By now, Daily Wire readers are probably familiar with children&#8217;s entertainer Ms. Rachel&#8217;s history of anti-Israel activism. Things reached a fever pitch this week when Ms. Rachel &#8220;accidentally&#8221; liked an Instagram comment calling to &#8220;free America from the Jews.&#8221; She claims the like was accidental, and insists that she remains a neutral child advocate.
In this piece, Vanessa Santos — a mother of two and D.C. public relations guru — explains why she doesn&#8217;t let her kids watch Ms. Rachel. As Vanessa explains, it&#8217;s not about protesting someone with objectionable views, but taking care about who you let your children grow to trust. If you&#8217;re a parent, you&#8217;d do well to consider her compelling case. — Tim Rice
***
Like many parents of young children, I spend a lot of time thinking about what enters our home.
I’m careful about what my kids eat, who they learn from, and especially what they watch. Children absorb authority long before they understand ideas, which makes early media choices far more consequential than we like to admit.
That is why my kids don’t watch Ms. Rachel.
The popular children’s entertainer, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, burst on the scene with her “Songs For Littles” videos, which help children develop speech with songs and puppets. It’s like Sesame Street for the YouTube age, and it became a sensation during the coronavirus pandemic as parents scrambled to support isolated children falling behind.
But in recent years, Ms. Rachel has become known for something else entirely: her criticism of Israel and defense of Hamas in Gaza.
Accurso claims that she’s a neutral humanitarian who uses her platform to advocate for children everywhere. But her actions tell a different story.
This week, the “Free Palestine” activist came under fire for liking an Instagram comment that said “Free America from the Jews.”
Accurso said she liked the comment by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ms-rachel-says-she-liked-free-america-from-the-jews-comment-by-accident?author=Brecca+Stoll&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Ms.+Rachel+Says+She+Liked+%E2%80%98Free+America+From+The+Jews%E2%80%99+Comment+By+Accident" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accident</a>, mistakenly tapping the like button while trying to delete the comment. Her apology, which included a disavowal of antisemitism, satisfied some of her fans.
I’m not convinced. Whether or not she “accidentally” liked the comment, it’s hardly the first time that she’s cozied up to antisemitic interests.
In an August interview with Peter Beinart, she repeated disputed casualty claims and framed Israel as uniquely responsible for the suffering of children in Gaza, while omitting Hamas’s role in initiating and sustaining the war.
This was not an impulsive post. It was a deliberate media appearance in which a children’s entertainer used her credibility with parents to promote one-sided war messaging.
She campaigned for and has frequently appeared with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who declined to renew New York City executive orders addressing antisemitism and boycotts of Israel, raising concerns among Jewish organizations.
These appearances do not exist in isolation. Ms. Rachel <a href="https://stopantisemitism.org/as-week/ms-rachel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">frequently uses her platform</a> to criticize Israel and repeat false claims about the war in Gaza.
Antisemitism today rarely announces itself outright. It moves through selective outrage, euphemisms, and moral posturing that excuse violence against Jews. When a children’s entertainer begins to deal in this kind of rhetoric, it’s up to parents to take notice.
This is not about canceling a YouTuber. It is about boundaries. There are countless ways to teach language development without bringing activism into the playroom. Parents can choose content creators who are focused on children, not politically charged activism.
Children don’t need to understand antisemitism for it to harm them. They form trust in authority figures before they’re capable of evaluating what those figures stand for.
We’ve all seen how much children love Ms. Rachel. The 43-year-old isn’t going anywhere, and her brand is only growing. The children who love her videos now will grow with her and continue looking to her as a trusted source, much as previous generations looked to Mr. Rogers.
One day, these children will hear her talk about Israel. And that’s where the problem starts.
That’s why my children don’t watch Ms. Rachel. I don’t trust her to help shape their moral understanding. I won’t invite someone with these abhorrent views into my home.
Pressing play is not a neutral act. It is an invitation into our homes and into our children’s developing sense of authority, and that access carries responsibility.
Influencers are not entitled to parental trust. They earn or lose our trust by what they say and do.
Ms. Rachel has certainly lost mine.
***
Vanessa Santos is the founder and president of Renegade DC, a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TODAY – Season 73

