An AI-generated list of recommended reading for the summer, published by the Chicago Sun-Times, included several books that don’t exist.
Per <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai">NPR</a>, at least one edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer used the same flawed list, titled “Summer reading list for 2025.&#8221; Suggested titles included “Tidewater Dreams,” purportedly authored by Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende, which was described as her &#8220;first climate fiction novel.&#8221; Allende is a real person, but the suggested novel is not a book she or anyone else published.
Another suggestion was “The Rainmakers,” which is described as a story set in a &#8220;near-future American West where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity.” This faux novel was said to be written by 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett.
The outlet noted that only five of the 15 books suggested were real titles. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The Chicago Sun-Times printed a &quot;summer reading list&quot; featuring real authors but mostly made up books, generated by a freelancer using AI.
This comes two months after the newspaper cut 20% of its staff. <a href="https://t.co/TLMbDxuey0">pic.twitter.com/TLMbDxuey0</a>
&mdash; Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) <a href="https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1924999492824399991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak,&#8221; Victor Lim, marketing director for the Chicago Sun-Times&#8217; parent company, Chicago Public Media, said in a statement. He also noted that the content did not come directly from the newspaper’s staffers. 
&#8220;This is licensed content that was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom, but it is unacceptable for any content we provide to our readers to be inaccurate. We value our readers&#8217; trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon as we investigate.&#8221;
The article&#8217;s author, Marco Buscaglia, addressed the error, writing in an email to NPR, &#8220;Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It&#8217;s on me 100 percent.&#8221;
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Memorial Day Sale – Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The paper also <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/press-room/2025/05/20/chicago-sun-times-response-to-may-18-special-section">issued a response</a> to subscribers, noting that the person responsible for the error had been terminated and promising the mistake would not happen again. They said subscribers would not be charged for the premium edition and said more care would be put into checking for AI-generated content in the future.
“We are in a moment of great transformation in journalism and technology, and at the same time our industry continues to be besieged by business challenges. This should be a learning moment for all journalism organizations: Our work is valued — and valuable — because of the humanity behind it,” the statement said.
“At Chicago Public Media, we are proud of our credible, independent journalism, created for and by people. And part of the journalistic process is a commitment to acknowledging mistakes. It is unacceptable that this content was inaccurate, and it is equally unacceptable that we did not make it clear to readers that the section was produced outside the Sun-Times newsroom.”

Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times Published A.I.-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don’t Exist

Chicago Sun-Times Published A.I.-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist

Artificial Intelligence

Books

Chicago

Journalism

Legacy Media

Media

Newspaper

U.S.

Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan’s “The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness,” hit the No. 13 spot on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/hardcover-nonfiction/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bestseller list</a> this week, showing, yet again, that readers are itching to soak up Klavan’s timeless wisdom. 
“<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain</a>,” which hit shelves on May 6, explores how people can obey the biblical command to “rejoice evermore” when the world is filled with so much evil. Klavan’s book quickly became the No. 1 book in Christian Death and Grief on Amazon before hitting the NYT bestseller list. 
“Delighted to tell you that ‘Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness’ has made the NY Times Bestseller List. Thank you all for picking up a copy. I hope you come to love it as much as I do,” Klavan <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan/status/1922789461164802089" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> on social media on Wednesday. 
The book focuses on three murders throughout history “and the works of art that reveal the nature of their evil.” First, Klavan highlights the killing of French con man Jean-François Chardon and his mother by the thief Pierre François Lacenaire in 1834, which Klavan <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/murder-madness-meaning-how-can-we-rejoice-always-when-the-world-often-seems-so-broken?author=Daily+Wire+Shop&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Murder%2C+Madness%2C+Meaning%3A+How+Can+We+%E2%80%98Rejoice+Always%E2%80%99+When+The+World+Often+Seems+So+Broken%3F">says</a> sparked “the beginning of a startling century-long dance between art and reality.” Then, the author shifts to the murders committed in the American Midwest in the 1950s by psychopath Ed Gein, the murders that inspired the novel “Psycho” written by Robert Bloch, which then went on to inspire Alfred Hitchcock’s movie of the same name. 
Finally, Klavan goes to the beginning: Cain’s murder of Abel, and how Cain’s presence continues throughout the Old and New Testaments. 
“The Kingdom of Cain” is available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon</a>, and you can purchase signed copies of the bestselling book at <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/the-kingdom-of-cain?variant=42713621954620" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Wire Shop</a>.

GDWOODMANAK15

Andrew Klavan’s New Book, ‘The Kingdom Of Cain,’ Hits NYT Bestseller List

Andrew Klavan

Daily Wire Shop

The Daily Wire

The New York Times

Aides who worked for former Vice President Kamala Harris — particularly those close to her failed 2024 presidential bid — have come forward to throw former President Joe Biden under the bus, claiming that he is to blame for her loss to President Donald Trump.
The new accusations were fully explored in the upcoming book from CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios&#8217; Alex Thompson: &#8220;Original Sin: President Biden&#8217;s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,&#8221; as noted in a report from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/12/biden-harris-david-plouffe-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Guardian</a>. A number of those close to Harris asserted that Biden was ultimately responsible for the Democrats&#8217; failure to retain the White House.
David Plouffe, who managed former President Barack Obama&#8217;s 2008 campaign, told authors Tapper and Thompson that Biden &#8220;totally f***ed us&#8221; by staying in the 2024 campaign until late July, leaving Harris just over 100 days — 107, to be exact — to mount a campaign against President Donald Trump.
Plouffe referred to the abbreviated campaign as &#8220;a f***ing nightmare,&#8221; adding, &#8220;It&#8217;s all Biden.&#8221;
Plouffe recalled taking phone calls from donors who were concerned about Biden&#8217;s speech patterns or his uneven gait, but when he asked the White House and Biden&#8217;s closest advisers whether the president was capable of seeing the 2024 campaign through, he was always told that Biden was fine.
There were others who agreed with Plouffe, including one Democratic strategist who told Tapper and Thompson, &#8220;[The 2024 campaign] was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people.&#8221;
Another senior aide who remained anonymous — and who ultimately quit his position in the Biden White House over the president&#8217;s decision to seek reelection, admitted, &#8220;We attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.&#8221;
&#8220;I love Joe Biden. When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him,&#8221; the aide said. &#8220;Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.&#8221;
Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly warned Biden to get out if he wanted to preserve any part of his legacy, meeting with the president at his Rehoboth Beach home shortly after the disastrous CNN debate in late June.
Schumer told Biden that if he remained on the ticket and lost, half a century of &#8220;amazing, beautiful work goes out the window. But it’s worse than that – you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.&#8221;
Biden, according to the book, replied to Schumer, &#8220;You have bigger balls than anyone I’ve ever met.&#8221;
Despite that, it was nearly a full month before Biden dropped out of the race on July 21.

