On Sunday, Jan. 17, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris sat down with Jane Pauley of CBS News &#8220;Sunday Morning.&#8221; Pauley treated Harris to a full-on journalistic massage. At no point was Harris asked a tough question; at no point was Harris treated as anything other than an idol worthy of worship. Perhaps the most awkward manifestation of this sycophancy came when Harris — an extraordinarily and transparently manipulative and mechanical politician — spouted a canned speech about relentlessness. &#8220;I was raised to not hear no — let me be clear about it,&#8221; said Harris. &#8220;I eat no for breakfast!&#8221;
This prompted a spasm of ecstasy from Pauley, who immediately reflected Harris&#8217; bizarrely inappropriate laughter with an enormous grin of her own.
It will be four long years.
For four years, the media complained that outgoing President Donald Trump treated them as an enemy. They self-servingly claimed that they were actually the protectors of democracy and individual rights. It took all of one month after Trump&#8217;s inauguration for The Washington Post to add the slogan &#8220;Democracy Dies in Darkness&#8221; to its masthead. By October 2017, CNN began running ads explaining that it was all about &#8220;Facts First.&#8221;
Trump, for his part, attacked the media whether they deserved it or not: Every disparaging headline, true or not, became &#8220;fake news.&#8221; That was unjustified and wrong, obviously. But the media&#8217;s lack of credibility wasn&#8217;t solely attributable to Trump. It resulted from their own journalistic malfeasance for years on end during former President Barack Obama&#8217;s administration — &#8220;his only scandal was wearing a tan suit!&#8221; — followed by their aggressive repetition of even the most thinly sourced scandal regarding Trump.
And now we&#8217;ll return to the gaslighting of the Obama era, when members of the Obama team could openly admit to lying to the media, only to receive obsequious praise in return. Already, media outlets are praising the newfound veracity of Biden&#8217;s press team — despite the fact that Jen Psaki, Biden&#8217;s choice for White House press secretary, was accused of openly and explicitly lying to the media in 2016. Media members are even admitting that the vacation has begun: CNN&#8217;s Jim Acosta — and, ladies, find you a man who loves you like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta — admitted that he&#8217;d be covering Biden differently, explaining, &#8220;If being at the White House is not an experience that might merit hazard pay &#8230; then perhaps it is going to be approached differently.&#8221;
Of course, Acosta never needed hazard pay. He was too busy declaring himself a hero and preening for the cameras while pulling down a lucrative book contract. But now that the Biden administration is a reality, our media can go back to sleep.
And so, the controversies of the day will turn to the trite. The big question won&#8217;t be governmental oversight but media self-policing: Last week, the media were consumed with the vital question of whether Vogue magazine&#8217;s cover of Harris is respectful enough, given that it shows her wearing her trademark Converse sneakers. Other major controversies to come will include just how cute Joe Biden&#8217;s dog is and whether the racial diversity of his Cabinet is merely important or super important. Meanwhile, the same media outlets that act as stenographers for the Democratic Party will insist that other outlets meet with social media censorship. After all, American needs unity! And that unity can only be provided by the same people who have wrecked all pretense of institutional objectivity in the pursuit of partisan outcomes.
People will continue to seek information from alternative sources, of course. But that will only provoke the media to seek new methods of repressing those alternatives. As it turns out, the commitment of many in our media isn&#8217;t to truth or facts. It&#8217;s to monopolistic control.
More from Ben Shapiro: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-dont-let-covid-19-lockdowns-become-a-permanent-power-grab">Don’t Let COVID-19 Lockdowns Become A Permanent Power Grab</a>
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Barack Obama Sworn In As U.S. President For A Second Term

SHAPIRO: Get Ready for 4 Years of Media Sycophancy

Joe Biden

Legacy Media

Media

On Sunday, Jan. 17, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris sat down with Jane Pauley of CBS News &quot;Sunday Morning.&quot; Pauley treated Harris to a full-on

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Donald Trump

COVID-19

Israel

Palestinians

Coronavirus

The host of “Real Time with Bill Maher” can be garrulous, prickly and downright mean.
It’s hard to forget how Maher mocked the Palin family, including her special needs child, as inbred mutants in the “Hills Have Eyes” horror tradition. Or how he <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/08/10/bill-maher-really-wants-a-recession-because-we-cant-survive-another-trump-term/">cheered on a “recession”</a> in order to get his party back in the White House.
Still, he occasionally shelves liberal talking points for some unabashed truths, much to his own party’s chagrin.
Yes, Maher spends the majority of his screen time echoing the views of Colbert, Kimmel, Bee and the rest of the hard-left late night crew. It’s his ability to break away from the pack, to share independent thoughts, that resonates with more than just his base.
It’s often just Maher trying to warn his fellow Democrats of political icebergs ahead. So be it. We&#8217;ll take flickers of late-night sanity however they appear.
The Rioters Don’t Represent MAGA Nation
Maher’s penchant for speaking inconvenient truths got a workout this month. The host, returning to HBO for the first time in 2021, said what’s patently true to any clear-thinking soul.
The thugs who broke into the Capitol Jan. 6 were<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/bill-maher-defends-trump-supporters-lets-not-confuse-5000-capitol-rioters-with-74-million-voters"> wrong and not indicative of the standard Trump voter.</a>
&#8220;As bad as last week was &#8230; let&#8217;s not confuse 5,000 people with 74 million,&#8221; Maher began his monologue. &#8220;Yes, even supporting the insurrection in spirit is, well, deplorable. But there&#8217;s a difference between holding illiberal beliefs and acting violently on them. At least that&#8217;s what they always told me about Islamic terrorism.&#8221;
He didn’t stop there. He swatted down the notion that <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/11/07/bill-maher-slams-panelist-who-calls-all-trump-voters-racists/">all Trump voters are racist</a>, a view held by a frightening number of liberals.
“Trump did a lot better with the black vote than he did last time,” Maher said. Nance questioned how well the exit polls reflected reality, given the large amount of mail-in ballots.
“I think he’s a terrible leader, but I don’t think that it’s terrible that there’s diversity in the Black community. Or in any community,” the host said.
Free Speech Warrior. 
Maher remains a rock-solid defender of the First Amendment. That hasn’t changed in the Cancel Culture era.
He proved that anew recently<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/15/maher-on-trump-twitter-ban-i-dont-like-banning-speech-these-things-turn-into-the-one-true-opinion-in-the-liberal-bubble/">, worrying about the consequences</a> of Big Tech deplatforming Trump.
“I’m a free speech person. I mean, f*** Trump. But when someone, anyone, anywhere decides what speech is allowed and what isn’t, I don’t know.”
He added the reasons for Trump’s removal were “vague” and that Big Tech could soon become a “liberal bubble” with little outside thought poking through.
Maher faced an early version of Cancel Culture in 2014 when Berkeley students tried to remove him as a speaker for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/28/berkeley-petition-bill-maher-commencement">sharing the wrong thoughts during his career.</a>
He persisted, striking a blow against the woke mob.
Defending Amy Schumer from Fellow Liberals.
The fading starlet’s 2018 film “I Feel Pretty” made little noise at the box office. The social media reception, though, proved loud and ugly.
Schumer stars as a woman who looks like … Amy Schumer … but feels empowered after a blow to the head convinces her she’s suddenly supermodel thin.
That set off the woke mob, who attacked the film for not having a person of color as the lead and reeking of the <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/entertainment/a18192099/amy-schumer-backlash-i-feel-pretty/">star’s blonde beauty “privilege.”</a>
Maher wasn’t having it.
“… the professionally offended have decided that even though it’s a film by women filmmakers presenting a pro-woman message, it does it the wrong way!” … Amy helped wrong! Even though she really just remade The Nutty Professor, where someone not thin and not cool magically sees themselves as better looking and gains confidence — except when Eddie Murphy did it, he didn’t have the purity police up his a**.”
He wasn’t finished.
“Can’t we just sit in a movie theater, unclench our a**holes for two hours, and laugh at what it is instead of dissecting it for what it is not?” Maher asked. “Movie reviews, they’re not even reviews anymore. They’re just, ‘How come you made the movie you made and not the movie I would’ve made if I had talent, which I don’t?&#8217;”
America Isn’t That Sexist … or They Still Hate Hillary
Maher took a long, hard look at the 2020 election results and came to a conclusion anyone “With Her” might find repugnant.
<a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/11/13/maher-2020-results-disprove-idea-hillary-lost-due-to-sexism-biden-won-by-slightly-more-than-hillary/">AKA the truth.</a>
“Again, we all know the pollsters were wrong. We thought it was going to be a much bigger victory. He won by slightly — in other words, the country looked at Trump for four years and he won by that much more than Hillary. First of all, doesn’t that say maybe we’re not as sexist as we thought? I mean, it really doesn’t seem to be that oh, Hillary was a woman, we wouldn’t vote for her. They voted for Biden by this much more after Trump f***ed up for that long.”
Yes, Hunter Biden Is Sketchy. 
The mainstream media and Big Tech successfully squelched the Hunter Biden scandals that could have cost his pappy the election. Yet in 2019 Maher sounded a siren, of sorts, on the son’s <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/09/27/maher-if-don-jr-did-what-hunter-biden-did-it-would-be-all-rachel-maddow-was-talking-about/">dubious behavior tied to Ukraine</a>.
“I don’t think he was doing something terrible in Ukraine, but it’s just so — why can’t politicians tell their f***ing kids get a job? Get a g**damn job. I mean, this kid was paid $600,000 because his name is Biden, by a gas company in Ukraine, this super corrupt country that just had a revolution to get rid of corruption. It just looks bad. And the Republicans are geniuses at muddying the waters. … It’s all going to be about, you did this in Ukraine, well, Joe Biden did this.”
Maher even added a bit about media bias to make the argument stick.
“And if Don Jr. did it, it would be all Rachel Maddow was talking about.”
Maher subsequently backed off the Hunter Biden stories, perhaps following the media’s corrupt suggestion there was nothing “there” in the first place.
Maher on Thanksgiving: Just Eat, Thanks
The newest November tradition finds media outlets sharing how to survive Thanksgiving with your “racist” uncle or how to defeat their Trumpian rants. It’s exhausting and defeats the purpose of the holidays, a time meant to unite, not inflame.
Maher shredded the new Thanksgiving playbook with this <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/11/16/maher-we-have-to-learn-to-live-with-each-other-a-second-civil-war-is-possible/">glorious, and surprisingly nuanced, attack.</a>
“And never forget the single, shining truth about democracy, it means sharing a country with a**holes you can’t stand. In that way, it’s a lot like Thanksgiving. You don’t get to choose the guests. Because those freaks are your family. Think about that the next time you think you can own somebody politically.”
America is a big country, filled with millions of people who don’t think the way you do and never will, and you can’t own, vanquish, or disappear them. We’re stuck with them, and they’re stuck with us.”
Calling out Democratic Israel Bashers
The mainstream media won’t go near Rep. Rashida Tlaib in any meaningful way, no matter how many outrageous things she says or does. The same is doubly true for late night comics, who ignore her flaws to focus on GOP targets.
Yet Maher singled Tlaib out in 2019 after she called for a “Real Time” boycott.
Why?
Maher dubbed the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) a “bull***t purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class.”
The comedian responded to the Michigan politician in savage fashion days later.
“Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away,” Bill Maher said. “But here’s the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?”
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones – Inside