Why I Don’t Let My Kids Watch Ms. Rachel

antisemitism

Children

Israel

Television

YouTube

Zohran Mamdani

Like many young American girls, when I was a teenager, I hated myself and my body. I was unhappy and anxious. Eventually, I was diagnosed with depression and anorexia. 
It goes without saying that I was no stranger to feeling like I wasn’t “me” in my own body. No one told me to get liposuction for my anorexia. But when I went to the counselor’s office for my first appointment for gender dysphoria, I left with a letter of approval for testosterone.
Since I’ve detransitioned, life has felt like a roller coaster. The physical distress I experienced going through hormone “therapy” and surgery that drastically changed my body is only one portion of how horrific it truly is to not only attempt something impossible by supposedly transitioning from one gender to another, but to return to identifying with reality.
I was called a patient, but from start to finish, I was never treated like one.
Being a patient requires informed consent and the exhaustion of all avenues of care before resorting to the most drastic option. And yet, from the start, doctors were ecstatic to accelerate my so-called transition without once suggesting mental health treatment. Instead, a counselor suggested almost immediately that I needed to be put on wrong-sex hormones. When I raised any suspicion that this was not the right choice for me, the doctors were far from supportive and made me feel like my voice didn’t matter anymore. I was praised for raising my voice and embracing who I thought I was, but only when I identified as trans. Yet when I voiced a dissenting opinion on the same topic, the response was underwhelming and even shame-inducing.
For years, gender clinics, medical associations, and activist groups have driven the conversation around so-called “gender-affirming care,” but there has never been any long-term testing done to see what the implications of these treatments are on minors, especially the ones still going through puberty. Any time a question was raised as to whether this was safe, or if there could be a possibility of trans-identifying minors changing their minds down the road, it was diminished as “rare” and accused of putting politics over the mental health of these children.
The Trump administration has been the first presidential administration to sound the alarm on these harmful practices. For the first time, federal agencies started to ask the questions that detransitioners had been trying to warn the public about: are these “treatments” actually safe, or are they doing more harm than good?
In his first year back in office, President Trump has elevated the voices of detransitioners like me. Last summer, I had the honor of testifying <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/GAC-RFI-FINAL.pdf">in front of the Federal Trade Commission</a>, sharing my experience of how I was essentially forced into “gender-affirming care,” instead of the mental health care and therapy I desperately needed. Only a few years ago, my voice would have never been heard in the federal landscape.
Gender medicine has thrived in a system with zero accountability. I am proud to be at the forefront of a movement that is finally asking for the kind of accountability that is long overdue.
Detransitioners like me have been gaslit into believing we are anomalies, and that if doctors hadn’t taken action, we would’ve been suicidal or worse, dead. What the mainstream doesn’t want you to know is that my mental health issues didn’t magically disappear overnight once I began transitioning — they actually got worse. Yet the doctors who led me down this path have faced zero opposition and zero accountability — until now.
President Trump and his administration have been a disruptor to the system of gender ideology since day one. His administration has led the charge to make sure that the doctors, experts, and gender-ideology apologists finally answer the questions that have been stamped down, argued as ridiculous, and smeared by those who chose ideology over reality.
One of the first actions President Trump took upon being back in the Oval Office was <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2025/01/28/president-trump-protects-americas-children-from-chemical-surgical-mutilation-in-latest-executive-order/">signing an executive order</a> to protect minors from receiving any sex-changing surgery or procedure. This executive order also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to subsidize irreversible medical harm to children. HHS’s proposed guardrails bar hospitals that perform “gender-affirming care” from participating in Medicare and Medicaid.
Late last year, HHS also <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2025/12/18/hhs-takes-historic-action-to-ban-body-mutilating-medical-procedures-targeting-gender-confused-youth/">released a peer-reviewed, evidence-based review</a> concluding pediatric gender interventions lack long-term safety data and do not meet professionally recognized standards of care. Secretary Kennedy formally declared that these dangerous procedures were far outside acceptable medical practice. This bold move was the nail in the coffin of the claim that “the science is settled” and got gender medicine back on track based on evidence, ethics, and informed consent.
Detransitioners like myself are grateful for the actions taken by the Trump administration that will ensure the safety and well-being of the next generation.
While my detransitioner friends and I may not have been protected, I know that the work we have put in — in speaking out, standing up, and tirelessly testifying across the country — will have a meaningful impact in protecting kids who are struggling with their mental health. I will continue to fight for the childhoods of every gender-confused kid out there so that they are protected from fear, coercion, and medical harm.
* * *
Prisha Mosley is an Independent Women ambassador and detransitioner. Independent Women Features, the storytelling platform of Independent Women, featured Prisha’s story as part of its “Identity Crisis” docu-series, which highlights the irreversible harms of gender ideology. Prisha’s story, including her pregnancy journey, was documented in two parts, which can be found <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/mentally-ill-teen-betrayed-by-health-professionals-who-recommended-testosterone-and-top-surgery/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/a-detransitioners-pregnancy-journey/">here</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article has been edited for clarity.

