1982149914">The Plus: Self Help for People Who Hate Self Help</a>.”
<div id="attachment_134241" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134241" class="wp-image-134241" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Greg-Gutfeld-The-Plus-378x576.jpg" alt="Greg Gutfeld The Plus" width="500" height="762" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/08/Greg-Gutfeld-The-Plus-378x576.jpg 378w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/08/Greg-Gutfeld-The-Plus-197x300.jpg 197w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/08/Greg-Gutfeld-The-Plus-768x1170.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/08/Greg-Gutfeld-The-Plus.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" />Courtesy Greg Gutfeld</div>
The comedic book offers tips for navigating social media, supporting those pulled over by the P.C. police and more. Risk sharing, where we rally behind those unfairly “canceled,” is just one strategy highlighted in the book.
“If the person is innocent you have to help them,” he says, adding the more people who rush to someone’s aid, the less likely anyone will be officially “cancelled.”
The “Cancel Culture” passages in the book read as if they were written last week given the tenor of the times. It’s “bully machinery,” he says of the cultural movement.
Other chapters get more personal, with Gutfeld sharing how he evolved on a number of fronts. One painful episode shows the personality bombing with an opening joke, a reminder to be both humble and aware of the crowd before you.
A sidebar/rant on “How to Read a Never Trumper,” from a personality who took time to warm to the atypical leader, is similarly on target. So is his comic assault on “binary thinking,” offering clever ways to avoid that intellectual mouse trap.
Gutfeld shares “The Five” with liberals like Juan Williams, and he’s equally willing to knock back a few cold ones with progressive pals.
”I have friends who are liberals in rock bands, and they totally disagree with me on everything,” he says. “We go out and we have fun.”
That camaraderie isn’t always mutual these days, but Gutfeld has an ace in the hole.
His fans.
Those friends may loathe his politics, but chances are “their parents don’t,” he says. “It happens a lot,” he notes, including one liberal comic whose mother likes Gutfeld more than him, the Fox News star jokes.
Or is he?
He once nearly landed an artist on his Fox News show who initially turned down his invitation in no uncertain terms.
“Faux News!” the artist all but shouted via an email exchange. Then the artist had a change of heart.
“Two days later, ‘you know, um, I was telling my Dad I got an email from you and he totally flipped out,’” Gutfeld recalls.
“Whatever they feel toward me, there’s somebody in their family that likes me,” he says. “They have to deal with that.”
More exclusive content from The Daily Wire: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-progressive-comic-judy-gold-on-cancel-culture-the-left-is-eating-its-own">Progressive Comic Judy Gold On Cancel Culture: The Left Is Eating Its Own</a>

Greg Gutfeld

EXCLUSIVE: Greg Gutfeld Gets Candid About His Rise To FOX Fame, Countering Cancel Culture