8 Times Bill Maher Told the Truth (and Stunned the Left)

Bill Maher

Cancel culture

entertainment

Hollywood

Readers Pass

The host of “Real Time with Bill Maher” can be garrulous, prickly and downright mean. It’s hard to forget how Maher mocked the Palin family, including her

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Hank Williams, Jr. rocked the country world when he released his 1979 album Family Tradition. Whereas prior artists clung neatly to a cool and collected twang — save for Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and some others — Hank combined wild and rugged individualism with comedic lyricism. He blended rock ‘n’ roll with blues and country, and the result changed the face of the genre forever.
While Hank’s music was widely loved and commercially successful in his time, many of his pro-gun, pro-family, and pro-America lyrics wouldn’t stand a chance in today’s Cancel Culture era. 
Here are five songs that would struggle to pass the Left’s politically correct litmus test today:
“Dixie on my Mind” (1981)
This country-rock tune peaked at number one on the Billboard US Country Chart. “Dixie on my Mind” is a fast-paced song detailing Hank’s rejection or urban norms and notion that he would prefer (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuJroujjYDk">like George Strait</a>) to live in Tennessee or anywhere else in the south other than New York city. 
While the song is devoid of any clear allusions to race or politics, the left would argue that this song is pro-slavery for referencing the word dixie, and probably surmise that Hank is a xenophobic, racist, scoundrel. 
But there is nothing of the like in this song. He is merely proud to be from the country, where things are calmer and more composed. 
He sings:
<blockquote>These people never smile or say a word, 
They&#8217;re all too busy tryin&#8217; to make an extra dime, 
Oh I&#8217;d love to haul &#8217;em all down around Spartanburg, 
And show &#8217;em how to raise hell in Carolina.</blockquote>
“Texas Women” (1981)
Also from the 1981 album Rowdy, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjQRrGy9AuM">“Texas Women”</a> is a funny, endearing love-letter to women from the state of Texas. Here are two verses.
<blockquote>I&#8217;m a country plow-boy, not an urban cowboy 
And I don&#8217;t ride bulls, but I have fought some men 
Drive a pickup truck, trust in God and luck 
And I live to love Texas womenI&#8217;m a pretty fair judge of the opposite sex 
And I ain&#8217;t seen nothin&#8217; that will touch &#8217;em yet 
They may be from Waco or out in Lampassas 
But one thing about it, they all come from Texas</blockquote>
I can already picture it. What is legitimately an amusing song about Hank’s preference for pretty girls from the Lone Star state, would be turned on its head by the Left. Instead, you see, this is a sexist tune that discriminates against women from other states. It is supremely unfair for Hank to not like all women equally! Also, how dare he refer to hardworking people from the city as “urban cowboys.” That is geographically impolite and not politically correct. 
“If Heaven Ain’t a Lot Like Dixie” (1982)
The song is an upbeat, pro-America, and comedic tune about wanting Heaven to resemble Hank’s birthplace of the South. Similar to his other songs, he rejects urban homogenization of American life and describes a love for his roots. The chorus says:
<blockquote>If heaven ain&#8217;t a lot like Dixie 
I don&#8217;t wanna go 
If heaven ain&#8217;t a lot like Dixie 
I&#8217;d just as soon stay home 
If they don&#8217;t have a Grand Ole Opry 
Like they do in Tennessee 
Just send me to hell or New York City 
It would be about the same to me</blockquote>
Leftist sociology professors would have a field day psychoanalyzing and deconstructing the song from a Marxist perspective. The fact that Hank would compare heaven to the South, I’m sure, would be a major trigger. Of course, this is a playful and un-serious song, but the left does not bode well with criticizing their strongholds like New York city. 
“Young Country” (1987)
Oh boy. The patriotism in “Young Country” would be mind-boggling to modern day leftists. Should the first verse of this song be performed on a college campus, Hank would be booed off stage. The first verse says:
<blockquote>We are young country, we are the pride 
The sons and the daughters of American life 
Our hair is not orange we don&#8217;t wear chains and spikes 
But we know how to have fun come Saturday night</blockquote>
The left would characterize this song as stigmatizing, racist, and trying to claim the hegemony is only ‘young country.’ Of course, the allusion to people as wearing ‘chains and spikes’ would probably inflict a lot of speech violence — and be discriminating against gangsters, goths, and many others. 
“A Country Boy Can Survive” (1982)
The 80s in general were prime time Hank. There are few more patriotic songs than “A Country Boy Can Survive.” Hank swiftly rejects uniform mandates on how Americans should live their lives — and describes his proudness of being a man of faith. He also tells a story of a friend who was murdered in New York City, and details how he would have used his own gun to defend him if he were there. 
<blockquote>He used to send me pictures of the Broadway nights 
And I&#8217;d send him some homemade wineBut he was killed by a man with a switchblade knifeFor 43 dollars my friend lost his lifeI’d love to spit some beech-Nut up in that dude’s eyesAnd shoot him with my old .45‘Cause a country boy can survive</blockquote>
The chorus famously declares:
<blockquote>Because you can&#8217;t starve us out and you can&#8217;t make us run 
&#8216;Cause we&#8217;re them old boys raised on shotguns 
And we say grace and we say Ma&#8217;am 
If you ain&#8217;t into that we don&#8217;t give a damn</blockquote>
This song was released at a time when people from the south, just as today, were caricatured and laughed at for loving God and guns. Both, being pillars of freedom, offend the left to no end. Hank is passionate about saying grace and being polite to others — and does not care if people (from secular America) have an issue.  
Gabe Kaminsky is a writer and student. His work has appeared in The American Conservative, The Washington Times, Washington Examiner, RealClearPolitics, HollywoodinToto, CBN, and elsewhere.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Hank Williams Jr. Plays For Record Folks At Stouffer’s Hotel

5 Hank Williams Jr. Classics That Would Be Canceled Today

Hank Williams Jr

Music

Hank Williams, Jr. rocked the country world when he released his 1979 album Family Tradition. Whereas prior artists clung neatly to a cool and collected