Biden and Harris

Kamala’s Team Tosses Biden Under The Bus, Blames Him For 2024 Loss

Kamala's Team Tosses Biden Under The Bus, Blames Him For 2024 Loss

Axios

Jake Tapper

Joe Biden

Kamala Harris

Politics

President Obama’s Offical Visit To Israel And The West Bank Day Two

Digging Up Trouble: Obama’s War Over Jerusalem

Digging Up Trouble: Obama's War Over Jerusalem

Arabs

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel

Jerusalem

Jewish

Jews

Obama Administration

United Nations

The following is an excerpt taken from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1746710590956000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mFFTED3ygh0ikPBCW2jlP">American Intifada: </a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1746710590956000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mFFTED3ygh0ikPBCW2jlP">Israel, the Gaza War and the new Antisemitism</a>,&#8221; by Uri Kaufman. (Republic Book Publishers/Simon &amp; Schuster, April 29, 2025)
* * *
<h3>Bill Clinton, George Mitchell, and a Tale of Two Peace Processes</h3>
Prime Minister Netanyahu assumed office on June 18, 1996, and immediately set out to do the job the Israeli public elected him to do. When forced to choose, Rabin and Peres always made sure the cart was in front of the horse. First, one had to implement the two-state solution, and then Israel would (hopefully) get security. Under Netanyahu, the cart and the horse were put back into their rightful places. First, Israel had to get security, and then he would implement the two-state solution. In Netanyahu’s words, “One of the key goals in my first term as prime minister was to change the Palestinian perception that ‘terrorism pays’ to ‘terrorism doesn’t pay.’ I did this by insisting on security and reciprocity.”<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
He was tested almost immediately. On September 24, 1996, Netanyahu gave authorization to unseal the door to a tunnel that ran along the outer rim of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The door was nowhere near any mosque and opened into the Christian Quarter of the Old City. But Arafat, a human mushroom cloud, ordered his men to go on the attack using the very guns the Israelis had given them as part of the Oslo Accords, ostensibly to fight terrorism.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> By the time the mini-war ended, seventeen Israelis and about a hundred Palestinians were dead.<a href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a>
Thousands of wars have been fought since mankind became cognizant of territory and the desire to control it — none were started over a door. Admittedly, this wasn’t just any door, just as the Wailing Wall isn’t just any wall. But for its American and Israeli champions, the peace process was supposed to be the forum for settling disputes, not the battlefield.
Clinton Administration officials blamed Netanyahu.
<div id="attachment_917131" style="width: 417px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-917131" class="wp-image-917131 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-407x576.jpg" alt="Cover Design: Jim Villaflores. Republic Book Publishers" width="407" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-407x576.jpg 407w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-212x300.jpg 212w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-768x1086.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-1448x2048.jpg 1448w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-07-May-2025-11-37-AM-2988-scaled.jpg 1810w" sizes="(max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px" /></a>Cover Design: Jim Villaflores. Republic Book Publishers</div>
They called for a summit where they demanded that Netanyahu make concessions. When he resisted, Clinton went into a dark rage so loud it could be heard in the next room. In the words of Dennis Ross, “Arafat now knew that Bibi was the desperate one.”<a href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a> Violence was thus not only tolerated — it was rewarded.
When a semblance of security was eventually restored, Netanyahu advanced the peace process. He agreed to not one but two interim withdrawals — the Hebron Accords and the Wye River Memorandum — but he steadfastly insisted that progress be conditioned on Arafat fighting terrorism. American officials were outraged. After Netanyahu demanded that Arafat arrest thirteen suspected terrorists, Clinton “exploded,” according to Ross, who wrote bemusedly that he was “struck by [Netanyahu’s] belief that&#8230;he was the victim of mistreatment.”<a href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a> On another occasion, Ross writes that the Clinton Administration saw Bibi’s complaints over a bombing as “an excuse to avoid negotiations” and that Bibi was “killing any prospect of peace.”<a href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a>
Meanwhile, the stubborn insistence on that which is most basic in a peace process — namely peace — paid off for ordinary Israelis. During the long, seemingly unending terror campaign that defined the Oslo Peace Process, the lowest loss of life occurred during the premiership of Netanyahu. Only one Israeli died per month on his watch. For Peres, the figures were seven and a half times worse.<a href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a>
<div id="attachment_917179" style="width: 883px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-917179" class="size-large wp-image-917179" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-1147679-873x576.jpg" alt="President Clinton (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit on a deck along the banks of the Wye River at the Wye River Plantation where peace talks continue between Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the third straight day at the secluded Maryland site October 18, 1998. (photo by White House)" width="873" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-1147679-873x576.jpg 873w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-1147679-300x198.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-1147679-768x507.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/GettyImages-1147679.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 873px) 100vw, 873px" />President Clinton (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit on a deck along the banks of the Wye River in Maryland, October 18, 1998. (photo by White House)</div>
The Wye agreement — which required a sizeable withdrawal from West Bank territory by the Israelis — proved Netanyahu’s commitment to the peace process, at least while Israeli buses and pizzerias weren’t being blown to bits. Signed on October 23, 1998, it caused his right-wing coalition partners to bring down the government and trigger early elections.<a href="#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a> By now, the Israeli public felt safer and, thus, more willing to take chances for peace. On May 17, 1999, Ehud Barak defeated Netanyahu in a historic landslide. At the time, it was the widest margin ever scored by an Israeli challenger over an incumbent.<a href="#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a>
The Israeli peace camp was jubilant. One left-wing activist said it was as if they had been freed from a foreign occupation.<a href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a> The great obstacle to peace was removed — now they could finalize a deal with the Palestinians. The cart was finally back in front of the horse.
What happened next was probably inevitable. Barak formed his pro-peace government in July; Palestinian terrorists murdered three Israelis in August.<a href="#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a> Through it all, Washington pressed the Israelis to continue the peace process and all the interim withdrawals that it entailed.<a href="#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a>
To halt the transfer of territory to the Palestinians and end the talks would “give the terrorists what they wanted.” Israel’s intelligence service issued a classified report in late 1999 predicting that Arafat would go to war because Jerusalem would be blamed for it one way or the other.<a href="#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a>
* * *
Uri Kaufman is the author of  &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1746710590956000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mFFTED3ygh0ikPBCW2jlP">American Intifada: </a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/American-Intifada-Israel-Gaza-Antisemitism/dp/1645721043&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1746710590956000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mFFTED3ygh0ikPBCW2jlP">Israel, the Gaza War and the new Antisemitism.</a>&#8221; His work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, The Jerusalem Post, The Independent, and numerous other publications. He lives in Lawrence, New York with his wife and four children.
This excerpt is published by permission from Republic Book Publishers/Simon &amp; Schuster.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> See, e.g., The New York Times, February 7, 2023, p. A5; October 26, 2022, p. A4.
<a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> The New York Times, December 26, 2021, p. 4.
<a href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> “Hamas In Its Own Words,” ADL website, January 10, 2024, https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/hamas-its-own-words.
<a href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Ambassador Mark A. Green, “Hamas: Words and Deeds&#8230;,” The Wilson Center, October 24, 2023, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/hamas-words-and-deeds.
<a href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> “The Truth Is Hard” brand campaign for New York Times, Droga5, https://droga5.com/work/the-new-york-times-truth-is-worth-it/.
<a href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Alessandra Stanley, “A Terrorist, Plain-Spoken and Cold,” The New York Times, April 18, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/arts/television/19mcveigh.html?searchResultPosition=5.
<a href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> The New York Times, April 20, 2019, p. D6.
<a href="#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> The New York Times, July 23, 2023, p. 8.
<a href="#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> Jeremy Scahill et al, “Between the Hammer and the Anvil,” The Intercept, February 28, 2024, https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/.
<a href="#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Dionne Searcey, “They Ordered Her to Be a Suicide Bomber. She Had Another Idea,” The New York Times, March 13, 2020, <a href="https://www.nytimes">https://www.nytimes</a>.com/2020/03/13/world/africa/Nigeria-Boko-Haram-bomber.html.
<a href="#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> See, e.g., “U.S. Confirms Yemen Killing of Terrorist,” The New York Times, February 7, 2020, p. A7.
<a href="#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> “CNN anchor Amanpour apologizes for calling terror attack on Dee family a ‘shootout,’” The Times of Israel, May 23, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/cnn-anchor-amanpour-apologizes-for-calling-terror-attack-on-dee-family-a-shootout/.
<a href="#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> Avnery, Optimi II, p. 64