Fox News

Poll after poll has revealed a significant shift occurring in public perception over the last few decades, a shift that has become impossible to ignore in the Era of Trump. As mainstream media figures increasingly embrace activism over journalism, Americans’ trust in the media has crumbled. Formerly unimpeachable outlets are now viewed with deep skepticism — and in this Texas Sen. Ted Cruz sees an opportunity to advance conservatism.
The second-term senator, 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and best-selling author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Time-Truth-Reigniting-Promise-America/dp/0062365614">A Time for Truth</a>” spoke candidly about pushing back against the forceful current of the media’s leftist agenda during a June 2019 interview with Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro.
“One of the great virtues of the age of Trump,” Cruz told Shapiro, is that “fake news has been exposed.”  
“Do you remember a few years ago people [would say], ‘Oh the news isn’t biased’? Nobody argues that anymore,” said the senator. The establishment media has become “so plainly unhinged,” he said. “You watch these reporters foaming at the mouth, you watch these networks — they hate Trump so much.” 
While Cruz and Shapiro agree that President Trump falls short on a number of accounts and both have leveled their fair share of criticism against him, the degree to which the mainstream media has targeted Trump has been “revealing,” said Cruz.
The “naked, irrational hatred of the Media Left directed at Trump,” he said, is “revealing of who they are.” 
“They are full-on partisans,” the senator said, promoting a party that is “a throwback to old and failed ideas.” 
“They will put on the hat and they will cheer for whatever leftist Democratic nominee, and they will do everything they can to collate the information and to pitch a propaganda war. For those of us who value freedom, we’ve got to counteract that,” Cruz told Shapiro. 
The big question, the senator stressed, is how to speak truth in the face of such an overwhelming media bombardment — how does one get past the “gatekeepers” and reach voters with the logic of conserative policy and values?
“The media doesn’t want any of those messages to get across,” he said. “And so that means it’s our jobs. And we’ve got to do it in ways that get around the gatekeeper.”
<div id="attachment_130738" style="width: 1370px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-130738" class="wp-image-130738 size-expanded-portrait" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ted-Cruz-Portrait-compressed-1360x2040.jpg" alt="Ted Cruz" width="1360" height="2040" />Photo by Gregory Woodman</div>
This effort, Cruz understands from personal experience, requires persistence because, as he put it, “it is a virtue of politics and the media to get whacked in the head with a stick and keep on going.”
The Texas Senator has often had a target on his back, notably during the 2016 GOP Presidential Election, when he found himself engaged in a two-front battle with both the left-wing media and the man who would go on to win it all, Trump. 
“Did I like what Trump said in the primary? No,” Cruz admitted. “That being said, he’s not the first person to throw attacks at me, and he won’t be the last person.”
But of course political stamina is not enough on its own. A movement has to have a message — and the message of conservatism, Cruz argued, is broadly appealing: “faith, family, patriotism, and hard work.”
That message also has to have practical, political applications. Conservatism, Cruz contends, provides just that, offering limited government solutions to the nation’s biggest problems.
“The tax cuts, and [regulatory] reform is a big, big part of solving the problem,” said Cruz, “and I think beyond that we need structural solutions.”
Among those solutions, Cruz suggested, is implementing term limits. “I’m a passionate advocate for term limits because it structurally changes how Washington works,” said Cruz. 
The senator’s stance on term limits has only strengthened since his time in office. 
He explained to Shapiro, “I used to be a supporter of term limits until I got in the Senate. And now, I&#8217;m a thousand times more a supporter of term limits.” This, Cruz said, is because he has come face-to-face with the uncomfortable fact that politics is “Hollywood for ugly people.”
“I don’t think [the current system] recognizes the reality of the political process today,” Cruz said. “Number one, there are massive advantages with incumbency — incumbency in terms of free media, in terms of money, in terms of infrastructure. Because what I’ve seen, the dominant instinct, Ben, in the Senate, and it’s true in the House also, is risk-aversion.”
He continued, “You know there’s an old joke that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. There’s enormous truth to that. You’ve got old, fat, bald guys who were the unpopular kids in high school, who suddenly get elected to Congress and they go to a cocktail party and they&#8217;re handsome and they’re witty and they tell a joke and everyone laughs. And it becomes like a narcotic. And what happens is incumbent members of Congress, their dominant focus is ‘I must get re-elected no matter what.’”
<div id="attachment_130635" style="width: 1810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-130635" class="wp-image-130635 size-expanded-landscape" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ted-Cruz-1-1800x1200.jpg" alt="Ted Cruz" width="1800" height="1200" />Photo by Gregory Woodman</div>
The result of limiting terms would be fresh minds and fresh faces who are more “responsive to the people because the elected officials are not just obsessed with staying there for life.”
Senator Cruz also thinks it&#8217;s time to stop the runaway train of entitlements.
Entitlements, particularly Social Security, are in the “no-touch” zone for most leaders in Washington, including Trump during his first four years in office. But for Cruz, addressing these bloated programs is “critical to the solution.”
“I think what politicians in Washington are doing right now is irresponsible, both parties, because they’re allowing Social Security to careen towards insolvency,” said the senator.
Now, as Cruz points out, is an ideal time to make some of these “structural” changes. According to a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/18/millennials-dont-plan-on-relying-on-social-security-in-retirement.html">2019 poll</a>, only 13% of millennials are expecting to use Social Security for retirement and more than 70% of people of all ages are worried it won’t be there when they need it. 
Cruz’s answer to the looming disaster is a comprehensive, four-step plan that involves adjusting benefits for the upcoming generation but not changing the plan for seniors who are heavily reliant on it. “We need to honor those promises,” said Cruz.
In the end, if conservatives want to see substantive progress, it will take conviction and commitment.
“We need to have the same focus, the same zealotry for freedom that the Left has for government,” said Cruz. “That&#8217;s the fundamental fight.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/sunday-special-ep-54-ted-cruz">Watch Cruz’s full interview with Shapiro</a>.