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Last week the Daily Wire premiered its first feature film, Kyle Rankin’s Run Hide Fight. The results were: impressive viewership numbers, glowing audience reviews, and a predictable outpouring of dyspeptic condemnation from critics who found fault with the movie once they realized it had been picked up for distribution by a conservative outlet.
All of this, it’s fair to say, represents a resounding success for the Wire’s new incursion into the fictional creative world. If the gatekeepers of that world took the time to savage the movie in print, they must be getting antsy about the potential for cultural success it represents. To paraphrase my colleague <a href="https://americanmind.org/author/poulos/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://americanmind.org/author/poulos/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611258056196000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF3k-mtVr6lLt11sWcPoIhcaRP9Ig">James Poulos</a>, when the eye of Sauron turns upon you, you know you’re getting close to infiltrating and destroying Mordor.
There were also, from some of the Daily Wire’s most devoted fans, concerns about Run Hide Fight’s nudity and strong language. Those concerns are representative of more widespread conservative misgivings about narrative art—and art more generally—which showcases the grittier, more violent aspects of life. So much of the explicit content featured in legacy and prestige venues—Netflix, Hollywood, the top 40 music charts—is either debauched (like Cardi B’s infamous “WAP”) or outright evil (like Netflix’s misbegotten child-exploitation flick, Cuties).
Whatever the artistic “merits” of such doggerel (on which, more below), anyone with a shred of moral dignity could be forgiven for wanting it nowhere near his children or indeed himself. We have a deeply felt intuition that art which shoves our faces in immorality doesn’t just disgust us but degrade us, in some way over which we don’t have total control. The chattering classes are intent on pouring filth into our eyes and ears, and despite our dedicated resistance, we worry that we can’t shield ourselves entirely from corruption.
I don’t want to dismiss or belittle those worries in any way—to the contrary, I share them all and want to take them very seriously. But I do want to suggest that in the case of Run Hide Fight, they’re misplaced. In the process I hope I’ll help us as conservatives to think about this question—the question of art’s morality—in a way that goes deeper than the churn of the daily news cycle. Because as it happens this is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, issues in Western artistic criticism: how do we affirm all the richness of art and its potential to edify, without leaving ourselves at the mercy of its dangerous power to seduce?
The Danger of Art
In the first-ever complete work of literary criticism, the Poetics, Aristotle made an observation that strikes at the heart of the problem. He was arguing that imitation (in Greek, mimēsis) is a fundamental human act and comes from deep in our souls: “imitation is engrained in man’s nature from childhood—in this, he is different from all the other animals. He is the most imitative of them all.”
Aristotle was developing an observation his teacher Plato had made in a number of places—particularly his last great unfinished work, the Laws. Both philosophers noticed that babies and young children learn all sorts of things long before they are able to understand rational arguments or even language. And the way they learn is through imitation, in the form of nursery rhymes, songs, and lessons that they can hear from their parents and parrot back. Preschool teachers still work this way: they teach with games, dances, and songs that can be seen and mimicked.
Art is a highly refined and sophisticated form of this basic human impulse to imitate. That’s where we get our idea that great art is supposed to represent reality—not the facts of something that actually happened, but the truth of inner experiences which can’t be conveyed except in narrative form. When we make movies or sing songs, we use sounds and images to recreate and imitate what a certain experience is like for the people having it. And because humans have a natural impulse to imitate, the audience who sees a good representation spontaneously feels some of the feelings represented.
There’s an inherent pleasure and delight that comes with doing something natural to us. That’s why Aristotle noted that imitation itself is pleasurable, even if what’s being imitated is something awful. “There is proof of this in real-life experience, for we enjoy looking at accurate images of things which are painful to see in themselves: monstrous beasts, for example, and corpses.” And here’s our whole problem. No matter what is shown in art, if it’s depicted skillfully and well, we can often enjoy seeing the depiction. That enjoyment is primal, deep, and pre-rational. It’s been with us since infancy, and that makes it powerful—more powerful, even, than reasoned arguments.
This is one of the reasons why Plato famously exiled poets from his perfect city in the Republic: it’s not that he didn’t like them, it’s just that they had too much power. Grab hold of people’s imaginations through skillful depictions and stories, and you can work your way into their hearts in a way that’s very hard to talk them out of—even if what you’re showing them is immoral and debased.
The Artist’s Responsibility
Hence the power of the modern American Left: they own the culture, so they can manipulate huge crowds despite the total failure of their ideas. But in reality you can’t, and shouldn’t, banish artists from a society the way Plato fantasized about doing. Art is too basic a human instinct for that, and it’s the only way to convey certain spiritual and emotional realities which go beyond mere material facts. So instead of giving up on art altogether, conservatives like the Daily Wire guys have started to respond to the Left in kind: you don’t fight false stories with factual arguments. You fight false stories with true stories.
This is the crucial thing that has to make us different: the fact that art represents something means it has to represent it truly. Otherwise it’s a lie—and a bitterly corrosive lie at that. The rhetoricians Cicero and Quintilian taught that good compositions need to “move, delight, and instruct.” Those are the three essential things that art can do in ways nothing else does: it stirs our emotions, it gives us rapturous pleasure, and it shows us the world.
But because that world is so broken, skillful artists can divorce the truth-telling function of art from its emotional properties—they can move us powerfully while instructing us falsely. This is the real reason why “WAP” is a vile song. It’s not because it’s sexually explicit: sex acts are a part of life. Much of Western visual art involves nudity and sexuality—look up Tintoretto’s “Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan” for one among innumerable examples.
Even things like the promiscuity and self-abasement Cardi B displays in “WAP,” though they’re grievously wrong to indulge in, are real things: they exist in this fallen world of ours, and art should have some mature way of acknowledging that. The fact that Cardi B does so isn’t her problem.
No, her real failure as an artist is that she doesn’t just depict promiscuity: she tells a lie about it. The song and the video make what she’s doing look easy, fun, empowering, and consequence-free. In real life—and especially for people who, unlike Cardi B, don’t have millions of dollars on hand to sweep up the mess—prostrating yourself for easy sex is a miserable, painful, damaging thing. Countless women, even as they nod their heads along to “WAP,” are finding themselves abandoned, lonely, depressed, and spiritually bereft because they’ve been sold a bill of goods about sex that just isn’t true. That’s the terrible power of art that lies.
But art that tells the truth doesn’t have to censor itself from showing ugly realities: it just has to be honest about them. This was a philosophy that was popular when Shakespeare—whose plays are saturated with gore and sex—displayed the full array of human life on stage. “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action,” says Shakespeare’s Hamlet: the purpose of art is not to sanitize the world but “to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.”
This means that when Shakespeare wrote about Macbeth’s regicide and murderous ascent to power, he also showed his and his wife’s descent into fatal nihilism and madness. He didn’t shy away from showing bloodshed, but he showed it taking place in a moral universe, where bloodshed has consequences and guilt brings misery upon the heads of the guilty. That’s the real world we live in, too.
As much as we might like to get away from this, we can’t. Shakespeare’s rough contemporary, Philip Sidney, pointed out in his Defense of Poesy that even Jesus Christ used stories to convey the profundity of what he had to say, rather than cut-and-dry moral lessons. The Lord knew that narrative and allegory “would more constantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment.” There is something foundational about stories at the core of who we are and what we’re meant to do. That’s what makes it so urgent that we not tell stories which distort the truth and pervert reality. But at the same time, it means we can’t escape showing the whole world as it is, evil and all.
What it Means for Us
So take, for example, a series like HBO’s Game of Thrones—another one about which Christians and conservatives often worry. There’s a reason why the sex is more corrupting in that show than the violence: it’s often completely disconnected from what the story is portraying. That’s what makes it feel unnecessary: it’s not that beautiful women don’t sometimes have sex in reality. It’s that to make art about that fact, you have to take it seriously and show the essence of what that particular sex is like. So when women are undulating in the background of an exposition scene that has nothing to do with them, it’s not art, it’s titillation: pleasure without instruction.
On the other hand, the violence in Game of Thrones is very often tightly bound to the characters and their relationships. Without spoiling anything, consider the character arc of Tyrion Lannister: almost everything he does, violent or not, is expressive of his inner self. That’s truth. That’s art.
Here’s the thing, then: school shootings happen. In them, violence occurs. People who are feeling panicked and vulnerable, as well as bad guys who are victimizing the innocent, say bad words. They also say them differently, for different reasons, and with different consequences, depending on their characters and circumstances. Nudity and sex are also real parts of life. All of these things are true, and all of them—in my estimation—are depicted with honesty in Run Hide Fight.
It’s a good reason not to show the movie to kids—children are a different ball game entirely, and everyone knows we want adults to be able to think about and do some things that aren’t suitable for impressionable young minds. But it’s not a good reason to condemn the movie. One reason why it’s broken out of the typical “conservative film” mold is because it’s not squeamish about acknowledging and portraying the full array of human affairs. That’s a good thing. It’s an essential thing. If we want to get serious about making our mark on the culture—and we have to—then one indispensable part of that will be giving artists latitude to be frank about what goes on in this world of sin.
You can, in other words, condemn “WAP” and Cuties without trying to scrub all the sex and violence out of the world. We can hold both lines in this fight at once: we can oppose the banality and decadence of modern pop culture, while striking out to make good, robust art of our own. In order to win both fights, we only have to do one thing: we have to tell the truth.
Spencer Klavan is host of the <a href="http://youngheretics.com/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://youngheretics.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1608237713152000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFegURPjAdNFJd0-_mKudXAgmAp5g">Young Heretics</a> podcast and associate editor of the <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1608237713152000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEwm82CEKe6gHOjTWwdZQOTR6iQow">Claremont Review of</a> Booksand <a href="https://americanmind.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://americanmind.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1608237713152000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHQm8tQMK1XoUSXLWkCl3KkGZJgrQ">The American Mind</a>. He can be reached on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/spencerklavan" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://twitter.com/spencerklavan&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1608237713152000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHzq-src8474zs7-nMknyLYtgJwCA">@SpencerKlavan</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Run Hide Fight

Should Conservatives Watch Violent Movies?

Film

Film Reviews

Last week the Daily Wire premiered its first feature film, Kyle Rankin’s Run Hide Fight. The results were: impressive viewership numbers, glowing audience

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/should-conservatives-watch-violent-movies/

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Tomorrow morning, conservatives will be waking up to the first full day of Joe Biden’s presidency. After four long years of turbulent and partisan ideological warfare, we find ourselves on the losing side.
It doesn’t feel good. After all, nobody enjoys losing, and certainly not when the stakes are so immeasurably high. Not only did we lose, we lost to Joe Biden — a geriatric career politician whose one defining success is a crime bill he abandoned in order to pander to the radical left — and Kamala Harris — a disingenuous power-hungry liar who is demonstrative of everything wrong with our identity politics obsessed culture.
In addition to the sour taste of defeat left in our mouths, we must also grapple with the fact that many of President Trump&#8217;s accomplishments will soon be eradicated by the incoming wave of Democrats. Under Trump’s foreign policy, for example, we came agonizingly close to peace in the Middle East. Prior to COVID-19, the American economy was a barnstorming powerhouse. With Trump at the helm, the veil of objectivity has been irreversibly ripped from the grinning faces of the legacy media. With Biden ushering in hoards of Obama officials, each scrambling for roles in his administration, how long will such unprecedented changes last?
It is natural that — out of understandable frustration — conservatives will be looking for an explanation as to why Trump is not beginning his second term. Some will blame the legacy media. Some will blame election fraud. Some will blame the Democrats. Some will blame the American electorate. To some degree, each of these are valid. Some, of course, will blame Trump. Again, to some degree, such criticism is valid.
Regardless of why Trump lost, rather than spending four years complaining, conservatives must focus on the bigger picture. 
To quote Hank Williams Jr., “America can survive, America is going to survive.” In this case, these are wise words. After all, America has faced far greater challenges before.
With that in mind, despite the worries of what may come, I remain hopeful, determined, and grounded in our mission.
I remain hopeful because I know that the fundamental foundation of the United States of America cannot be broken or erased. The incomparable words of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are a recognition of a reality which cannot be changed by a gaggle of whining progressives: a reality given to us by God, not government,
I remain determined because I know that these fundamental principles are objectively superior ideals, promoting a form of freedom unimaginable across all of human history and — in its purest and true form — blind to irrelevant and shallow characteristics like race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Finally, I remain grounded because I know that such principles — while given to us by God — are far from guaranteed in our flawed human environment. They are principles which must be protected, vocally defended on a daily basis in the arena of ideas. There are those who seek to replace the ideology which provided the foundation for the greatest civilization in the history of humanity in favor of an implausible utopia which will result in nothing other than misery. For that reason alone, it is imperative that we use our voices to speak the truth in defense of American principles, which are now entirely conservative principles.
America will survive, but only if we work to protect it. Today, we can mourn our loss. Tomorrow, the work begins.
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Trump flag

America Will Survive

Bill of Rights

Conservatism

Declaration of Independence

Tomorrow morning, conservatives will be waking up to the first full day of Joe Biden’s presidency. After four long years of turbulent and partisan

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/america-will-survive/

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twitter:creator

Pat Brown and Dave Brown are authors of Black and White: How the Left is Destroying the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Founding Fathers.
Pat: This morning, I woke up to no headlines about MLK, Jr. Day in the Google feed! Not one! If I search under Google News, I do come up with a few stories about MLK in the conservative media. How fascinating is that? Has the Left abandoned MLK’s dream for a new, more progressive version of race in America? It seems that the dream of Martin Luther King — that we all get judged by our characters and not our colors, that our children, black and white, would hold hands and be friends in the years ahead of his great speech in Washington D.C. — has turned into a nightmare. When I married a black man in 1979 and raised three non-white children, I depended on MLK’s vision to come true, and I thought it would. In fact, it seems to me, we were doing well on that journey until the arrival of Barack Obama, and the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Dave: When does Martin Luther King get canceled? By today’s standards, his message of a colorblind society and racial unity seems dated. His message was blunt; equality, that’s it. He had a dream that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” But is that “woke” enough by today’s standards?  From everything we’ve seen over the last four years, that answer is no. We now have “micro-aggressions” and “white fragility” among dozens of other “racial equity tools.”
Pat: I cannot believe today that my grandchildren will suffer more from racism than the kids I raised in the 1980s and 1990s! Why, back then, I just worried about my non-white children not having as good opportunities as if they were white. I never worried about them having bad encounters with the police or being attacked by the Klan or White Supremacists. And they grew up pretty much without those worries. But, now, my two white grandchildren will either be labeled Nazis if they don’t become “allies” with black power groups and practice “anti-racism” or, if they are too black, they will be required to hate white people and join Black Lives Matter or else.
Dave: We’ve learned recently per a Washington Post article that Proud Boy’s member Enrique Tarrio, who identifies as Afro-Cuban, was part of a phenomenon called “multiracial whiteness,” where persons of color can now engage in the politics of “aggression, exclusion, and domination.” In my childhood, simpler phrases were used; they just called you a “Milkdud” or an “Oreo.” Or if they really wanted to impress upon you that your lack of adherence to leftist dogma was reviled, they would go with the “Uncle Tom” or “bootlicker.” Isn’t that amazing? The people who claim to be the biggest champions of racial equality have invented new ways to well…be racist. We’ve jumped the shark, circled back around, and jumped the shark again. Each new day brings a new twist and turn in the “fight for equality.” 
Pat: And what should white conservatives, black conservatives, biracial conservatives, Hispanic and Asian conservatives do as we enter 2021 and the race war has revved up with the new incoming administration? How do we speak up without losing our livelihoods, our “free speech” on social media, our friends, and, possibly, our lives? How to band together to inspire conservatives of all races and mixed races to fight apartheid in this country. Where do we go from here to keep MLK’s dream alive?
Dave: How did we ruin such a straightforward message? Well, we didn’t. The Left did, and they show no sign of letting up. So today, on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, I’m nostalgic for yesteryear, where there are no “safe spaces” or “trigger” words. No kneeling for the National Anthem or fists raised in the air. Bring back the time when we as Americans recognized our imperfections, knew we could do better, and strove each day to make this country a little brighter, a little kinder, and a little closer to Martin Luther King’s dream. 
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Is The Left Throwing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Legacy Under The Bus?