President Clinton with Netanyahu and Arafat

Clinton Vs. Netanyahu: How Peace And Terror Collided In The 1990s

Bill Clinton

Congress

Middle East

Muslims

Yasser Arafat

The following excerpt is from Andrew Klavan’s Amazon best-selling book, The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, (Zondervan/HarperCollins, May 6, 2025) which you can <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ODLLWRUYFQLX&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-asrk-u7s-sDyhCZt2HswSh97P9UrU8fIOFQ6ixtmpKTB1DBbhizDhTlIu-UqaLkK7N0nbUSyzC-7AF7vHD1eKuT-zxV0AKvUdyGQtz3PVdxbQPtExJGPweEKI5A7u8oRKT8qGQ_emtFCVDLrzEIdR6Q4n645BIOoF3oQHLkrRF52UD0dBOnHAasIM3LWhrGXj8CZhnLqvGlRuqStS9pQrKn7rhqrcGVNFJZaH1Spuw.fvQZ5IniKW9xjinwdGzONrUwsBlcMLwjXhbqgG1ldB4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=kingdom+of+cain&amp;qid=1746467024&amp;sprefix=kingdom+of+cain%2Caps%2C174&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">order now</a>.
REJOICE EVERMORE!
So Scripture commands us. But how can you rejoice in a world of so much darkness? At a time like twilight when darkness gathers, ready to fall? The comforting bromides of belief can seem pat and complacent in the shadow of very present wickedness. Everything happens for a reason. There must be evil so there can be free will. God is in charge and will make things right in the end. No doubt. And it is some comfort too. But here we are today, and faith in the things unseen, and hope in the far-off country of our salvation don’t have the tangible immediacy of our suffering and distress.
More than this, and deeper. From our first cry to our last one, life is little more than letting go, a long goodbye. The pain, the grief, the traumas physical and emotional that scar our minds: sorrow is so woven into the very fabric of material existence that to turn our faces from it is to turn away from life itself. In the face of our mourning mortality, even Jesus wept.
In part 1, I write about the three murders and the works of art that reveal the nature of their evil. In part 2, I reflect on creative practices of truth and beauty that allow one to confront this evil with love and, through love, with joy. By joy, of course, I don’t mean smiley-faced complacency or quietism. I’m talking about preserving the gusto of living, even when you are living honestly, which means acknowledging grief and pain.
The first murder is the 1834 killing of the French con man Jean-François Chardon and his mother by the violent but elegant and eloquent thief Pierre François Lacenaire. This murder was the beginning of a startling century-long dance between art and reality. Lacenaire’s philosophical musings inspired the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to create the classic novel Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s work predicted and inspired the atheistic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in turn, inspired the famous American murderers of the 1920s, Leopold and Loeb. They then became the subjects of any number of books and movies, including Alfred Hitchcock’s innovative film, Rope. Throughout this bizarre and deadly story cycle, the theme in play is the death of Christian faith and the attempt to rewrite and rise above the Christian moral order—an attempt still being made today.
Next, I deal—as delicately as I can—with the monstrous crimes committed in the American Midwest of the 1950s by the psychopath Ed Gein. Gein murdered women and wore their bodies as costumes. These grotesque horrors inspired the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch, which was the basis of the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name, now regarded as one of the greatest works of American cinema. Psycho gave birth to an entire genre, the slasher film, which includes everything from disastrous trash and reprehensible torture porn to serious-minded horror like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and ultimately the insightful novel and Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs, also based on the Gein murders. The theme of this cycle is, of course, the confusion of sexual identity, but it is also the role of psychiatric theory in creating and confronting that confusion.
The last murder I write about is the first: the killing of Abel by Cain. The theme here is the failure of theodicy, the inability to accept the goodness of a God who presides over a world full of so much cruelty and injustice. I can’t write about the works of art inspired by Cain’s actions, because in some sense all art is inspired by his actions. He is the first man born after the fall, and all history flows out of him. This is Cain’s kingdom; we’re just living in it. Instead, I trace Cain’s continued presence throughout the Old and New Testaments because I believe the Bible contains, in microcosm, all history and all art.
The second part of the book is more personal. I don’t hold myself up as a role model of anything. I am not a pastor or a theologian. You should get your religious rule book from a better source. But because each inner life is different, each act of spiritual creation is unique. Whether a rainbow looks the same to me as it does to you, it is always only our own.
In light of this, I’ve chosen to write three brief reflections on practices that have deepened my relationship with Jesus Christ. My reason for this is that in Christ, I find I experience both the cross and the resurrection—that is, a heightened awareness of evil, injustice, and suffering accompanied by a seemingly absurd increase in serenity and joy.
The first of these reflections is on the ritual of communion—my answer to Lacenaire and to the intellectual collapse of the Christian moral order.
The second is a reflection on the atheistic psychotherapy that miraculously restored me to sanity in my youth and freed me to accept the grace of God. This is my answer to Ed Gein and, through him, the misbegotten nature of today’s therapeutic culture and the gender confusion that has arisen along with it.
The closing chapter is on art and beauty, and how it suggests to me a theodicy no mere philosophy can provide, a faithful response to suffering. This is my answer to Cain.
INTRODUCTION
To sum it up then:
My subject is murder and the imagination. My premise is that murder is evil. My belief is that God is love, and love is the source of joy.
If, then, I enter the literature of darkness, I do it with a sure and certain faith in the reality of light, not light in a future heaven but light in this world of sin and suffering, not light in the world to come but light in this world of present darkness, including the darkness of murder.
Light. Love. Joy. Beauty. 
 Here. Now. In the kingdom of Cain.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22ZEPHR0XQANA&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-asrk-u7s-sDyhCZt2HswSh97P9UrU8fIOFQ6ixtmpKTB1DBbhizDhTlIu-UqaLkK7N0nbUSyzC-7AF7vHD1eKuT-zxV0AKvUdyGQtz3PVdxbQPtExJGPweEKI5A7u8oRKT8qGQ_emtFCVDLrzEIdR6Q4n645BIOoF3oQHLkrRF52UD0dBOnHAasIM3LWhrGXj8CZhnLqvGlRuqStS9pQrKn7rhqrcGVNFJZaH1Spuw.fvQZ5IniKW9xjinwdGzONrUwsBlcMLwjXhbqgG1ldB4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Kingdom+of+Cain&amp;qid=1746466335&amp;sprefix=kingdom+of+cain%2Caps%2C139&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ORDER ON AMAZON TODAY</a>
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/the-kingdom-of-cain?_pos=1&amp;_sid=016ece02b&amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-916081 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-576x576.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" /></a>
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/the-kingdom-of-cain?_pos=1&amp;_sid=016ece02b&amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ORDER SIGNED COPIES TODAY</a>

Murder

Murder, Madness, Meaning: How Can We ‘Rejoice Always’ When The World Often Seems So Broken?