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz On ‘The Fundamental Fight’

Conservatism

Economy

Social Security

Jason Whitlock has never voted. As a rising journalist reporting sports, he never wanted his writing to be critiqued through a political lens. As praiseworthy as this ambition is, it was a standard he couldn’t quite keep. 
In June 2018, Whitlock, a former ESPN journalist and the first sports writer to ever receive the National Journalism Award for Commentary, sat down with podcast host and Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro to discuss the racial unrest sweeping across America, NFL protests, police brutality, and the media’s encroaching agenda on sports.
Two years later, the sad truth is nothing has changed. Maybe it’s actually time we listen to what the acclaimed journalist has to say. 
Whitlock’s perspective isn’t a radical one. “I just have a working class point of view,” Whitlock told Shapiro. 
“I think there’s a lot of people that get involved in the media and think and try to pretend like they’re representing the point of view of the under class or the lower class or the working class, and they&#8217;re really just representing the view of the elite,” he said. “And this particularly is acute with black journalists. So many of them really come from the upper class, that they don’t really know how to represent people from the lower class or from the ghetto or the disadvantaged.”
This isn’t the case for Whitlock, who is black and who grew up under the example of two working parents, only one of whom graduated from high school. Together they showed him the value of personal responsibility and hard work, which has now shaped the way he views sports, politics, and life.
In addition to these attributes that were instilled in him through his upbringing, Whitlock said, “football has shaped my values, and sports has shaped my values.” 
“If you understand anything that’s preached in sports in any team environment,” Whitlock explained, “if there&#8217;s a problem on the team — don’t look outside the locker room. ‘We must fix our problems right here within this locker room.’ Don’t blame the refs, don’t blame fans for not showing up, don’t blame ‘they cheated,’ or whatever. ‘Right here, we’re going to fix our problems.’” 
According to Whitlock, this “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality unfortunately isn’t understood completely by many players who advocate for social justice causes. 
“Where’s all this victimhood coming from?” he asked. 
Instead of cultivating change through emotions, Whitlock said we need to focus on supporting cultural changes if we want to see progress for black Americans, particularly in regard to criminal justice. 
“I understand how this happens,” Whitlock told Shapiro. “And it’s not really about police brutality.” 
Whitlock is speaking from personal experience, as he had a close cousin killed in Indianapolis. 
He believes that “the destruction of the family is causing much of this chaos.” Whitlock is convinced that single motherhood is not just a correlation between crime rates, but a causation. 
“The first policeman that a child should deal with, and is supposed to deal with, are his two parents,” emphasized Whitlock. 
“They’re supposed to police their children. And so if you find yourself in a culture where there aren&#8217;t two policemen called mom and dad, and your children are running out unsupervised into America and now, ‘Oh these policemen, who didn’t sign up to be their parents, aren&#8217;t treating them the way we want them to be treated.’ Well, the first abuse is the lack of parenting,” he maintained.
“That’s the issue,” affirmed Whitlock. “We have a culture as African Americans where single motherhood is prevalent — it’s 75% of our kids.”
Whitlock blames the media for misleading the public toward emotional-driven activism instead of factual-based solutions. Shapiro agreed his frustration is not unwarranted.
It’s an “obvious issue that has to be addressed,” observed Whitlock.
“If we want, as black people, to move forward, and if we want our society to move forward, with black people, we have to address this issue,” he stressed.
The media has their own agenda — orchestrated and influential, the sports writer stated. The claim that black men are disproportionately killed “doesn&#8217;t factually hold up to statistics.”
“There are plenty of examples of the police wrongly killing white men that the media never addresses or never touches.” This is because, Whitlock said, “it seems to me, they want us racially divided and at each other’s throats.&#8221;
It’s disheartening, commented Whitlock, that the media won’t give “people with common sense” a platform to voice their opinion. “It’s like we&#8217;re irresponsible.”
Whitlock did give his opinion about Black Lives Matter — some six years ago, now — but few heeded his warning.
“I was telling people four years ago, ‘Hey look, Black Lives Matter is not what you think. You think it&#8217;s a pro-black movement — it’s not. It’s funded by communists and it’s a disruptor.”
Within his circle of friends, Whitlock is witnessing more eyes opening to the reality of this movement. But he also recognizes “the failure of being wedded to one political ideology.”
“I think black people are being programmed and pushed farther and farther to the left,” he said. “If you understand anything about the history of African Americans in this country, we have been the most religious people in the country. Our values are naturally conservative, the things we believe in. We’re not pro-abortion. But we have been pushed by the media farther left than our values say we should go. We’ve chosen politics over our belief in God.”
As someone who has been living and breathing sports for over 30 years, Whitlock has also witnessed the progression of sports gradually turning politically left.
It’s undeniable that sports shapes culture. And Whitlock said that’s what the Left figured out. 
People now understand that if you can “influence sports culture and move it left,” you can “move the rest of society to the left. And that’s what I think we are seeing right now coming to full fruition,” Whitlock told Shapiro.  
History has proved the commentator right. 
“You go back and Jackie Robinson, in 1947, was ahead of the Civil Rights movement and actually inspired the Civil Rights movement,” said Whitlock. And, “Jesse Owns was the first black man to be celebrated as a national hero in America. Those are critical moments that opened doors for black people.”  
It’s ironic, Whitlock explained — leftist media organizations are using sports, particularly the NFL, to promote social justice activism, when “there&#8217;s no institution that has created more black millionaires than the NFL.” 
Whitlock’s own life demonstrated this concept. Hard work and a football scholarship allowed him to chase his dream of becoming like his childhood hero, columnist Mike Royko.
Yet, even so, big-time sports corporations rush to the side-line after any political action from players or leadership. 
To be fair, Whitlock doesn’t believe the sports industry was initially at fault. “They’ve been bullied,” he said. And the culprit was the blog-based media company, Deadspin, who intimidated ESPN and finally succeeded in “moving them politically left.”
But the move is hurting the sports industry. Sports, a once all-inclusive conversation starter, has now shifted to be a common conversation stopper. 
“I think the market is starting to speak, and I think that their brand has been damaged because if you understand who sports fans are, they tend to lean a bit more conservative. And so they’ve irritated the largest segment,” said Whitlock. 
At the end of the day, sports teaches us values.
And “they&#8217;re not political, but they are conservative,” asserted Whitlock.
“You have to take ownership of your own destiny and life,” he urged. “And America has a track record that if you&#8217;re willing to do that, you’ll find some success here. There are just too many examples of it.” 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/sundayspecialep-7-jasonwhitlock">Watch Whitlock’s full interview with Shapiro</a>