Black Lives Matter

Racism

White Fragility

Pat Brown and Dave Brown are authors of Black and White: How the Left is Destroying the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Founding Fathers. Pat:

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/is-the-left-throwing-martin-luther-king-jr-s-legacy-under-the-bus/

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The role of Vice President is an often vague and sometimes unimportant position. However, in the increasingly eventful and turbulent Trump administration, Vice President Mike Pence has faced an array of unprecedented challenges — including grappling with the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout Trump’s presidency — and particularly in its final days — we witnessed a demonstration of Pence’s true character. He is a good man, an honorable man, and a determined man, all characteristics which are scarce among modern politicians. In the last four years, he has been prodded, chastised, and condemned by every side, but has emerged unscathed and — more importantly — as an example of what American leadership could be. 
Pence the “religious zealot”
Since Trump’s unexpected electoral victory in 2016, Pence has been presented by the Left as the “religious zealot” required to mischaracterize American Christians. While Trump’s administration was riddled with public squabbles — often broadcast in real-time on Twitter — Pence often stood as a lone source of decency and dignity. When Pete Buttigieg pivoted to present himself as a pseudo-religious alternative for moderate conservatives, he openly attacked Pence as homophobe, hoping to capitalize on his own sexuality while playing up Pence&#8217;s supposed religious bigotry.
“If you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,” Buttigieg <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/08/politics/pete-buttigieg-mike-pence/index.html">said</a> in his rehearsed Obama-like oratory style. While others in the Trump administration — and certainly the president himself — would have responded defensively, or even aggressively, Pence’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/10/politics/mike-pence-pete-buttigieg-know-better/index.html">response</a> was an exhibition of discipline and control much lacking in the executive branch. “He knows better. He knows me.”
Pence the “sexist”
After the chaos of the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, all eyes were on October’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.
Instead of the geriatric fever dream that was the first Trump-Biden debate, Pence delivered what conservatives should have demanded of the president. He was considered, calm, but uncompromising. He refused to let Harris avoid key issues, he punished her for her lies, and all while maintaining a polite and considered manner.
The Left’s response to Pence’s obvious victory was to ignore the substance of the debate entirely, and focus on “sexism.” Harris, a former District Attorney, Attorney General, and US Senator, suddenly became a maiden in need of defending as Dan Rather and George Stephanopolous arrived as her knights in shining armor to disqualify Pence for “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schow-the-sexism-of-the-media-and-faux-feminists-was-on-full-display-during-the-vp-debate">mansplaining</a>.”
Pence the “traitor”
The weeks following the election on November 3rd will be remembered as some of the darkest in modern American history, culminating in the despicable riots in Washington, D.C. on January 6th. While the chaos which caused this vacuum of reason was driven by multiple factors, it’s undeniable that one was Trump’s insistence on refusing to accept electoral defeat, pushing increasingly unsubstantiated claims of fraud. Not only was this narrative ultimately fruitless, it almost certainly drove down voter turnout in Georgia, thereby handing the US Senate over to the Democrats.
As we approached the confirmation of the electoral college, which would cement Joe Biden as President-elect, Trump reportedly turned on — arguably — his most reliable teammate. According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/us/politics/mike-pence-trump.html">New York Times</a>, Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election, telling his Vice President that “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.” At a rally on January 4th, Trump presented Pence as the last hope for victory, saying “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us.”
When Pence followed the law and did his duty as Vice President of the United States, he was viewed as an enemy by those who had believed the claims of Trump and the voices he had elevated around him, with chants of “Hang Mike Pence” ringing out as rioters stormed the US Capitol building.
***
There is a famous quote from Roy Bennett, “Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”
Throughout his time as Vice President, whether being accused of homophobia, sexism, or treason, Mike Pence did what was right.
The Left will attempt to erase Pence’s legacy as one that is tarnished, and some on the Right will see him as the man who failed when they needed him most.
Instead, Mike Pence should be commended for doing what was right, despite it being far from easy and far from popular.
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Mike Pence

Vice President Mike Pence: A Man Who Did What Was Right, Not What Was Easy

2020 Election

Kamala Harris

The role of Vice President is an often vague and sometimes unimportant position. However, in the increasingly eventful and turbulent Trump administration,

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/vice-president-mike-pence-a-man-who-did-what-was-right-not-what-was-easy/

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In 2017, Google was sued by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 26-year-old American student studying abroad, who was tragically murdered in the 2015 ISIS Paris attacks that killed 130 innocent people. The terrorists used Google’s YouTube service to actively recruit, plan, incite, and even give instructions for the terror attacks. Incredibly, Google conceded all of these facts but argued — successfully — that it should not be held liable because of protections provided to social media companies under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF78QiD7ozeqHgs-0I9uzr8ntTe7g">The Communications Decency Act</a> (47 USC 230 or “Section 230”).
The court agreed with Google, finding that it was protected under Section 230, as it was not the “publisher” and didn’t create or contribute to the harmful material disseminated. While controversial, Section 230 is clear: an “internet service provider” such as a social media company, is not required to moderate content and cannot be held liable for 3rd parties who post legally problematic or even dangerous material. In other words, social media companies are permitted to simply be loudspeakers, telephones, headphones, and public squares.  They may exist solely to deliver other people’s content without interference and without fear of legal action.
Section 230 has not changed since 2017, but Google’s mercurial positions certainly have. Most recently, President Trump <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/01/twitter-ban-donald-trump-byeeeee.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://slate.com/technology/2021/01/twitter-ban-donald-trump-byeeeee.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGPmKnq4rf7pEr5VLn6qf9X-Tz2lQ">was banned</a> from Twitter for “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/trump-ballistic-twitter-ban-creating-own-platform.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/trump-ballistic-twitter-ban-creating-own-platform.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGdZ2jnVZxPDvxP4MuOUuTHSKQ0BQ">incitement of violence</a>” related to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-capitol-siege/2021/01/09/e3ad3274-5283-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-capitol-siege/2021/01/09/e3ad3274-5283-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNECfARV5x2JIeJJEv8PbUfSffodFw">riots and siege</a> of the US Capitol building. Shortly thereafter, Google removed social media app Parler from its application server. In a stunning and irreconcilable shift from its court position of 2017, Google <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/google-removes-parler-app-store-apple.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/google-removes-parler-app-store-apple.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH_aqjFfa1p7F6YEpkV0TxmnR4v0g">explained</a> that the company “require[s] that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content.” Indeed, it is clear that Google has modified its content policies and has banned many terror-affiliated accounts since the 2017 lawsuit, but it nevertheless maintains its legal position that it committed no wrongdoing in simply allowing third parties to post incitement of violence on its platform. Google has not paid a dime nor admitted any liability to the Gonzalez family for Nohemi’s death.
Now, after effectively using Section 230 as a shield against liability, Google wields it as a sword against Parler, arguing that Parler somehow does not enjoy the same statutory protections of Section 230 that Google relied and still relies upon. In other words, Google appears to now be taking the position that its internal policies related to community standards and/or content moderation somehow supersede the statute that permits Parler to allow 3rd party posts without modification or censorship and without fear of legal action. Google now says that Section 230’s protections, allowing internet services like Parler simply to act as a public square, can be retroactively “repealed” by that all-powerful private company’s policies.  Congressional legislation-be-damned.
Google cannot have it both ways. Either Google is not liable for ISIS’ incitement on YouTube, and neither is Parler liable for incitement by 3rd parties on its site, or both are liable.
But if something does not feel right about Google now saying that it can require Parler to take editorial positions and act as a newspaper, you are not alone. First amendment principles protect the right to speak, protect the right not to speak, and protect your right not to be forced to speak. All of these rights necessarily work together, all are necessarily equally important. If Parler does not wish to take positions, how can Google force it to do so?
Federal courts have <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1158381.html" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1158381.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEcQnr0734Fkw3p-ApbTbR41vPeXw">explained</a> that Congress’ enactment of Section 230 in 1996 was an effort “to encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet, and to promote the development of e-commerce.” Section 230, therefore, was meant to promote, widen and expand the promulgation of speech on the internet, not to restrict, curtail and suppress it. In fact, Section 230 specifically identifies diversity of political discourse as desirable, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF78QiD7ozeqHgs-0I9uzr8ntTe7g">expressly advocating</a> for “interactive computer services [to] offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” 
But restriction and suppression of speech is Google’s very goal here, an accusation they do not even deny.
In taking actions against Parler, and others, so directly antithetical to the express language of Section 230, it seems clear that Google, and possibly other social media companies, are themselves in direct violation of Section 230.
Google is far from alone in its exploitation and abusive use of Section 230.  In 2019, Facebook argued before the second circuit that it was <a href="https://casetext.com/case/force-v-facebook-inc" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://casetext.com/case/force-v-facebook-inc&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1611170628796000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE76MDSt6qQZXOHRPvN9XrhKo_o2A">immune to suit</a> under Section 230, after Hamas, a U.S.-recognized terrorist group, incited and created a plan on Facebook that resulted in the murder of five Americans. Hamas were then able to celebrate these murders on the site. As with Nohemi Gonzalez and Google, the court found that even if promotion of the murders occurred on Facebook’s site, Facebook was immune from liability, since it did not create or develop the content of the messages.
The shocking (and arguably illegal) 180-degree reversal by Google and the other social media giants related to content moderation raises serious questions as to the motivations of these companies. Do their positions truly keep reversing, or is there something else here at play?
Given the dubious timing, stunning across-the-board social media coordination, and the seeming obsession with weakening and even blocking right-leaning services and platforms completely, it is worth considering whether anti-competitive collusion between the social media giants exists. If the exclusive syndicate of social media giants that control access to nearly all of the ideas and content exchanges on the internet are conspiring to limit which other companies may, too, enjoy that unique privilege, then the free exchange of ideas on the internet is already dead.
There is hope. The full free and fair exchange of ideas, even if damaged and tampered with, can always be returned to our society. But that process is an arduous and noble one. It begins with an unbiased and truly independent investigation into the behavior of these tight-knit social media companies. The Justice Department is already suing Google for monopolistic practices and its recent behavior surely will not help its cause. But at this point, it seems necessary for the DOJ to broaden the investigation into all of the social media giants and to ascertain whether, indeed, there has been an anti-competitive conspiracy at play. The first amendment and survival of free speech itself depends on it.
Jeffrey Lax is an attorney, professor and department chair at the City University of New York. He has hosted talk radio programs on 770 WABC and 970 WNYM in New York and appears on Newsmax TV as a legal analyst.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Parler