Jesus Christ

David Horowitz died on Tuesday at the age of 86.
I knew David really, really well. I used to work at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Truth Revolt, which was a precursor to The Daily Wire, began at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
I knew David for more than a decade before that. He was truly a formative person in the modern conservative movement, a person who spoke the truth no matter the cost.
David started off as a radical communist. He wrote a book in 1996 titled “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Son-Generational-David-Horowitz/dp/0684840057?ref_=ast_author_dp&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey</a>.” In it, he talks about how his parents were communists and that he was a “Red Diaper Baby.”
He began his career as a far-Left writer for Ramparts magazine. He turned to the Right when his friend was allegedly killed by the Black Panthers. Then, basically all of his old friends disowned him and decided he was “untouchable.”
David then turned into one of the most effective conservative activists of his generation. He used to call the David Horowitz Freedom Center a “battle tank” rather than a think tank. Pretty much everybody who&#8217;s anybody in modern conservatism had some initial connection with David Horowitz. I met Charlie Kirk, for example, at a David Horowitz Freedom Center event back when Charlie was maybe 18- or 19- years old and was first getting started with TPUSA.
And that remains true for a huge number of people who got their start in the conservative movement in the 1990s and 2000s. His books are worth reading. He was really an amazing writer, a terrific speaker, and a strong voice.
There are many videos of him online that are really worth watching. Here is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuqTKXZjffE">just one</a>, for example:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="WILL YOU CONDEMN HAMAS: David Horowitz Goes Toe-to-Toe With Terrorism Apologist" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JuqTKXZjffE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
<blockquote>Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas here and now? 
Radical Student: I&#8217;m sorry, what? 
Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas? Will you condemn Hamas as a terrorist and genocidal organization? 
Radical Student: Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?
Horowitz: So you won&#8217;t. I actually have had this experience many times. You didn&#8217;t read the pamphlet because the pamphlet is chapter and verse. The main connection is that the MSA is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network, as revealed in the document.
Radical Student: I don&#8217;t think you understood what I meant by that. I meant if I say something, I&#8217;m sure that I will be arrested for reasons of Homeland Security. So if you could please just answer my question.
Horowitz: If you condemn Hamas, Homeland Security will arrest you?
Radical Student: If I support Hamas — because your question forces me to condemn Hamas — if I support Hamas, I look really bad.
Horowitz: Well, if you don&#8217;t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I&#8217;ve had this experience at UC Santa Barbara, where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, “Will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas?” And none of them would. And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask questions. I said, “You know, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah?” And he said, “Well, that question is too complicated for a yes or no answer.” So I said, “Okay, I&#8217;ll put it to you this way. I&#8217;m a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn&#8217;t have to hunt us down globally — for it or against it?
Radical Student: For it.
Horowitz: Thank you. Thank you for coming and showing everybody what&#8217;s here.</blockquote>
David was extremely clear in his approach to the world. He understood the morality of many of our foreign adversaries. He was an advocate for Americanism and American strength and security. And he will very much be missed.

2David_Horowitz_(5450881229) copy

David Horowitz: The Most Effective Conservative Of His Generation

Ben Shapiro

Communism

Conservatives

David Horowitz

Obituaries

Republicans

If you talk to any experienced and honest teacher these days, from elementary school on up, one of the first things they will tell you is how quickly gender ideology has taken hold. Virtually overnight, students began adopting fake pronouns and made-up genders.
To call this phenomenon &#8220;unnatural&#8221; would be a vast understatement. It&#8217;s obviously engineered. Teachers and school boards are pushing this nonsense on children who are far too young to know any better. The public school system has committed itself to indoctrinating children, in many cases without their parents&#8217; knowledge or consent. But after what happened yesterday at the Supreme Court, it&#8217;s very clear that accountability is finally coming for these ghouls.
After many years of spewing LGBT propaganda with total impunity, school districts will soon face major new restrictions on their ability to pollute the minds of elementary-school-age children. Based on how the justices acted during oral arguments yesterday, “Mahmoud v. Taylor” could easily turn out to be one of the most significant Supreme Court rulings of this generation.
Before we review the oral arguments, here is some background. The case began after Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest school district in Maryland — introduced a new &#8220;gender and sexuality curriculum.&#8221; Initially, students (or their parents) could opt out of this curriculum for any reason. But after a short period of time, the school district claimed that it wasn&#8217;t feasible to continue allowing opt outs. So it&#8217;s mandatory now. To give you an idea of what exactly this curriculum entails, here&#8217;s an image from one book that children are introduced to.
<div id="attachment_911559" style="width: 690px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-911559" class="wp-image-911559 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U.jpeg" alt="Screenshot: What Are Your Words?" width="680" height="446" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U-300x197.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" />Screenshot: What Are Your Words?</div>
This is what&#8217;s apparently known as an &#8220;LGBT storybook.&#8221; This one&#8217;s called, “What Are Your Words?” As you can see, one line of dialogue reads, “My pronouns are like the weather. They change depending on how I feel.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is a nonprofit, reported on some other books that were included in this <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-scotus-back-parents-when-it-comes-to-lgbtq-storybooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new curriculum</a>:
<blockquote>[O]ne book tasks three and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes &#8216;intersex flag,&#8217; &#8216;drag queen,&#8217; &#8216;underwear,&#8217; &#8216;leather,&#8217; and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to &#8216;make sense.&#8217; Teachers are instructed to say doctors only &#8216;guess&#8217; when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway.</blockquote>
When parents of varying religious faiths — including Muslims and Christians — objected to the idea that their 5-year-olds needed to be taught about &#8220;sex work&#8221; and &#8220;gender transitioning&#8221; by Left-wing activists posing as teachers, the school district told them they had no recourse. In fact, the district slandered the parents as bigots. All these parents were seeking was the ability to opt out of this indoctrination. They didn&#8217;t even demand that the classes be removed from the curriculum. But the school district denied their request. So the parents sued.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1581-member-exclusive?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Which brings us to yesterday&#8217;s oral arguments. I want to begin with this question from Justice Alito, because it gets to the core of the issue. Alito wants to know why the school district is so hell-bent on forcing children to read books about homosexuality, transgenderism and so on. (To be clear, that&#8217;s what the school district is doing. They&#8217;re not merely providing these books in the school library. Teachers are actively telling students to read the books as part of class.) The truthful answer to Justice Alito&#8217;s question is simple: The Left understands that, if the LGBT movement is going to survive, it needs to indoctrinate new members at a very young age.
But the school district can&#8217;t say that out loud, of course. So instead, the lawyer representing the Montgomery school district&#8217;s superintendent, a man named Alan Schoenfeld, starts talking in circles about how impossible it would be, at a practical level, for the school district to allow students to opt out of this curriculum. But nothing he says actually makes sense. It gets so bad that, at the end of his rambling non-answer, Justice Kavanaugh chimes in to confirm that indeed, no one has any idea what the hell this guy is talking about. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 alito, whats the big deal" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q118nmS1g2s?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
As best I can tell, the lawyer for the school district is claiming that, because students might talk among themselves about certain LGBT books that are discussed in this curriculum, it&#8217;s therefore impossible to allow students to opt out of this kind of curriculum. In other words, whether or not students opt out, there&#8217;s a chance that they&#8217;ll hear about the materials that are discussed in these gay adventure books.
But this ignores a couple of obvious points.The big one is that, when a teacher is communicating a lesson to a class, it has a very different effect, as compared to one student talking to another student about a book during recess or whatever. The teacher is in a position of authority. It&#8217;s much easier for a 5-year-old to discount something another 5-year-old says, than it is to discount the wisdom of a 40-year-old teacher he&#8217;s told to trust. If this is an argument for anything, it&#8217;s an argument for not having these materials in the school to begin with. Which of course is the correct answer. But either way, it is not an argument against allowing parents to opt out.
The lawyer for the school district knows this but he can&#8217;t admit it. So he ends up confusing everyone in the room with a bunch of doublespeak. This kept happening throughout the oral arguments. Listen to this moment where Justice Gorsuch points out that, in Montgomery County, teachers are told to actively correct students who dare to suggest that men can&#8217;t become women. Gorsuch then asks the lawyer for Montgomery County whether this could constitute &#8220;coercion.&#8221; The obvious answer is yes. But instead of saying that, here&#8217;s the gibberish that the attorney comes back with:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 gorsuch, coercion, correcting himself" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x3sWOLDR4Q0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Justice Gorsuch gives an example where a student says, &#8220;a boy can&#8217;t be a girl.&#8221; And then the lawyer states that it&#8217;s not &#8220;coercive,&#8221; in any way, for the teacher to correct the student&#8217;s comment, in front of the entire class. He then changes his mind and says the opposite.
Even when he&#8217;s not contradicting himself, the school district&#8217;s lawyer managed to make a mockery of the entire case. 
Here&#8217;s his opening statement, for example:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 beginning with mr shonfeld" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkw27dw9T5g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Yes, according to this attorney for the school district, there&#8217;s no difference between teaching elementary-school students about wars, and teaching them that boys can become girls. Telling students about the War of 1812 is just like telling them that it&#8217;s totally reasonable to chemically castrate minors.
One of the ways we know this isn&#8217;t true, aside from using basic common sense, is that there&#8217;s no army of parents demanding that schools stop teaching students about wars. That&#8217;s because it&#8217;s understood that teaching students about wars is not a general endorsement of violence. Additionally, everyone agrees that history is important and useful because it&#8217;s grounded in reality. On the other hand, gender ideology is just that — ideological.
This lawyer was not the only person to embarrass himself yesterday. That&#8217;s a given. After all, Ketanji Brown Jackson was also in attendance at the hearing. And as you&#8217;d expect, she did not disappoint. Single-handedly, she dropped the collective IQ in the room by about 10 points, just by opening her mouth. And of course, she opened her mouth on the side of indoctrinating children, because she takes the Left&#8217;s position on every issue. Behold, Ketanji Brown Jackson&#8217;s argument in favor of mandatory indoctrination in public schools:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 can just go to private school" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-FJrhGbwrw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Yes, you can homeschool, says Ketanji Brown Jackson. You can pay for an expensive private school. Therefore, there&#8217;s no &#8220;burden&#8221; on these parents, apparently. It&#8217;s not a &#8220;burden&#8221; to have to pay more money, and change your child&#8217;s school, because Montgomery County decided to teach LGBT propaganda. And then the lawyer representing the parents responds, and points out that she&#8217;s completely wrong, and many other cases demonstrate why she&#8217;s wrong. And then she goes quiet and they move on.
Here’s one more clip from these arguments, involving Justice Alito questioning the school board&#8217;s lawyer. He follows up on this logic, about how the parents can supposedly just go to a private school. He begins by talking from the perspective of one of these parents:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="009 alito, too bad" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hgRo17KtvU8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
This is what it looks like in the Supreme Court when &#8220;sparks fly,&#8221; so to speak. Alito is making his disdain for the school district&#8217;s argument extremely clear, which is exactly what he should do. They&#8217;re trying to force-feed gender ideology to children, and instead of owning it, they&#8217;re lying and telling the parents to pay more money to find a private school that won&#8217;t interfere with their religious liberties. But the Constitution doesn&#8217;t work that way. And it appears the Montgomery County school district, and school districts all over the country, are about to discover that.
This is not a close case. That&#8217;s why even the far-Left outlet Vox <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250422191725/https://www.vox.com/scotus/409921/supreme-court-dont-say-gay-mahmoud-taylor">reported</a>: 
<blockquote>The Supreme Court’s &#8216;Don’t Say Gay&#8217; argument went disastrously for public schools.</blockquote>
At the moment, the most likely outcome is that, when very young children are involved, parents will retain the right to opt out of curriculums involving gender ideology, or any other extreme ideology that conflicts with their established religion. Everyone can see this coming.
And just to underscore that, yesterday Randi Weingarten, the head of one of the largest teachers&#8217; unions in the country, went on Fox News. And she admitted, right away, that she wouldn&#8217;t read these books in the classroom. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="010 Randi" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/luc0jWbW_HA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
We all know that Randi Weingarten isn&#8217;t saying this because she believes it. She&#8217;s maybe the most calculating political operative in the country, after Nancy Pelosi. But Weingarten understands when the Left is overplaying its hand. She knows that they&#8217;re on the cusp of yet another crushing defeat in their efforts to indoctrinate children, and she&#8217;s trying to soften that blow when it inevitably comes.
Unfortunately for Weingarten, the truth is, there&#8217;s no way to accomplish that. Gender ideology and LGBT activists, as we&#8217;ve discussed many times, are now extremely unpopular. They have alienated the entire country, to the point that they may have cost Democrats the last election. The only way an ideology like this can survive is by targeting children before they&#8217;re able to develop their cognitive abilities. That&#8217;s their only viable play. And in a few short months, after this case is inevitably decided against the public school system of Montgomery County, it&#8217;ll be much, much harder for these people to accomplish that.

Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Parental Rights Regarding LGBTQ Books In Schools

The Lawyers Promoting Child Indoctrination To SCOTUS Were Absolutely Humiliated

Brett Kavanaugh

Children's Books

Education

Elementary Schools

gender ideology

Ketanji Brown Jackson

LGBTQ

Matt Walsh

Neil Gorsuch

Opinion

Parents rights

Samuel Alito

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Virginia

In 2007, when Hillary Clinton was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/us/politics/26DEBATE-TRANSCRIPT.html">asked</a> in a Democratic primary debate whether she would be comfortable having “King and King” — a children’s picture book about a prince who marries another man — read to her second-grade child as part of the school curriculum, she responded that it was a “matter of parental discretion.”
It’s remarkable how far off the deep end the Left has gone in just a few short years.
This week, the Supreme Court will <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentCalApril2025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hear a case</a> brought by a group of parents claiming what Clinton argued years ago: Parents should be able to decide whether or not their children read LGBTQ storybooks at school.
Oral arguments will be heard for the parental rights case Mahmoud v. Taylor, which <a href="https://becketfund.org/media/religious-parents-ask-supreme-court-to-restore-opt-outs-for-pride-storybooks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">originated</a> when the Montgomery County Board of Education introduced LGBTQ storybooks to the elementary school curriculum and revoked its existing parental notice and opt-out policies. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents challenged the school district’s ban on elementary school opt-outs on the grounds that the policy burdened their constitutional right to free exercise of religion.
The diverse coalition of parents isn’t asking the school district to remove the LGBTQ storybooks from classrooms. They simply want the option to remove their children from the classroom when content is taught that conflicts with their religious beliefs. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and that vocation doesn’t stop when kids begin to attend school.
The board of education added storybooks that introduce gender ideology and sexuality to children as young as three or four years old. These storybooks are transparently part of an activist push to introduce children to same-sex relationships, transgender ideology, and LGBTQ vocabulary at a startlingly young age.
“Born Ready” features a female main character who repeatedly claims, “Inside, I’m a boy,” and whose parents immediately start treating her like a boy. “Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love,” Penelope’s mom tells her confused older brother. The book’s author, Jodie Patterson, serves on the board of the Human Rights Campaign, a radical LGBTQ advocacy group.
Another book in the Montgomery County curriculum, <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">titled</a> “My Rainbow,” is about a transgender-identifying boy’s desire to have long hair to fit in with “cisgender girls.” Trinity Neal, a transgender-identifying boy, and his mother, DeShanna, a nonbinary activist, wrote the story based on their experiences. DeShanna <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">advocated</a> for Medicaid coverage of Trinity’s puberty blockers, resulting in the first Medicaid coverage of transgender medical procedures in their home state of Delaware. Subsequently, Trinity <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">became</a> the first minor in the state to change his birth certificate’s gender marker from male to female.
“Jacob’s Room to Choose,” about a cross-dressing boy whose school accommodates him by abolishing gendered bathrooms, was <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">published</a> through the American Psychological Association’s children’s book imprint. APA has prominently <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/02/policy-supporting-transgender-nonbinary#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAPA%20also%20affirms%20the%20essential,appropriate%20youth%20self%2Dadvocacy.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> transgender medical procedures for minors and advocated for so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The other books at the heart of Mahmoud v. Taylor are similarly written at an elementary school reading level but focus on complex adult topics of sexuality and gender identity. “Love, Violet” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">focuses</a> on a same-sex relationship between elementary school classmates. “Pride Puppy” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">instructs</a> readers to identify leather, underwear, a lip ring, an intersex flag, and a drag king in its illustrations.
“What Are Your Words?” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">encourages</a> kids to change their pronouns, promoting confusing pairs like “ey/em,” “ze/zir,” and “xe/xir,” and using they/them pronouns to refer to individuals in the story. And “Intersection Allies,” another book <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">featured</a> in the case, includes a foreword by critical race theorist and activist Kimberle Crenshaw.
These storybooks are examples of radical propaganda written by progressive activists to shape the hearts and minds of the next generation. Kids may not know better than to believe what they’re taught, but American adults aren’t so convinced by these woke storybooks. Only 3% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that instruction on human sexuality and gender identity is appropriate for pre-K or kindergarten-aged children. And 77% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that parents should be able to opt their children out of gender and sexuality instruction.
Just a few years ago, I pulled my children out of Fairfax County Schools because of the progressive garbage they were being exposed to in their classrooms on a daily basis. My family is not alone. There is a large movement of parents who have made the same decision we have, but not every family is in a position to do so. Parents should undoubtedly have the right to opt their children out of reading these radical activist storybooks: Children are not wards of the state.
When public schools add storybooks that teach gender ideology as truth, the state has violated the right of parents to raise their children in their religious tradition, along with teaching them the corresponding religious beliefs about gender, human sexuality, and the meaning of marriage.
The government has no business mandating that elementary students learn radical gender ideology. Fortunately, parents will do whatever it takes to protect their children and exercise their parental rights — even if it means taking the case to the Supreme Court.
* * *
Terry Schilling is a parental rights advocate and president of the American Principles Project.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Mixed race teacher reading to class