Jason Whitlock

Jason Whitlock’s Unheeded Warnings On The NFL, Racism, And The Media’s Sports Agenda 

ESPN

Race

Sports

Hollywood certainly doesn’t have a reputation for being harmless. The amount of child actors who have walked away from an acting career untouched by the social pressures are few and far between. But even more scarce are those that lead a life as “put together” on the inside as they appear to be on the outside. 
Kirk Cameron, one of such men, would be the first to admit that he’s far from perfect, but he is also quick to remind people that his faith in God is the leading reason why he enjoys the life he does. 
In a December 2019 “Sunday Special” interview with Daily Wire’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, actor and producer, Kirk Cameron, shared how his faith impacted his career in the entertainment industry and how it has proved to be the foundation of a purposeful and successful life, both in Hollywood and at home. 
Cameron’s acting career launched when he was 9 years old. Only 5 years later, he found himself starring as Mike Seaver on ABC’s hit show “Growing Pains.” It was at that point Cameron knew he was meant to be an entertainer.  
The “Growing Pains” cast was like a family, said Cameron. And his experience was an overall positive one. 
“But being a teenager in Hollywood is a pretty dicey road to take,” Cameron admitted to Shapiro. “And I think that’s where faith in God kicked in and pointed me in a different direction — I took the road less-traveled, so to speak.” 
His journey of faith started at 17 when he was “captivated by the message of the Gospel” during a Sunday church message. Cameron said it helped him answer questions, existential and philosophical, that he was wrestling with at the time. 
From that point on, Cameron worked to navigate a lifestyle of reconciling his new faith with his career in Hollywood. 
“I was trying to figure out ‘how do I do this’ — I didn’t grow up like this. ‘How do I honor God in an industry that doesn’t always look to accomplish the same goal?’”
The changes in his behavior were subtle, indicated Cameron. “I just wasn’t dropping as many F-bombs, you know. I wasn&#8217;t going to the same parties, and I wasn&#8217;t interested in some of the same stuff my friends were interested in.”
The outside response to Cameron’s conversion was about as expected, considering the track record of teen celebrities.
“I would say there were some people who had a healthy concern,” Cameron explained. “You know when you hear of teen celebrities, child actors, often things enter into their life that makes them go wrong. And you know that can be very concerning.” 
Despite those concerns, Cameron is confident that he picked the best path. And he attributes his faith for keeping him on track.
Looking back, Cameron stated, “Wow, I’m really blessed to have this life and I want to really live it in a way that honors the One who gave it to me.’ And I think that kept me on track more than anything.” 
Forging the same career path but with a new identity was not as difficult for Cameron as one might expect. Cameron said doors began to open after high school, “and the doors that were opening were lining up with things that were happening to me on the inside.” 
Not everything stayed the same — but for Cameron that was ok. 
“There may have been some parts that I had to pass on because of content or conscience issues,” admitted Cameron. However, “It wasn&#8217;t like I felt like people&#8217;s disagreements with my faith or my values was inhibiting my career.” 
Rather, Cameron has had the opportunity to pursue entertainment he’s passionate about through films including “Fireproof” and the documentary “Monumental: In Search of America&#8217;s National Treasure.” 
“I want to be about things that promote faith, I want to be about things that promote family, and marriage,” Cameron told Shapiro. “And I think it’s really helping people,” he added. 