How Big Tech’s Bullying of Parler and Non-Compliance with Section 230 Could Lead to its Demise

Big Tech

First Amendment

Google

Social Media Censorship

In 2017, Google was sued by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 26-year-old American student studying abroad, who was tragically murdered in the 2015 ISIS

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/how-big-techs-bullying-of-parler-and-non-compliance-with-section-230-could-lead-to-its-demise/

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Last month, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval to Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine-for-emergency-use">vaccines</a> and according to the CDC, 39% of the roughly 31 million doses distributed so far have made their way to residents.
As the rollout enters its second month, the contrast in efficiency between states has garnered growing attention. Some — like North Dakota and West Virginia — have managed to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/">administer</a> over 70% of their vaccine stockpiles, with Texas and Florida leading the way among larger states, delivering 60.6% and 54.4% of their doses respectively.
Others, meanwhile, have fared far worse — and often for no good reason.
California
Though California received more vaccine doses than any other state, it is performing among the worst at administering them to the public, only managing to distribute 36.7% of its 3.5 million doses.
Part of the problem is attributable to software glitches within the state’s rollout program. The Los Angeles Times <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-08/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-hit-with-software-system-snag">reported</a> that the program’s waitlist feature was rife with problems, with one nursing home director confirming, “there are a multitude of issues with this system.”
Other reports <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/while-deaths-from-virus-spiral-to-record-highs-ca-has-nearly-2-million-vaccines-lying-unused-report-says">suggest</a> the state government has not been transparent about the number of doses given to each provider, further hindering the process of finding and administering unused doses.
As a result, Gov. Gavin Newsom <a href="https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1349458707336163328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1349458707336163328%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2021%2Fjan%2F13%2Fcalifornia-covid-vaccine-rollout-coronavirus">scrambled</a> to expand the number of groups eligible to receive the vaccine in the hopes of achieving a faster rollout.
New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo kicked off his state’s vaccine rollout by <a href="https://reason.com/2021/01/04/andrew-cuomo-vaccine-distribution-rules-100000-fine-threat-to-public-health/">enacting</a> massive fines for healthcare providers who administered doses improperly. 
He threatened $100,000 penalties for hospitals failing to use all of their allotted doses within seven days, as well as $1 million fines for vaccinating individuals out of New York’s specific order of eligibility, which largely included frontline workers.
“It’s stressful and frustrating to have the vaccine and to be unable to start giving it to our patients as quickly as we would like,” one doctor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-vaccine-delays.html">told</a> The New York Times.
In light of their failure to distribute vaccines promptly, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/health/states-expand-covid-19-vaccinations-broader-groups-use-supply-azar-says">told</a> states on January 6 that “there is no reason that states need to complete, say, vaccinating all health care providers before opening up vaccinations to older Americans or other especially vulnerable populations.”
Two days after Sec. Azar’s announcement, Gov. Cuomo broadened his list of eligible New Yorkers to include additional frontline workers, as well as individuals aged 75 or older. By that time, however, healthcare providers had already started throwing unused doses in the trash rather than risk crippling fines.
As of today, New York has disbursed 53% of its supply.
Maryland
The state of Maryland has only administered 45.1% of doses to residents.
Instead of listening to Sec. Azar’s recommendations, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/maryland%E2%80%99s-slow-vaccine-rollout-explained-176375">stuck</a> to his previous plans for distribution, which were based upon CDC guidelines.
In addition, Hogan opted to reserve some vaccines for second doses rather than making all doses available as soon as possible, even though the latter is favored by both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Washington
Faring worse than California is Washington state, which has only distributed 34.8% of its doses.
Walgreens and CVS did not begin inoculating until two weeks after the vaccine arrived, as the state&#8217;s Department of Health <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/inside-the-slow-rollout-of-covid-19-vaccines-in-washington-state/">waited</a> weeks before granting the pharmacy chains approval to start vaccinating in long-term care facilities.
To accelerate the vaccination process, Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) more recently <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/washington-state-taps-starbucks-help-covid-vaccine-rollout-n1254607">turned</a> to Starbucks and Microsoft for help with the rollout. The Seattle-based corporations will provide 45,000 and 5,000 shots per day, respectively.
Georgia
The state of Georgia has <a href="https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/why-is-georgia-slower-than-other-states-vaccines/85-423d594d-c317-4e0e-ac17-4902930723cc">managed</a> to distribute just 39.8% of its more than 1 million vaccines.
Instead of coordinating on a statewide level to expedite appointment signups, Georgians have been forced to call individual pharmacies to try and schedule appointments. In contrast, West Virginians can contact the state government and receive instructions for vaccination based upon which pharmacies presently have doses.
&#8220;It&#8217;s going to be very hit or miss with respect to each pharmacy and their availability,” one medical professor <a href="https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/why-is-georgia-slower-than-other-states-vaccines/85-423d594d-c317-4e0e-ac17-4902930723cc">told</a> a local news station. “You&#8217;re going to have to make multiple calls if you want to get your vaccine in earlier.&#8221;
Benjamin Zeisloft is Editor-in-Chief of the UPenn Statesmen and a Senior Correspondent for Campus Reform.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-VACCINE

The 5 States with the Worst Vaccine Rollouts

Andrew Cuomo

COVID

COVID-19 vaccine

Gavin Newsom

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval to Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines and according to the CDC, 39% of the

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In a new documentary to be broadcast on Tuesday, Chinese medics claim that Chinese hospitals were told by the communist government to cover up their knowledge of people dying from the coronavirus and the fact that there was human-to-human transmission at least one month before China informed the World Health Organization of those facts.
The ITV documentary “Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World,” which airs on <a href="https://www.sky.com/watch/title/programme/09ea2e7a-4ec8-4423-aaa1-0b3852a50812">Sky TV</a> Tuesday, tells &#8220;the dramatic global story of the first year of Covid-19, tracing the devastation caused by the spread of the virus across four continents.&#8221;
The documentary features medical professionals in Wuhan stating that in early December 2019, they discovered that people had died from the virus, but Chinese authorities told hospitals “not to tell the truth.” The medics also claim that some local people wanted to cancel Lunar New Year festivities (which could have spread the virus), but the events were held in order to “present a harmonious and prosperous society.”
“We all felt there shouldn&#8217;t be any doubt about human-to-human transmission,” one medic stated. Another medic said, “We knew this virus transmitted from human-to-human. But when we attended a hospital meeting, we were told not to speak out. The provincial leaders told the hospitals not to tell the truth.”
“As late as January 12, the WHO was saying there was &#8216;no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission&#8217; and said it was &#8216;reassured of the quality&#8217; of China&#8217;s response,” <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9162635/Wuhan-medics-knew-virus-deadly-spreading-humans.html">the Daily Mail</a> noted, adding, “By January 21, when the WHO issued its first situation report on the virus, the disease had infected at least 278 people in China and spread to three other countries.”
On Monday, a panel commissioned by the World Health Organization <a href="https://apnews.com/article/international-news-pandemics-public-health-coronavirus-pandemic-helen-clark-c9204041b189cebbeec84559c03529f4">admitted</a>, “What is clear to the panel is that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January.
As The Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/3c061794970661042b18d5aeaaed9fae">reported</a> last June, WHO initially lauded China: “Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus ‘immediately,’ and said its work and commitment to transparency were ‘very impressive, and beyond words.’”
Dr. Yi-Chun Lo, the deputy director-general of the Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan, stated, “The very early outbreak management was just a mess, a failure. I think the pandemic could have been avoided at the beginning if China was transparent about the outbreak and was quick to provide necessary information to the world.”
Dr. Yin-Ching Chuang, from the Infectious Diseases Prevention and Treatment Network in Taiwan, asserted that he and his team persisted in trying to visit China to ascertain whether there were human-to-human transmission and finally were given a sliver of truth.
“We asked a lot of questions, very unwillingly they finally came out and said limited human-to-human transmission can&#8217;t be ruled out,” he said. “What was the scale of infection? How big was this epidemic? How many patients were affected? We didn&#8217;t know. Only they knew this. Why didn&#8217;t China inform other countries of this human-to-human matter earlier?”
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TOPSHOT-US-CHINA-HEALTH-VIRUS

Wuhan Medics: We Were Told To Cover Up Human Transmission And Death From COVID

China

World Health Organization

In a new documentary to be broadcast on Tuesday, Chinese medics claim that Chinese hospitals were told by the communist government to cover up their knowledge of people dying from the coronavirus and the fact that there was human-to-human transmission at least one month before China informed the World Health Organization of those facts.

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/wuhan-medics-we-were-told-to-cover-up-human-transmission-and-death-covid/

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Father Mike Schmitz might be the most unlikely podcast star … ever.
“The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz featuring Jeff Cavins,” rocketed to the top of the Apple Podcast charts within its first 48 hours of release. The podcast, which began on New Year’s Day, shouldered past secular fare like “Pod Save America,” “Office Ladies” and “Morbid: A True Crime Podcast.”
More than two weeks later, it’s still hunkered down in the no. 1 slot on The Apple charts — typically home to politically-charged shows, celebrity banter and podcasts tied to mega brands, like NPR and NBC News.
“The Bible in a Year” lacks that corporate synergy, relying instead on a nation eager to hear their faith echoed back at them. Or simply souls seeking a spiritual balm.
The podcast itself couldn’t be simpler. Fr. Mike’s radio-friendly pipes read a portion of the Bible, roughly 20-odd minutes, every day.
That’s it, plus an amiable introduction and some Biblical context from its host. The bite-sized nature of the show allows people to savor it without consuming too much of their day.
“It eliminates that barrier of entry for people,” Fr. Mike says. “Just press ‘play’ for 20 minutes every day.”
Like the savviest entrepreneurs, Fr. Mike found fame by making the kind of show he wanted to hear. The self-described podcast fan found his steady show lineup left him feeling distracted.
“I was getting all wrapped up about current events. They can’t define my life,” he says. It’s why he often turned to The New Testament in audiobook form, which “challenged and pushed” him without being a source of distress.
He figured others had a similar craving. Boy, was he right.
“The Bible in a Day” didn’t need a blockbuster marketing campaign or celebrity endorsement to crush the podcast charts. In fact, as Fr. Mike casually describes, the outreach campaign consisted of a few emails and Facebook postings. 
The show’s sudden popularity caught its host by surprise.
“If someone were to ask me two months ago what kind of show could you create that would resonate so quickly and so across the board with so many people, I would not have chosen getting a microphone and read the Bible,” he says.
Fr. Mike isn’t a newcomer to the digital space, having uploaded a podcast version of his Sunday seminars and appeared on “Ascension Presents,” a popular YouTube channel. 
The “Bible in a Year” podcast, based on Cavins’ “Great Adventure Bible Timeline,” can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other audio platforms including Hallow, a Catholic prayer and meditation app.
For Father Mike, feedback from the podcast has been swift and satisfying. At times, the response can be personal.
“I’ve noticed that the encouragement I received from people I know and care about matters a lot,” he says, a group that includes both family and former students. Fr. Mike currently serves as director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and as chaplain for the Newman Catholic Campus Ministry at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
The podcaster says the show is helping him highlight the Bible in ways that otherwise might be challenging. “Bible” shares smaller stories in a way that illustrates how they’re part of “the” story, he explains.
“This is the story of how God has interacted with his people, their brokenness,” he says.
Fr. Mike understands the fickle nature of fame as well as what it means to be the so-called Flavor of the Month.
“I’m excited to see what happens as we move forward,” he says, adding the early success could dim over time, akin to New Year’s Resolutions being left behind with each passing month.
Hollywood finally acknowledged faith-based movies could turn a profit after Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” shocked the industry with a $370 million domestic haul. Smaller Christian films followed that up, routinely earning many times their small budgets (think “Fireproof” and “War Room”).
“The Bible in a Day” similarly shows the clout Christians can have in the podcasting space. The show’s speedy success, Fr. Mike says, also suggests a hunger that all the true crime roundups and partisan sniping can’t fix.
“We want the answers to the big questions … why am I here? Where am I going?”
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Photo courtesy of Ascension