Will SCOTUS Back Parents When It Comes To LGBTQ Storybooks?

Children

Gender

Parental Rights in Education

Parenting

Public Schools

Schools

The following is an excerpt from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQQ47DR3">The Wake Up Call: Global Jihad and the Rise of Antisemitism in a World Gone Mad</a>,&#8221; by Israel Ellis (Post Hill Press/Wicked Son).
* * *
<h3>A Conversation on Healing and the Battle for Humanity </h3>
October 7 should be a traumatic jolt for anyone who is a lover of life. We must stand united and resolved to make the world a safer place for the future generations that will follow. For if the lovers of life cannot heal the hate, we are truly lost at sea.
I met George, a doctor from Germany, at a healing retreat on Koh Pha Ngan, an island in the south of Thailand. During the first of our many conversations, I described some of the ideas that would later become these chapters, and in answer to his piqued interest, I went on to explain to him the events that took place in Israel on October 7 and the theater of the world since. We got around to the existential question on what it takes to save our world from itself, and both readily agreed in the simplicity that peace comes from love. And to love is to heal. Our conversation turned to philosophy and the infinity of the cosmos. It’s the kind of place that leads you into these thoughts. I brought up the biblical story of Jonah, the unwilling oracle, who warned the people of Nineveh, who repented without question because they came to understand the severity of the warnings and the opportunity to change. I asked George: Where is today’s Jonah to tell the haters wrong from right? To warn us of the consequences of hate?
The next morning George sat beside me and told me had he reflected on the prior evening’s discourse. “I agree,” he said with slow, carefully chosen words. “Both sides need to heal.” He saw my body tense up at the reference to “sides.” The idea of shared moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas is a typical red herring of those that will not fully condemn Hamas and stand for Israel. George gently raised a placating hand and asked me for patience. “Can you for a moment accept that there is a part of Hamas within you?” I caught my breath.
We sat in silence while I pondered this and took effort to examine George through a different lens. He has no connection to Israel; he is not affected by what happened on October 7 except that he is a lover of life and a healer and he is saddened that this event has happened in a world he deems has turned itself upside down. He lives his life in a bubble, not intentionally, but rather because he was born into it; a privileged Western bubble with all the trappings, including the luxury to question his existence and the next steps in his life. He is a good person. He is not committed to any specific ideology, except for his life and those of his patients. He is not a liberal nor does he consider himself a conservative. He will not take up a placard and join a protest. He believes that all people should live together in peace. He stays out of business that is not his to judge, because he knows his opinion will have no effect on the outcome.
It occurred to me that his apathy is part of the challenge the world faces; he places his complete trust in his government to manage the situation. He corrected me when I suggested this, and instead claimed it is humanity itself that he trusts. “Humanity will eventually find their way, they always do,” he said.
But I disagreed. “This is not a stream of water trickling through the path of least resistance,” I said. “To avoid long and painful consequences, we sometimes must act to protect humanity from and for itself.”
The impossibility of the situation Israel finds itself in is a predicament for the free world. To counter the epidemic of Global Jihad will require some sacrifice of liberty, and this can be a slippery slope. And yet, it has already begun. The UK has the most extensive and sophisticated closed-circuit video monitoring system of its kind in the world, complete with facial recognition and AI capabilities. There are few places left in London where you can escape someone watching you. This invasion of privacy is the compromise for security. But this does nothing to weed out the problem of radicalization by its roots. These bandaid solutions will only drive the Jihad further underground into the metaphorical and literal tunnels. The only long-term solution depends on overhauling how the next generation comes to see their world. Confronting the hold that the radicals have institutionalized over young people, dismantling the arenas for hate, and policing the spread of lies and calls to Jihad, is of the most critical importance. Like the cameras in London, it is not pretty to impose law and confront hate.
<div id="attachment_901781" style="width: 383px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-901781" class="wp-image-901781 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/71mKLbBu7OL._SL1360_-373x576.jpg" alt="Post Hill Press/Wicked Son" width="373" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/71mKLbBu7OL._SL1360_-373x576.jpg 373w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/71mKLbBu7OL._SL1360_-194x300.jpg 194w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/71mKLbBu7OL._SL1360_-768x1187.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/71mKLbBu7OL._SL1360_.jpg 880w" sizes="(max-width: 373px) 100vw, 373px" />Post Hill Press/Wicked Son</div>
I returned to the present with the clang of a spoon against my metal cup. George waited for my answer. Can I accept that there is something of Hamas in all of us? It is a difficult question, because on the face of it it seems a bizarre and hurtful theory by someone who knows little about the situation on the ground. But I have come to respect George, and I knew he was not playing with me. What he asked me is if we are all capable of playing the part of Hamas if we were wearing the shoe on the other foot.
I looked across at George and asked him thoughtfully if he has siblings. “Yes,” he answered, not really sure of where I was going with this. “I have a sister, she is eight years younger than myself.” I asked him if he ever felt jealousy toward her. He assures me that he did. When she first arrived home, the focus of his entire world shifted to her. “Did you ever have evil and violent thoughts about how to deal with that? Did you plan to kill her?” I asked, to his wide-eyed look. Of course, this is extreme, but relevant. “I love my sister to this day,” he stammers. “I would never harm her.” He takes a slow breath in and admits “regardless of how much she may have infuriated me as a young boy.”
In the story of Cain and Abel. Cain, the older brother, is jealous at the acceptance of Abel’s’ sacrifice to God, and in response he kills him. Cain is new to all these powerful emotions, being only the third person to ever live, he has no context for dealing and how to manage these feelings. Leading up to the act, he could not have understood the consequences of his actions, yet as his brother lay unmoving beneath him, he realizes immediately by some intuitive force that he has committed a grave transgression. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he responds to God, when questioned of Abel’s whereabouts, a clear defensive diversion away from the moral consequence of what he has done. There are direct lessons that can be interpreted from this story; the moral wrongness of murder, the accountability, the shame and regret, and the divine justice that follows.
In my own paraphrasing of Genesis 4:11-12, I quote; “Cain, the earth received your brother’s blood from your hand, thereby the ground will give you nothing in return, and you are banished and will walk the earth without home.” This is a very clear and powerful statement that is made, one that neither Jews, Christians, or Muslims will disagree with. A person who commits murder will become a wanderer, a refugee wherever they go. They are Cain, who was deserving of justice, even though no lawbook had ever told him murder was wrong.
What happened on October 7 was a collective sociopathic act that crossed a line from which there can be no return, not just for the Hamas terrorists that came armed with guns and bombs, but for the people of Gaza who supported the invasion and followed in its wake, rampaging through residential areas, pillaging, burning, and committing barbaric acts of rape and live dismemberment. The people of Gaza, everyday citizens, came to set fire to buildings with people still inside. If you poll Gazans today, the majority will support Hamas and celebrate the events of October 7. If you survey the Palestinian people in the lands controlled by the PA, chances are there will be a strong empathy for the Gazans whose immorality brought them to their own destruction. If you poll the Pan Arab world, you will likely find an alarming number of people in support of Hamas. 
The October 7 attacks ignited global outrage, revealing deep-seated hatred and a disturbing lack of empathy. Those who march in support of Israel’s destruction or celebrate Hamas’s violence are morally complicit in these heinous acts. Like Cain, who committed the first murder despite having no explicit prohibition, these supporters cannot claim ignorance as a defense for their actions. And this is the difference between a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, and a fundamentally good person. The masked people holding placards celebrating Hamas and chanting for the genocide of Jews, participating in protests and encampments, these are not just the useful idiots of Hamas, these are useful evildoers for Hamas.
* * *
Israel Ellis is <a href="https://israelellis.com/in-the-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an entrepreneur</a> and the father of an IDF soldier. He is the author of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQQ47DR3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wake Up Call</a>&#8221; (Post Hill Press/Wicked Son).
This excerpt is published by permission from Post Hill Press/Wicked Son.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT

‘Am I My Brother’s Keeper?’: Cain, Hamas, And The Aftermath Of October 7

'Am I My Brother’s Keeper?': Cain, Hamas, And The Aftermath Of October 7

Anti-Semitism

Bible

Gaza

Hamas

Islamic Jihad

October 7

The following is an excerpt from the new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Left-Behind-Rationalizes-Separation/dp/B0DSJZWMDL/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mHwt-SB0BE6Z4SuvSL8BpJGq0o4KZKefFX7qCk2QDecQdDECQ5sacSwFhvoqNh0G.3kO-vQO6MHEer2Op5JTvskog7q0WE0RCOw0_toT-nOM&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1738089124&amp;refinements=p_27%3AAdam+Coleman&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1">The Children We Left Behind: How Western Culture Rationalizes Family Separation &amp; Ignores The Pain Of Child Neglect</a>,” by Adam B. Coleman (Wrong Speak Publishing, April 1, 2025).
* * *
“I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if I go to jail”. 
These were some of the final words spoken by Jordan Neely, a homeless thirty-year-old man who died inside a subway after threatening frightened riders and being subdued in a headlock by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-daniel-penny-found-not-guilty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daniel Penny</a> on May 1, 2023.
Neely had a long 42-arrest history of criminal activity, involving four violent offenses spanning from 2013 to 2021, only to eventually die on the floor of an F train subway car.
While most of the public has focused on his threats before being taken down by Daniel Penny or the racial differences between Neely and Penny, I want to focus on Neely’s origin story.
My interest in sharing Neely’s story is twofold. Objectively, Neely was a troubled man who had a history of terrorizing riders and was riddled with mental health problems. But he wasn’t born that way. No child dreams of being a homeless person on the street. How did Jordan Neely go from an innocent child to dying on the subway? As I hope to illuminate for readers, it all stems from his abusive childhood.
The second reason why I want to share Jordan Neely’s story is more personal. In Jordan, I see something of myself: a child who was abandoned by his father. After my father left me, my mom, and my sister, my entire life was uprooted. By the age of six, I had lived in three states and various towns, residing with multiple family members and spending months in and out of homelessness. My father’s absence and my mother being left to raise me and my sister on her own led me to suffer from depression, low self-esteem, and suicidal ideation. At age eight, I was admitted to a mental hospital.
<div id="attachment_900349" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Left-Behind-Rationalizes-Separation/dp/B0DSJZWMDL/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mHwt-SB0BE6Z4SuvSL8BpJGq0o4KZKefFX7qCk2QDecQdDECQ5sacSwFhvoqNh0G.3kO-vQO6MHEer2Op5JTvskog7q0WE0RCOw0_toT-nOM&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1738089124&amp;refinements=p_27%3AAdam+Coleman&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900349" class="size-large wp-image-900349" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/71DC2oU2QoL._SL1360_-384x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Wrong Speak Publishing" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/71DC2oU2QoL._SL1360_-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/71DC2oU2QoL._SL1360_-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/71DC2oU2QoL._SL1360_-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/71DC2oU2QoL._SL1360_.jpg 907w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" /></a>Credit: Wrong Speak Publishing</div>
Would Jordan’s life have taken a different turn if he had a loving father in his life? Why could he not have been one of the lucky ones, like me, who by the grace of God overcame a traumatic childhood?
Neely grew up in an abusive household with his mother and stepfather. This violence from his stepfather escalated to the point of murdering Jordan Neely’s mother, Christine Neely, by strangulation, subsequently stuffing her body in a suitcase, and dumping her body on the Henry Hudson Highway in Bronx, NY, when Jordan Neely was 14 years old.
In <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/05/03/subway-chokehold-victim-jordan-neely-spiraled-after-moms-death-aunt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an interview</a> with The New York Post, Carolyn Neely, Jordan’s Aunt, stated that his mother&#8217;s murder was the pivotal starting point of his mental downfall.
“My sister Christie was murdered in ‘07, and after that, he has never been the same. It had a big impact on him. He developed depression, and it grew and became more serious. He was schizophrenic, PTSD.”
After his mother&#8217;s killing, Jordan bounced around from foster home to foster home for four years, being left behind in New York City’s dysfunctional foster care system.
After Jordan Neely’s death, New York’s PIX 11 News <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iX7lkOZA_g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interviewed</a> Neely’s foster brother, Larry Smith. Larry Smith viewed Jordan Neely as his best friend, big brother, and mentor.
Eventually, both Smith and Neely aged out of the foster care system, leaving them homeless on the streets of New York City. In the early years of their brotherly relationship, Neely would perform Michael Jackson dance routines on subway cars for money to feed themselves.
“He would do the whole Billy Jean [dance routine], and I would sit there and have the one hat that he gave me for Michael Jackson and collect a couple of dollars. He used that because foster parents were abusing us.”
It is Smith&#8217;s final statement that encapsulates the deep desire of every child: “Jordan never wanted money … Jordan wanted a home.”
Every child wants a home, and not just in a physical sense. It’s not enough for a child to have a place of shelter; they also need a place where they know they belong and are safe.
In various articles I’ve read about Jordan Neely in his teenage years, he was described as a quiet child who enjoyed Japanese anime. However, this quiet child was hardened like the concrete streets he’d occasionally sleep on.
There are only so many chances you’ll give the world to hurt you before you acknowledge your hopelessness by outwardly exclaiming, “I don’t care if I die. I don’t care if I go to jail.”
He gave his stepfather a chance, who ultimately murdered his mother. He gave the foster care system a chance, and they abused and abandoned him. If every adult you encounter lets you down, you’d probably go insane too and grow a deep hatred for mankind, including hatred for yourself.
Jordan Neely’s situation isn’t abnormal, and that’s the problem.
The only reason we even know his name is because of a fluke circumstance of being filmed by a journalist. But if he had overdosed alone on a street corner, he would be just another statistic.
Thousands upon thousands of Jordan Neelys all over America are on the street. They are adults now, but they were once children left behind by nearly every adult they encountered.
I once felt all the rage that Jordan felt. I sometimes still do. My father chose himself over me, my sister, and my mother and neglected me until the day he died. Thanks be to God, I made it, but my successes should never be a reason for parents to risk playing Russian Roulette with their children’s lives.
I am also a father now. And as a father, my job has been to raise my child to become greater than myself and to be a healthy and functional member of society. Over the years, I became incredibly conscious of how my actions and lack of actions could turn my son into the man you’d never want to be alone with on the streets at night.
Raising children isn’t just about feeding and housing them. How we treat them and what we teach them directly affects their likelihood of success in the world.
If you fail your children, don’t be surprised when they fail in our society.
* * *
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Left-Behind-Rationalizes-Separation/dp/B0DSJZWMDL/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mHwt-SB0BE6Z4SuvSL8BpJGq0o4KZKefFX7qCk2QDecQdDECQ5sacSwFhvoqNh0G.3kO-vQO6MHEer2Op5JTvskog7q0WE0RCOw0_toT-nOM&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1738089124&amp;refinements=p_27%3AAdam+Coleman&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1">The Children We Left Behind</a>” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Follow him on X: @wrong_speak
This excerpt is published by permission from Wrong Speak Publishing.
The views expressed in this book excerpt are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