Now, as a husband to his once-girlfriend on and off screen, Chelsea Noble, and father of six children, four of whom are adopted, Cameron seeks to live out the same values that he promotes in his films. He is convinced that, “when the family crumbles, the nation crumbles.” 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-127379" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-919x576.jpg" alt="Ben Shapiro Kirk Cameron" width="1200" height="752" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-919x576.jpg 919w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-300x188.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron-768x482.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2020/07/Ben-Shapiro-Kirk-Cameron.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /></div>
In addition to his film work, Cameron and his wife lead marriage conferences across the country.
Cameron said all families begin with an expectation of success. “Nobody goes to the altar thinking, ‘Hey, if this whole thing blows up, I’m ok with that,’” he told Shapiro. Rather, he believes “people want and appreciate things that help them to live life in a way that causes people to flourish, families to flourish, and the nation to flourish.” 
With marital commitment in Hollywood today being a rare phenomena, Cameron joked during the discussion, “I’ve been married for 29 years, which is like 290 in Hollywood years.”
Parenting is also a full-time job for Cameron. He told Shapiro that there are three key principles he and his wife refer back to. The first is to be the person you want your kids to become. The second is prioritizing the relationships with your children and making sure your house doesn’t become a “correctional center,” as Cameron put it. 
Finally, “point them to truth,” urged Cameron.
“You know the kids get inundated with so much error,” he remarked, “with so much, you know, right is wrong, wrong is right.”
“For me, I go to God’s Word — those principles, those ancient truths that I can always go to,” he explained. “I want my kids to learn those things and know that truth is not relative when it comes to morality and things like that. Truth is something they can build their life on.”
Cameron is fully aware of the secularization in today’s society and is persuaded that culture is the key to bringing about change. 
“Politics is downstream of culture,” argued Cameron. “I think that the hearts and minds of young people are being formed, and they vote accordingly.” 
Cameron said one of the solutions is more people of faith in Hollywood.
Understandably, there are objections to joining such an industry. Cameron acknowledged the complaints that Hollywood can be “dark” and “dirty.” But just like politics, Cameron stated, “If you don’t like it, change it.”
While there is a strong but inarticulate demand for faith-based entertainment, fear of producing or even participating in such films is a big roadblock. Contrary to popular opinion, he suggested, there are in fact people of faith in the entertainment industry. 
Cameron said that “there are more people of faith than you would think” in Hollywood, but “many of them are very cautious about expressing that faith.” 
The actor is optimistic that we will be witnessing more people of faith “coming out of the closet,” both in Hollywood but also “all around the country and the world.” 
Practically speaking, “people are making projects where faith is at the center because it does well at the box office,” he noted.
“Many people think that what I have done, like talking about my faith, would be suicide for a career,” he told Shapiro.
To those debating whether or not they should vocalize their faith or conservative values in their professional setting, Cameron said, “Go with your convictions.” 
For him it was a matter of not wanting “to look back” in regret for not making the courageous choice. You won’t want to reflect back and say, “‘I wish I could do that over again. You know, I wish I had some courage and I wish I didn’t care so much about what other people thought.’”
“I care about people,” Cameron concluded. Ultimately that is why he wants to try to “speak the truth and live the truth in a compassionate way.”
“If I don&#8217;t do that I&#8217;m really not loving people,” he said. “I&#8217;m really just protecting myself and my career, which is selfish.”
At the end of the day, acting upon your convictions is of far greater value. 
“You only live once,” said Cameron. “Do what you believe you’re here to do.” 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-82-kirk-cameron">Watch Cameron&#8217;s full interview with Shapiro</a>