Christian Podcast Tops the Charts — Shockingly Beating The New York Times, NPR and The Washington Post

Christianity

Podcast

Religion

Father Mike Schmitz might be the most unlikely podcast star … ever. “The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz featuring Jeff Cavins,” rocketed to the top

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On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm Ltd. — under the new leadership of Kathleen Kennedy and Disney — stunned the science fiction community by announcing that the Star Wars Expanded Universe (the books, games, comics, and other related content that continued the story outside the six Star Wars films) would be discontinued. To the Star Wars faithful, the Expanded Universe contained many of their most beloved stories, including the great Knights of the Old Republic video game series.
It was a sad day. Yet, it may have been for the best.
Since that time, social justice has rampaged through all of sci-fi and fantasy’s most popular series. Star Trek, Doctor Who, the Marvel comic universe. One by one, their continuities were destroyed in a bloodbath of left-wing identity politics. Disney’s cheap Star Wars imitation was hardest hit with the catastrophe known as The Last Jedi.
But the real Star Wars is being spared from destruction. Frozen in carbonite, it is — to quote Lando Calrissian — “alive&#8230;and in perfect hibernation.” It is protected from the vandalism that has befallen the other sci-fi universes. And when the dark times pass, it can be brought back to life.
The distinction between the opposing Star Wars continuities can be seen in Wookieepedia, the fan wiki dedicated to Star Wars.
Almost every Wookieepedia page has two tags, “Legends” (the pre-2014 Star Wars Expanded Universe) and “Canon” (Disney’s version of Star Wars). The Wookieepedia page dedicated to Luke Skywalker shows the divide most starkly. The “Canon” page has a biography of Luke where he becomes the loser, hermit, and <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Luke_Skywalker">quitter</a> from The Last Jedi, who Mark Hamill derisively <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_jyaFejhg">called</a> “Jake” Skywalker. But click on the “Legends” tag and the <a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Luke_Skywalker/Legends">heroic</a> Luke Skywalker of the expanded universe emerges. “Jake” Skywalker was a disgrace, an insult to the fans who preferred the old Star Wars to the new, woke stories and characters. Luke Skywalker of “Legends” inspired millions, and still exists in the hearts of the Star Wars faithful — as proven by the excitement generated by Luke’s brief appearance in The Mandalorian. The same cannot be said of other universes. The Star Trek continuity is a perfect example
It is true that Star Trek tended to lean toward a liberal point of view, but as with all great art, there were universal themes that appealed to everyone. Ronald Reagan’s eldest son, Michael, once <a href="http://www.startrekpropauthority.com/2012/04/president-reagan-and-star-trek.html">wrote</a> this about the former president:
<blockquote>“Even after he left office, Dad was fascinated by dreams of a bright future for humanity. In 1991, he stopped by Paramount Studios and watched the filming of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Between takes, Dad chatted with actor Patrick Stewart and producer Gene Roddenberry about the show and Roddenberry’s optimistic vision of the future — an optimism that was in many ways similar to his own.”</blockquote>
When Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) came face-to-face with the totalitarian Borg collective, he responded to their threats and demands in a style worthy of Reagan:
<blockquote>BORG: Captain Jean Luc Picard, you lead the strongest ship of the Federation fleet. You speak for your people.
PICARD: I have nothing to say to you, and I will resist you with my last ounce of strength.
BORG: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.
PICARD: Impossible. My culture is based on freedom and self determination.
BORG: Freedom is irrelevant. Self determination is irrelevant. You must comply.
PICARD: We would rather die.</blockquote>
Fast forward to today, to the Star Trek that show runner Alex Kurtzman <a href="https://www.comicsbeat.com/sdcc-20-star-trek-virtual-panel/">calls</a> a “platform” for social justice politics, and that actress Marina Sirtis has <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/culture/marina-sirtis-its-an-oxymoron-a-star-trek-fan-does-not-equal-a-republican/">said</a> is not for Republicans.
Kurtzman, Stewart and crew teamed up to create Star Trek: Picard. The strong, proud Jean Luc Picard had to have his privilege checked. (An essay published on StarTrek.com actually <a href="https://www.startrek.com/news/the-humbling-of-admiral-picard">says</a> “On Star Trek: Picard our beloved admiral is forced to reckon with his privilege as a Starfleet officer from a planetary superpower.”) The entire show is Picard going around the galaxy being dressed down over and over again, and groveling before his accusers — apologizing for the arrogance of the Federation (which represents the West, and the United States in particular). It’s hard to watch The Next Generation now, knowing what becomes of Picard.
There is no other Picard, only the sorry character we see before us — debased for political reasons. And he is not the only character this was done to. It is now part of Star Trek lore that Spock owes his greatness to his adopted human sister that nobody ever heard of before. All the plot holes this presents — apparent to anyone familiar with Vulcan culture and Spock’s history — are ignored.
Point being: Political agenda is now a stand in for good storytelling. And no franchise is safe. None except Star Wars “Legends.” Thanks to the 2014 de-canonization, the real Star Wars cannot be desecrated by the wokesters who hate (or are ignorant of) Luke, Han, Revan, Rendar, Jacen, Mara, Abeloth, and many more.
In the ongoing debate among Star Wars fans on how to correct the damage done to our beloved series, the 2 strongest camps are (1) put our faith in Jon Favreau, who has inherited the mess that is “Canon,” but has proven he can create good Star Wars content and resist the pressure to go woke; or (2) scrap all of “Canon” and bring back “Legends.”
The strongest argument for the latter is that Star Wars can never be made truly great again as long as The Last Jedi and “Jake” Skywalker still exist. I agree, but it has to wait. If Lucasfilm can refuse to pay the amazing Alan Dean Foster — but hire the unremarkable, divisive, racist, Howard Zinn-acolyte, SJW Justina Ireland to write “The High Republic” — then it is not yet a safe environment for “Legends.”
But, with the help of dedicated fans, “Legends” will not be thrown down the memory hole. If we keep talking about it, and sharing those stories, the real Star Wars can be preserved until it is safe to bring out of hibernation.
Follow Spyridon on Twitter<a href="https://twitter.com/SpyridonM"> @SpyridonM</a>.
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Star Wars

The Case Against Reviving The Star Wars Expanded Universe, At Least For Now

Woke Culture

On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm Ltd. — under the new leadership of Kathleen Kennedy and Disney — stunned the science fiction community by announcing that the