US-JUSTICE-TRANSPORT-FUNERAL-NEELY

Let Jordan Neely’s Story Be A Warning To Parents: We Must Always Put Our Children First

Let Jordan Neely’s Story Be a Warning to Parents: We Must Always Put Our Children First

Daniel Penny

Foster Care

Homelessness

Jordan Neely

New York City

Subway

The Democrats continue to just flail around.
It is truly amazing and amusing to watch them flail.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, wrote a book about anti-Semitism. I usually don’t do “as a Jew,” but, as a Jew myself, the answer is no, Chuck.
You do not get to speak as a Jew about how you&#8217;re fighting anti-Semitism while you green-lit the Iran nuclear deal, made room for every anti-Israel, anti-Semitic person in your party, and refused to condemn the worst excesses of your own party.
The answer is no. Absolutely not.
Schumer had to postpone his book tour. Hilariously enough, the reason wasn’t that he has no moral leg on which to stand speaking about anti-Semitism. The reason he had to postpone his book tour is that so many Democrats are ticked off at him over green-lighting the continuing resolution.
That shows where violence is on the American spectrum these days, when even the Senate minority leader, a Democrat leftist, can&#8217;t face his own constituents in New York. Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/17/schumer-postpones-book-tour-over-security-concerns-00232634" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is postponing scheduled book tour events this week for ‘security reasons,’ as he faces intense backlash from the party base in the wake of last week’s government funding vote.”
That&#8217;s pretty incredible. When Right-wingers cancel events these days, they are doing so because of the violent Left. When Schumer cancels an event, it’s because of the — wait for it  —  violent Left.
I wonder, who is violent? I was told only the Right was violent, that the Right has a violence problem.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2161-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Schumer had planned several event stops to promote his new book, “Anti-Semitism in America: How I Did It.”
Just kidding.
His book is actually titled, “Anti-Semitism in America: A Warning.”
But none of this stopped Schumer from appearing on “The View.”
I have to admit: I am jealous that Schumer appeared on “The View.” It has been a lifelong dream for me.
I have a wonderful life. I&#8217;ve gotten so many things I want out of life, and I hope to get many more. And it&#8217;s a great life. But one of my unfulfilled aspirations as a human being is to be on “The View.”
It would make some of the best TV ever. Granted, it would be like intellectually clubbing a baby seal, but amazing TV.
Yet it was Schumer who was invited. Not because he&#8217;s a woman — I mean, I don&#8217;t know the answer to that, as only he can identify — but he was invited to talk about all of this.
He <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheView/videos/sen-chuck-schumer-defends-his-spending-bill-vote/1011871004224892/">explained</a> why he had not signed on to the filibuster of the continuing resolution: “There&#8217;s no exit strategy. How do you get out of a shutdown? Guess who determines it? Trump. Musk. DOGE. They&#8217;re the only ones, and one of the Republican senators told one of the Democratic senators, ‘You get us, you get us in this? We&#8217;re staying in for six months, nine months, a year till we decimate the entire federal government.’”
That&#8217;s not a horrible explanation as to why he voted in favor of the continuing resolution; if the government shut down, Trump would have the ability to decide who the essential workers are, and then fire a bunch of people. So that&#8217;s actually a pretty good explanation.
But host Sunny Hostin was having none of it. She ripped into Schumer. She was really irate because, as she sees it, what if Trump says “black”? You have to say “white.” If Trump says “day,” you have to say “night.” That’s how it works. 
“Governor Pritzker’s chief of staff Anne Caprara has said the following,” Hostin stated. “The fight going on in the Democratic Party right now is not between hard left, right, and moderate, it’s between those who want to fight and those who want to cave and it gives me no pleasure to say this to you because we are friends, but I think you caved. I think you and nine other Democrats caved. I don’t think you showed the fight this party needs right now because you’re playing by a rule book where the other party has thrown that rule book away.”
“True,” Schumer replied.
“So in my view what you did in supporting that GOP partisan bill that Democrats had no input in, you cleared the way for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to gut Social Security, to gut Medicare,” she continued. “Why did you lead democratic senators to play by that book that the Republicans are not playing by?
So, that&#8217;s the battle inside the Democratic Party.
Get out the popcorn.
But if you thought that Schumer was on the reasonable side of the Democratic Party, I beg to differ. He mocked Americans who want to keep their money, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/03/18/schumer_the_republican_attitude_is_i_made_my_money_all_by_myself_how_dare_your_government_take_my_money_from_me.html">saying</a>, “And you know what their attitude is? ‘I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me? I don&#8217;t want to pay taxes.’ Or, ‘I built my company with my bare hands. How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own, or my employees.’ They hate government. Government&#8217;s a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things. They want to destroy it.”
He raised his fists, saying, “We are not letting them do it, and we&#8217;re united.”
The fists of uniting. Go, go, Power Rangers.
I would like to point out that I agree with everything he accused Americans. Our team built our entire company. The government did not help us. The government provided the basic law and order necessary to the preservation of private property in the United States, and the protection of free speech. That’s everything the government provided.
We built it, not Chuck Schumer. He&#8217;s not entitled to our money. Schumer is not entitled to money I have earned on behalf of my family.
He is not entitled. I don&#8217;t think many Americans believe that Schumer is entitled to that money, or that he&#8217;s likely to use it in good ways.
The Democrats cannot help themselves.
And watching Schumer flail about and castigate Americans while his party is lost in space is pretty darn amusing.

Menu