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron Discusses Finding Faith Amid Fame

Mike Rowe has parted ways with his fair share of friends. In fact, in one year, he lost as many as a million of them. 
It was around 2013, and in his re-telling, his Facebook following dropped from three million to two after he appeared on “Real Time” with Bill Maher, the left-leaning political commentator who he has described as “opinionated, polarizing and controversial,&#8221; and, that same year, joined conservative radio host Glenn Beck for an interview. 
“My buddies on the right just didn’t know what to do with the optics of me sitting next to Bill Maher,” said Rowe, who recalled the incident in a 2018 interview. “And my pals on the left just had no notion of how to square the cognitive dissonance that forced their heads to explode when they saw me sitting there with Glenn Beck.”
The former “Dirty Jobs” host added: “We’re in the world now, where it’s not what we say that gets us in trouble, it’s what we don’t. And it&#8217;s not where we are that makes people’s eyebrows arch, it’s who we’re next to. It’s the proximity of outrage. It’s the geography of all of it.”
Rowe’s observations, made during a “Sunday Special” conversation with Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro two years ago, continue to hold true — maybe even more so. 
Earlier this month, The Washington Post published a 3,000-word tome about a random woman’s decision to attend a 2018 Halloween party as Meghan Kelly in blackface. Why? Two party guests who confronted the woman at the time were still upset over it, and wanted her to endure a full-throttled public humiliation, nearly two years after she privately apologized to the host. 
Notably, Lyric Prince, one of the two guests, also wanted the host, an editorial cartoonist at the Washington Post, to condemn the woman — his own friend and a non-public figure — in public: “I want people who read this story to say to themselves, ‘I cannot excuse my friend’s bad behavior because it does reflect on me if I say nothing.’” 
The woman has since been fired from her job. Cancel culture abounds. 
According to Rowe, part of the problem can be attributed to social media. Like a gun, social media is a tool, and it demands a level of responsibility from its user. 
“We’re right on the verge, I think, of discovering some really interesting parallels between the First and Second Amendment. And I think people who would never, ever consider or associate a firearm with goodness, are ironically using speech as a real cudgel and restricting it in so many ways,” Rowe told Shapiro. 
But, how you use the tool remains an open question. “Most people simply don’t have the training or the maturity to handle it,” said Rowe. 
“The violence and the anger, and the outrage that you’re seeing, I think in part, is a result of having an unlimited amount of access to a platform that gives you both the mechanism to say whatever you want, and the anonymity, and the comfort to hide behind it,” he said. 
“So people are very shrill and they’re very brave in those scenarios,” said Rowe, who argued that those factors, when combined together, serve as the “portent to a mob.”
“I think that’s what you’ve probably seen. Things get accelerated, and then there&#8217;s no place left for it to go, and so they have to act out,” he said. 
The New York Times recently reported an uptick in high school students and alumni using “social media to expose racism,” including the use of anonymous Instagram accounts, where students can submit stories about others for public humiliation. 
One of the Instagram accounts, described by The Times, was used to share screenshots and videos of local students using anything from racial slurs to engaging in “cultural appropriation.” When students became angry about it, some started photoshopping images to retaliate, and fights between friends broke out online. 
The Times reports that the specific Instagram page in question has since been shut down. 
During the 2018 interview, Rowe told Shapiro that people in society seem to confuse passion with conviction, an observation that reminded him of the “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats’ early-20th Century poem that is infamous for its apocalyptic imagery. 
<blockquote>The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity</blockquote>
“If you don’t have the certainty of your convictions. If you can’t make a case….Then what is left? Nothing is left but an explanation of how you feel,” said Rowe. 
“If your philosophy ultimately redounds to an explanation of how you feel, then you’re completely beholden to whatever feeling you might be experiencing at any given point. And then you’re just one of those people who follow their passion. Good luck with that,” said Rowe. 
So what’s better than relying on feelings? Rowe suggests that “a good-natured skepticism, a ton of gratitude, and some honest intellectual curiosity” could be the best replacement for the “let me tell you how I feel” philosophy that dominates outrage mobs.  
“I really don’t care how you feel, honestly. I mean, over a beer it&#8217;s kind of fun,” he said. “I just don’t care. It’s so much more interesting to understand why you believe what you believe, than it is to understand what you believe. That’s why mobs are boring,” said Rowe. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/sundayspecialep-12-mike-rowe">Watch Rowe’s full interview with Shapiro</a>.

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