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In many respects, the legacy media remains a greater driving force behind the COVID-19 pandemic than the actual virus itself. Their incessant fear-mongering at the outset of the pandemic has morphed into endless goal shifting as the crisis drags on in search of the current narrative. 
Worse, constant gaslighting has left countless Americans confused and exhausted. Now we are being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-variant-dominant-us/2021/01/15/4420d814-5738-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html?fbclid=IwAR253EeW6cO8kHB-vylSvRaEjqdhyjgSSu926sDN_zEenvXMWVVXYuXa3qs">overwhelmed with headlines</a> about an even more contagious strain of COVID-19 looming on the horizon, just as vaccines have become available.
That the pandemic served as political fodder for the Left only exacerbates the level of deception. It’s increasingly difficult to gauge what exactly is going on or has transpired given the inordinate amount of half-truths and outright misinformation being doled out by the media. 
Here are five times the media changed the pandemic narrative to suit various agendas outside of the truth.
“Flatten The Curve”
It seems like a lifetime ago that so many experts insisted that life could return to some semblance of normality once we “flattened the curve” by imposing temporary lockdowns in March of 2020. 
At the time, the argument was that restrictive measures would slow the spread of the virus and limit the chances that hospitals and health workers throughout the nation would be overwhelmed with sick patients. 
We came together as a nation, and it worked. We flattened the curve, according to <a href="https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/covid-19-curve-has-unflattened-fast-now-what">University of Michigan Health</a>: 
“Cities and states hit hard by the new coronavirus ‘flattened the curve’ of a rising tide of cases by cutting back on the kinds of interactions that can spread the virus from person to person. More than 100 years after the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, the same steps that worked against that deadly virus also slowed the new one.”
The narrative began to shift, in large part, because many on the Left sought to gain political capital from the ongoing pandemic. Media pundits on the Left began to argue that conservatives continued to somehow bear the sole burden of the spread of the virus. And, of course, no policy decision made by the Trump administration could be cast in a positive light. 
That Ezra Klein of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/1/21308809/covid-19-coronavirus-2020-trump-election-polls-polarization">Vox</a> could argue that Trump chose “to politicize basic public health measures” without a hint of irony would almost be comical if it was not such a brazen and outlandish hoodwink.
In July of 2020, David Harsanyi of the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-lefts-coronavirus-narrative-is-a-myth/">National Review</a> wrote that “liberals are busy concocting a narrative that holds that the failures of the American response to coronavirus have been the fault of Trumpian nihilists in the Red States” even though “New York’s death rate has been ten times larger than Florida’s” at the time. 
“Let’s remember that initial national lockdown efforts were intended to flatten the curve so that hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed with COVID cases,” Harsanyi continued, “not to shutter the economy in perpetuity (or until a Democrat wins the White House) to ensure that no one gets sick anymore. Other than the New York area, which is led by a governor who made perhaps the single most deadly <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/fire-through-dry-grass-andrew-cuomo-saw-covid-19-threat-to-nursing-homes-then-he-risked-adding-to-it">policy mistake</a> in the entire crisis, this goal has largely been achieved.”
“Follow the science”
One of the most dogmatic refrains from the media and the Left during the pandemic has been “follow the science.” The phrase has been conveniently employed to allow the pandemic narrative to shift as needed.
It’s also acted as both an attempt to censor, silence, and rebut innumerable reasoned arguments advocating for <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/">better, more nuanced policies</a> rather than wholesale restrictions. 
Dr. Vinay Prasad, an oncologist and health policy researcher, argues in his piece for <a href="https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/vinay-prasad/89856">Medpage Today</a> that drawing policies from science — even good science — is a limited endeavor because “[s]cience cannot make value judgments.”
“Science does not determine policy,” Prasad continues. “Policy is a human endeavor that combines science with values and priorities. In other words, science can help quantify the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/health/coronavirus-schools-children.html">increased risk</a> (or lack thereof) of school reopening on SARS-Cov-2 spread, and help quantify the educational losses from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/opinion/remote-learning-coronavirus.html">continued closure</a>, but science cannot tell you whether to open or close schools. Making the decision requires values, principles, a vision of the type of society we want to be. How much do we care about the kids that rely on public school? Is it enough to offset a theoretical (but unsubstantiated) risk of viral spread? On this topic, I agree with others that we have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/opinion/coronavirus-school-closures.html">chosen poorly</a>.”
Prasad also breaks down the exceedingly partisan role science has come to play in the pandemic. His list includes confirmation biases in the form of “credentialism,” yielding to science in a rote, dogmatic manner devoid of critical evaluation, and, most importantly, the censoring of sound arguments just because they may go against the prevailing narrative. 
Prasad contends that “[s]cience is the idea that we must confront, discuss, debate, and refute ideas. Using brute force, the power of the platform, to proclaim the truth is antithetical to our creed.”
The effectiveness of masks
Early on in the pandemic, the media inundated us with reports that masks were considered ineffectual and even a potential detriment to limiting the spread of COVID-19 by health officials.
In March of 2020, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30">Market Watch</a> reported that “people shouldn’t wear face masks to prevent the spread of the infectious illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. surgeon general.”
In an April 2020 interview with Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventative medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University, <a href="https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/">Time</a> reported that masks would “not likely to be effective against respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID-19.” Schaffner added, “[T]he CDC would have recommended it years ago…It doesn’t, because it makes science-based recommendations,” emphasizing that no study or data to date indicated masks would prevent the spread of the novel virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — who remains at the helm of tackling the pandemic — insisted early on that masks “do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands,” according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask-60-minutes-2020-03-08/">CBS News</a>. 
<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc-offer-conflicting-advice-masks-expert-tells-us/story?id=70958380">ABC News</a> reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) also offered some judicious advice at the time, adding, “If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.” 
While countless redactions now exist by the WHO, the CDC, and health officials concerning masks, the arguments made against wearing them were not without merit at the time. Improper use, poor hygiene, and the overall ineffectiveness of cloth masks, in particular, were the reasons being presented by health officials.  
While “masks are still likely to prevent infected people from transmitting the virus,” according to a recent piece in <a href="https://reason.com/2020/11/18/masks-not-very-effective-at-protecting-wearers-says-new-danish-study/">Reason</a>, currently, there still exists no hard data or substantive study to provide definitive proof that masks prevent the spread of COVID-19. At best, strong correlative information has emerged that indicates properly worn masks might be an effective prophylactic in preventing transmission. 
That’s not an argument against the idea of masks either. Rather, it demonstrates that the volatile and polarizing subject of masks does not exist on some binary of “hard facts versus empty hubris,” though the legacy media would have us think otherwise. 
BLM rioters and protesters were given a free pass to gather by the thousands
Many on the Left and in the media who railed against anti-lockdown protests grew hopelessly silent as thousands of protestors and rioters assailed cities across our nation during the various BLM protests. 
Worse, many politicians may have conspired to disallow contact tracing at such super spreader events. In June of 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio explicitly told health officials that no one who tested positive for COVID-19 be asked if they attended a BLM protest, according to <a href="https://www.thecity.nyc/coronavirus/2020/6/14/21290963/nyc-covid-19-trackers-skipping-floyd-protest-questions-even-amid-fears-of-new-wave">The City</a>.
“The hundreds of contact tracing workers hired by the city under de Blasio’s new ‘test and trace’ campaign have been instructed not to ask anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a demonstration, City Hall confirmed to THE CITY.”
Worse, even epidemiologists tracking the virus could not square their own political biases with their responsibilities. 
When asked about the BLM protests and riots, Catherine Troisi, “an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center,” told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/us/Epidemiologists-coronavirus-protests-quarantine.html">The New York Times</a> that she “certainly condemned the anti-lockdown protests at the time” but was “not condemning the [BLM] protests now.” Troisi reflected on her own cognitive dissonance, stating, “I struggle with that…I have a hard time articulating why that is OK.”
Unlike Troisi, over a thousand other health officials openly declared their biases and consequent hypocrisy in an open letter. Published by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html">CNN</a>, these officials were “advocating for an anti-racist public health response to demonstrations against systemic injustice occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In other words, these health officials were only willing to support mass gatherings that aligned with their own political views. They even dared to suggest that the thousands who attended BLM protests and riots were not at risk of spreading the highly contagious virus but anti-lockdown protestors somehow were because they were “rooted in white nationalism.”
“However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States…This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. Those actions not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives.”
The generous portrayal of Dr. Anthony Fauci in the media
If his glamorous cover story for <a href="https://www.instyle.com/news/dr-fauci-says-with-all-due-modesty-i-think-im-pretty-effective">InStyle</a> magazine in the middle of the pandemic is any indication, Dr. Anthony Fauci remains a darling of the legacy media. He is now poised to continue his role as chief medical advisor for the incoming Biden administration.
Though he boldly declared in his InStyle interview that he believes “everybody thinks I’m doing more than an outstanding job,” Fauci has backtracked on so many of his pronouncements during the pandemic that it’s hard to keep track.
Emma Colton of the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/here-are-faucis-biggest-flip-flops-and-backtracks-amid-the-coronavirus-pandemic">Washington Examiner</a> provides a telling assessment of Fauci and argues that he “has flip-flopped or been proven wrong on a host of different coronavirus measures and recommendations since the virus first hit the United States last winter.”
Colton’s cogent summary exposes many of Fauci’s reversals and contradictions, including his initially referring to lockdowns in March of 2020 as “draconian,” insisting that masks were unnecessary, and minimizing the role of asymptomatic transmissions at the beginning of the pandemic.    
“Fauci, the leading White House coronavirus task force member,” Colton continues, “has changed positions or faced scientific data proving his stances are flawed on <a href="https://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/1319003063672332288?s=21">issues ranging from mask wearing to the severity of the virus</a> and from asymptomatic spread to effective treatments for patients, among other issues, since January.”
***
Much of the narrative surrounding the pandemic has shifted from a public health crisis to a craven opportunity for the media and the Left to exploit to their advantage given their tremendous influence. This has lead to angst, confusion, and further divisions in our already deeply polarized nation as well as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-are-now-witnessing-the-deadly-impact-of-covid-19-lockdowns">untold suffering and hardship</a>. 
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

White House Coronavirus Task Force Holds Daily Briefing

Five Times The Legacy Media Flip-Flopped On The Pandemic

Anthony Fauci

Lockdowns

In many respects, the legacy media remains a greater driving force behind the COVID-19 pandemic than the actual virus itself. Their incessant

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/five-times-the-legacy-media-flip-flopped-on-the-pandemic-narrative/

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After actor Macaulay Culkin expressed support for erasing President Trump&#8217;s cameo in &#8220;Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,&#8221; outspoken conservative actress Kristy Swanson (the original &#8220;Buffy: The Vampire Slayer&#8221;) has demanded she be removed from all John Hughes movies.
Last week, Macaulay Culkin said &#8220;Sold&#8221; to a Twitter user who proposed a petition to erase Trump&#8217;s brief appearance in the 1990s Christmas comedy.
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Sold.
&mdash; Macaulay Culkin (@IncredibleCulk) <a href="https://twitter.com/IncredibleCulk/status/1349248426542657538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 13, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Swanson denounced the proposal as yet another example of &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; and then demanded she be removed from all John Hughes movies; she had brief appearances in &#8220;Ferris Bueller&#8217;s Day Off&#8221; and in &#8220;Pretty In Pink.&#8221;
&#8220;If Cancel Culture is really going to have Donald J. Trump removed from the John Hughes movie ‘Home Alone,’ then in support of MY PRESIDENT, I’d like to have myself officially removed from the John Hughes’ films,  ‘Pretty In Pink’ and ‘Ferris Buhler’s Day Off,’&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/KristySwansonXO/status/1350228591972384776" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">she wrote</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
If Cancel Culture is really going to have Donald J. Trump removed from the John Hughes movie “Home Alone,” then in support of MY PRESIDENT, I’d like to have myself officially removed from the John Hughes’ films, “Pretty In Pink” and “Ferris Buhler’s Day Off.”😂
&mdash; Kristy Swanson (@KristySwansonXO) <a href="https://twitter.com/KristySwansonXO/status/1350228591972384776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 15, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Fellow celebrities immediately jumped on Kristy Swanson.
&#8220;I’m sorry. Who are you?&#8221; responded Jane Lynch.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I’m sorry. Who are you?
&mdash; Jane Lynch (@janemarielynch) <a href="https://twitter.com/janemarielynch/status/1350448718462418948?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;This is weak, Kristy. I was removed from AS GOOD AS IT GETS and BAD SANTA years before Trump even THOUGHT of running for President. That’s how I support MY leader. Why do you hate America?&#8221; tweeted Patton Oswalt.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is weak, Kristy. I was removed from AS GOOD AS IT GETS and BAD SANTA years before Trump even THOUGHT of running for President. That’s how I support MY leader. Why do you hate America? <a href="https://t.co/R3zZ1HbrjT">https://t.co/R3zZ1HbrjT</a>
&mdash; Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) <a href="https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/1350487110650789888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2021</a></blockquote>
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During the 2019 Christmas season, it appeared that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) cut President Trump’s cameo in the movie “Home Alone 2” for political reasons; that theory was, however, debunked. Those edits were made in 2014 before Trump ran for president.
“As is often the case with feature films adapted for television, ‘Home Alone 2’ was edited for time. The scene with Donald Trump was one of several that were cut from the movie as none of them were integral to the plot,” the CBC <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-trumps-home-alone-2-cameo-was-cut-canada-1265005">said in a statement</a>. “These edits were done in 2014 when we first acquired the film and before Mr. Trump was elected President.”
According to Matt Damon, Trump also had a cameo in the Oscar-winning movie “Scent of a Woman” that was left on the cutting room floor.
<div class="paragraph">
“The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write him in a part,” <a href="https://ew.com/movies/2017/09/02/donald-trump-matt-damon-scent-of-a-woman/">Damon said</a>. “[Director] Martin Brest had to write something in Scent of a Woman — and the whole crew was in on it. You have to waste an hour of your day with a bulls*** shot: Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino’s like, ‘Hello, Mr. Trump!’ — you had to call him by name — and then he exits. You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in ‘Home Alone 2’ they left it in.”
Despite being pressed by social justice warriors, actor Ben Stiller said that President Trump’s appearance in the 2001 hit &#8220;Zoolander&#8221; would remain, noting that his cameo was a spur of the moment opportunity at the VH1 Fashion Awards red carpet pre-show.
“We were shooting at the now defunct VH1 Fashion Awards … and as people were coming up the red carpet, we pulled them aside and asked them to talk about Derek Zoolander, and so Trump and Melania did that,” Stiller told The Daily Beast in early 2020. “I’ve had people reach out to me and say, ‘You should edit Donald Trump out of &#8216;Zoolander,’ but at the end of the day, that was a time when that exists and that happened.”
“There were so many movies [back then] that had a silly cameo from Donald Trump,” Stiller said. “He represented a certain thing,” he later added.
RELATED:<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ben-stiller-refuses-to-remove-trump-from-zoolander"> Ben Stiller Refuses To Remove Trump From ‘Zoolander’</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.
</div>

2017 Son Of Monsterpalooza Convention

Kristy Swanson Demands Her Removal From All John Hughes Movies If Trump Gets Erased From ‘Home Alone 2’

After actor Macaulay Culkin expressed support for erasing President Trump&#039;s cameo in &quot;Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,&quot; outspoken conservative actress Kristy Swanson has demanded she be removed from John Hughes movies.