Trump Executive Orders

A Year Of Action To Protect Kids From Child Mutilation

Donald Trump

gender ideology

Puberty blockers

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Teenagers

Transgender

transgender surgery

For most of my adult life, I thought I knew exactly what my family would look like.
Two kids is the cultural norm now. That’s the number most people plan for, budget for, and feel comfortable defending. Two fits neatly into modern life. Two feels responsible. Two feels safe.
But I didn’t grow up in a family of two kids.
I came from a family of three. And because of that, three always felt right to me. Three felt full. Three felt lively. Three felt like the right amount of chaos and connection. So when my wife and I started our family, I assumed we’d land there — not to make a statement, but because it was the model I knew and loved.
For a long time, that plan held.
But I was also very clear about one thing: I would never have a kid in my 40s.
That was the line. The boundary. A promise I made back when 40 felt distant and theoretical — something older people dealt with.
Then I turned 40.
And a few weeks ago, my wife and I welcomed our fourth child into the world.
What I’ve learned, slowly and humbly, is that many of the promises we make when we’re younger are less about wisdom and more about fear.
Fear of sacrifice. 
Fear of inconvenience. 
Fear of losing control over a life we’ve worked hard to build.
Our culture feeds those fears relentlessly. It is engineered for comfort, speed, and personalization. It trains us to ask one question above all others: What do I get right now?
Children ask a different question.
They ask: What are you willing to give, over and over, for something that won’t pay you back today?
In that sense, kids are the ultimate form of delayed gratification.
They require sacrifice upfront — years of it. Sleep. Freedom. Money. Flexibility. Control. There is no way to sugarcoat that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or trying to sell you something.
But the reward comes later. Slowly. Quietly. Compounding over time.
The first time your toddler reaches for your hand in a crowded room. 
The first time your child looks to you for moral clarity. 
The first time siblings defend one another without being asked. 
The moment you realize you are no longer the center of your own universe — and feel relief instead of loss.
This is what our culture never explains: sacrifice is not the enemy of happiness. Selfishness is.
A society addicted to instant gratification struggles to understand children, because children force adults to play the long game. They demand patience. They require faith — not just religious faith, but faith in the future. Faith that what you are building today will matter tomorrow.
That’s why having a big family today feels almost rebellious.
Birth rates are collapsing. Marriage is delayed or avoided. Children are framed as “lifestyle constraints” rather than blessings. Entire industries exist to convince young people that adulthood is something to postpone indefinitely.
And yet, there is a truth no one likes to say out loud because it cuts against the narrative.
No one — absolutely no one — who loves their kids ever says, “I shouldn’t have had that child.”
People regret jobs. 
They regret cities. 
They regret relationships. 
They regret wasted years chasing empty validation.
But parents do not sit at the end of their lives wishing they had fewer children. They wish they had more time with them.
At 40, with four kids, I don’t feel old.
If anything, kids keep you young. They pull you into the present. They keep you moving. They force you to laugh when you’d otherwise brood. They remind you that joy is often loud, messy, inconvenient — and worth it anyway.
And then there is the gift that often goes overlooked: siblings.
Watching siblings grow up together is one of life’s quiet miracles. They fight. They forgive. They learn loyalty, compromise, and love — not from lectures, but from living shoulder to shoulder.
Long after parents are gone, siblings remain.
They are the ones who know your childhood stories. Who remember your parents’ voices. Who will sit beside you at hospital beds and holiday tables. Who will help one another bury the people who once tucked them in at night.
In a world that prizes radical independence, siblings teach something far more enduring: you are not meant to do life alone.
And yes, one day, God willing, these children will flip the script. They will care for us the way we once cared for them — not out of obligation, but out of love forged through years of shared sacrifice.
Which brings me to faith.
From the beginning, Scripture tells us, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Not as a burden, but as a blessing. Children are not described as liabilities, but as arrows, as gifts, as signs of hope.
Faith teaches us that the point of life is not comfort, but calling. Not consumption, but creation. Not hoarding time, but giving it away for something eternal.
That doesn’t mean every family looks the same. It doesn’t mean everyone is called to the same path. But it does mean we should be honest about what leads to meaning — and what leads to emptiness.
For my wife and me, welcoming a fourth child at 40 was not reckless.
It was faithful.
Faith that love multiplies when shared. 
Faith that sacrifice produces joy. 
Faith that the future is worth investing in, even when it costs us something now.
In a culture obsessed with shrinking horizons, we chose to expand ours.
And if I’m being honest, part of that choice is simple.
I’m trying to make heaven crowded.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Father holding her newborn baby

I Said I’d Never Have A Child In My 40s. Then I Turned 40 And Had My Fourth.