Kristy Swanson Demands Her Removal From All John Hughes Movies If Trump Gets Erased From &#039;Home Alone 2&#039;

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/kristy-swanson-demands-her-removal-from-all-john-hughes-movies-if-trump-gets-erased-from-home-alone-2/

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Among other things, the end of the Donald Trump presidency has lifted the moratorium on celebrities hobnobbing with the political ruling class. As reported by the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-lady-gaga-jon-bon-jovi-jennifer-lopez-843903e19690b7ce85ae9d5a3de44cf1">Associated Press</a>, Biden’s inauguration ceremony will platform a torrent of A-list celebrities from Hollywood and the music industry. 
The 46th president’s inauguration will feature — among others — Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, and Bruce Springsteen, who most recently <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/10/29/bruce-springsteen-calls-americans-vote-trump-out-office/6076073002/">accused</a> President Trump of “brainwashing” and “hypnotizing” American voters. Additionally, set to perform are other outspoken liberals like John Legend and the Foo Fighters. The de facto political music festival also boasts the talents of Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi, and Demi Lovato.
Lovato had most recently made headlines when she announced that the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill, which left five people dead, had inspired her to write a new pop song. She took to <a href="https://twitter.com/ddlovato/status/1347018651896066052">Twitter to say</a>, “I’m in the studio working on something special after today’s assault on democracy.”
Former Nirvana drummer, and current Foo Fighters frontman, Dave Grohl is likewise an apparent ardent member of the Left. As far back as 2004, he excoriated President George W. Bush for playing the Foo Fighters’ &#8220;Times Like These&#8221; at a campaign rally. Renouncing Bush for his political ideology, he exclaimed, “I don&#8217;t give a s*** if he likes our band, but I take it personally when a politician that doesn&#8217;t represent my personal beliefs uses music that I poured my heart and soul into for his personal gain.&#8221; 
More recently, in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Grohl named President Trump as both an impetus and an influence on his then latest record, Concrete and Gold. While not specifying any specific legislative or executive action, he accused the Republican government of encroaching upon his freedoms saying, “I think I’ve realized we’re not all as free as we were before.”  A year later, in a 2018 interview with GQ UK Magazine, Grohl further added that he was “ashamed” of the American President, calling Donald Trump “a massive jerk.” 
Lady Gaga, who has long been a vocal critic of President Trump, recently released a campaign ad for Joe Biden. In an attempt – which packed as much self-awareness as an Intel computer processor – to reach out to rural American voters, the New York native draped herself in camo, leaned against a pickup truck, and popping open a can of beer, said, “Hey, this is Lady Gaga. I&#8217;m voting for America, which means I&#8217;m voting for Joe Biden.”
At the inauguration, Gaga is slated to perform the national anthem. In contrast, at Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, celebrities of such caliber and recognition were scant, with the anthem instead sung by a humble 16-year-old, Jackie Evancho. 
In fact, for Trump’s inaugural ceremony, virtually every rock star and world-famous singer that was asked to perform shied away, steering clear from any possible controversy. 
After being asked to perform at Trump’s inauguration, Broadway singer Jennifer Holliday reportedly received a deluge of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/18/entertainment/jennifer-holliday-trump/index.html">social media backlash</a> – including death threats – until she caved, announcing that she would not make the event. Similarly, last year, Ellen DeGeneres was publicly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/entertainment/ellen-degeneres-george-bush/index.html">scolded</a> and pressured by the Twitter mob into issuing a statement apologizing for daring to appear at a football game sitting next to former President George W. Bush.
Even Elton John, a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s, publicly declined his request to perform at the inauguration. Artists ranging from Andrea Bocelli to The Beach Boys to Ice-T echoed similar sentiments, all declining to participate in the ceremony. 
Bereft of A-Listers with bravado, Trump’s inauguration instead featured the country frills of Toby Keith and The Piano Guys, who responded to criticism with, “We are here not to be political, we&#8217;re here to be patriotic.” 
The presidency of Joe Biden, in addition to bringing back Obama-era legislative policy, will reprise the marriage of the glitterati with the political class – a relationship best described by Tom Wolfe as the radical chic. From White House performances to paeans heaping praise upon the President, celebrities, with chameleon-like cunning will shimmy from the government’s most vocal critics to its most vocal cheerleaders. 
Harry Khachatrian is a Canadian computer engineer and a contributor at The Daily Wire. Find him on <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://twitter.com/Harry1T6&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513617344022000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHh2pXFSex2266c4GY1YE3A-Q6Ykw">Twitter</a>
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion – Arrivals

Biden’s Inauguration: The A-List Stars are Back

Lady Gaga

Among other things, the end of the Donald Trump presidency has lifted the moratorium on celebrities hobnobbing with the political ruling class. As

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/bidens-inauguration-the-a-list-stars-are-back/

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Following the 2020 election cycle, the Democrats and Republicans will each have 50 seats in the United States Senate. Because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will act as the tiebreaker as President of the Senate, the Democrats will effectively have a majority in the upper chamber of the United States Congress. 
With control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, the Democratic Party now has a green light to push their favored policies through the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House. In addition to a new round of stimulus checks and COVID-19 relief, Democrats may be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftists-call-for-radical-legislation-after-warnock-projected-win">considering</a> statehood for Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington, D.C., extensive green energy initiatives, and packing the Supreme Court.
Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/warnock-america-must-repent-for-its-worship-of-whiteness">tweeted</a> two simple words — “Buckle up!” — on the morning after the Georgia special elections, indicating that he and his party are ready to act on their agenda.
However, 34 of the 100 Senators — 14 incumbent Democrats and 20 incumbent Republicans — will be up for reelection in two years. Republicans have a shot at retaking the Senate in 2022 by winning a handful of key victories. 
Sen. Raphael Warnock — Georgia
Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock defeated incumbent Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) by a slim margin in the 2021 Georgia special election. Because he is finishing the term of former Senator Johnny Isakson, who was elected in 2016, Warnock will be up for reelection in 2022.
Warnock was a highly controversial and polarizing candidate. In his capacity as a minister, Warnock once <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/warnock-america-must-repent-for-its-worship-of-whiteness">demanded</a> that America “repent of its whiteness.” 
In the days before the special election, a man <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leftists-call-for-radical-legislation-after-warnock-projected-win">alleged</a> that he suffered abuse at a church camp formerly overseen by Warnock. Police body-cam footage recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-great-actor-warnocks-wife-told-police-after-incident-that-she-kept-how-he-really-was-under-wraps-for-a-long-time">emerged</a> of Warnock’s ex-wife explaining to officers that Warnock had run over her foot with his car during an argument.
The current tally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/05/us/elections/results-georgia-runoffs.html">shows</a> Warnock snagging 51% of the vote — only 2% higher than Sen. Loeffler. In the first Democratic presidential <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Georgia">victory</a> in the state since 1992, President-elect Joe Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-georgia-president.html">won</a>  Georgia by a razor-thin margin of just 0.24%.
If Warnock aids the Democrats in a particularly aggressive push toward radical policies, a strong challenger could easily swing the Peach State back to the GOP. 
Sen. Mark Kelly — Arizona
In the 2020 election, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in Arizona’s special election. McSally was completing the term of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who was elected in 2016 but passed away in 2018. 
As with Warnock, Kelly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona-senate-special.html">won</a> by a relatively small margin, earning 51.2% of the vote against McSally’s 48.8%. Biden was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-arizona-president.html">victorious</a> over President Trump in the state by a mere 0.31% margin.
Arizona has historically been a Republican stronghold. The 2020 election <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Arizona">marked</a> only the second Democratic presidential victory in the state since the 1950s.
When Sen. Kelly — who assumed office on December 2 — faces reelection in 2022, he could quite possibly be defeated by a Republican challenger.
Sen. Michael Bennet — Colorado
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) will also face reelection in 2022. Though Democrats <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Colorado">won</a> the state in the last four presidential elections, Colorado remained somewhat competitive for President Trump in 2020.
Bennet ran for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States during the 2020 cycle. Though he participated in the first two rounds of debates, Bennet <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klj_Pk2p1oI">failed</a> to qualify for the third round, proving to be a lackluster candidate who did not excite the Democratic base. He ended his presidential campaign in February 2020, one week after the Iowa caucuses.
A charismatic Republican candidate who successfully ties Bennet to a radical Democratic legislative agenda could manage to achieve an upset and flip the blue-leaning state to the GOP.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto — Nevada
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) gained the seat of former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid in the 2016 election.
Cortez Masto — a former Nevada state attorney general — was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rumored-vp-dark-horse-candidate-withdraws-from-consideration">floated</a> as a potential running mate for President-elect Biden in the 2020 election, but she announced that she had withdrawn her name for consideration. 
Cortez Masto has close ties to the Biden family, having worked closely with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the son of President-elect Biden, prior to his death in 2015.
Though former President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/Nevada">won</a> Nevada in both 2008 and 2012, Cortez Masto only defeated Republican Joe Heck in 2016 by three points, and President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-nevada-president.html">lost</a> Nevada in 2020 by only two points.
A Republican candidate could emerge victorious in the Silver State, especially if a future Cabinet appointment for Cortez Masto leaves a vacuum on the Democrats’ side of the ticket.
Sen. Maggie Hassan — New Hampshire
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) won her first election to the Senate in 2016. A former attorney, she previously served one term as the governor of New Hampshire.
President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-new-hampshire-president.html">lost</a> New Hampshire to Biden by seven points in the 2020 race, marking the fifth consecutive electoral victory for the Democrats in that state. However, Hillary Clinton <a href="https://www.270towin.com/states/New_Hampshire">won</a> the state by a slim 0.4%, proving that success for Republicans is by no means impossible in the Granite State.
A Republican could be within striking distance of winning a Senate seat in the 2022 cycle.
Benjamin Zeisloft is Editor-in-Chief of the UPenn Statesmen and a Senior Correspondent for Campus Reform.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Discusses Hillary Clinton’s Gun Control Plan

The Most Vulnerable Democrat Senators in 2022

2022 Election

U.S. Senate

Following the 2020 election cycle, the Democrats and Republicans will each have 50 seats in the United States Senate. Because Vice President-elect Kamala

https://editorial.dailywire.com/news/the-most-vulnerable-democrat-senators-in-2022/

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