Faith

Family Values

Fathers

Parenting

Two years ago, The Daily Wire launched a kids&#8217; programming platform called Bentkey exactly because of people like Ms. Rachel, who has turned her hypnotic videos for preschoolers into a vehicle for leftist propaganda. 
Bentkey has a different idea: entertainment that is actually for kids and doesn&#8217;t feature any soft-peddling of adult themes. You know, cute characters, fun adventures, and stories you don&#8217;t need to worry will have your kids asking you what a &#8220;transgender&#8221; is. It&#8217;s what my kids watch, and you can <a href="https://get.bentkey.com/">check it out here</a>. 
I haven&#8217;t seen anyone lay out the need for alternatives like Bentkey better than the Daily Wire&#8217;s own Matt Walsh, who laid into Ms. Rachel on his show this week. Here&#8217;s what he had to say. —Brent Scher 
***
Ms. Rachel is a YouTuber who makes videos for preschoolers. We’ve covered her before on my podcast. She’s known for teaching children about gay pride, LGBT issues, and pronouns. That alone is reason enough not to put her content on for your kids. You should not allow your children to watch her show for those reasons.
Now she’s out on a propaganda tour with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Here they are visiting a preschool:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This morning, Ms. Rachel and I visited District 2 Pre-K Center, where we sang and read with the wonderful students and educators. We also discussed universal childcare &#8211; and how we&#8217;re making it happen for NYC! <a href="https://t.co/974M24kt64">pic.twitter.com/974M24kt64</a>
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/2009726131386146938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @NYCMayor/X.com
“This morning, Ms. Rachel and I visited District 2 Pre-K Center, where we sang and read with the wonderful students and educators. We also discussed universal childcare—and how we’re making it happen for NYC!”
Yes, I’m sure the four-year-olds were riveted by that conversation.
You sat down with four-year-olds to talk about universal child care — which, by the way, is terrible for four-year-olds. It’s the city’s way of getting more kids into government-run child care and away from their parents.
That’s really the message here: “Good news, kids. You’re going to spend even less time with your parents and even more time with government workers. And government workers are the best.”
So here’s the debate over Ms. Rachel: Is she a political propagandist? She’s enormously popular with kids and racks up billions of views. Should you be exposing your children to someone like that, given her political messaging?
The answer is clearly no. You should not expose your kids to a political propagandist.
But set the politics aside for a moment. I want to make a more basic point about Ms. Rachel and people like her. I find most children’s YouTube creators to be creepy. As a parent, you need a radar for that. If your instinct isn’t asking, “Who is this person?” then you’re not paying attention.
Even before you evaluate the content or any political messaging, the vibe matters. And while vibe-based arguments don’t work in politics, they absolutely do in parenting. If something feels weird — if you don’t like the vibe—then that person doesn’t belong around your kids. That alone is reason enough to turn it off.
These adults making content for three- and four-year-olds have figured out that it’s an extremely profitable business. So they just keep churning it out.
They’re slop merchants for toddlers. And they churn out slop for every age bracket. It boggles my mind that there are parents who say, “Yep, here’s what my four-year-old needs—some slop. Bring on the slop. Sit down, Junior. It’s slop time. Go ahead and spend three hours watching this mind-numbing, weird show.”
I don’t get it.
The other thing I can’t stand is when children’s content creators act and dress like children themselves. That’s where the weirdness really kicks in. You have adults in their 40s and 50s speaking and acting like kids. Ms. Rachel appears in overalls, sneakers, and a headband — she’s in her 40s. Why is she dressed like that? She speaks and acts like a kindergartener. And that’s what almost all of these children’s YouTuber types do.
Compare that to Mr. Rogers. He made content for children, but he didn’t present himself as a child. He was a grandfatherly figure. That vibe passes the parent check. It’s wholesome, constructive, and edifying. Children can learn from that.
But when you put on overalls and start speaking in an absurdly over-the-top, childish, patronizing way, kids aren’t learning anything.
I went to Ms. Rachel’s page and pulled up one random video at the top. Nothing political. Nothing overtly objectionable. All I can say is that I would rather be stabbed to death than watch five minutes of her show. I would rather jump out of a hundred-story window than sit through it.
If the next regime comes in and they start arresting people like me, and they give me a choice between solitary confinement with Ms. Rachel playing on a loop or being thrown off a building, I’d say, “Please, the building.”
Don’t sit your kids in front of this slop. If your child is watching content that you can’t tolerate being in the same room with, that’s a good indication they shouldn’t be watching it — not because it’s political, but because it’s vapid, irritating, stupid, and bad for their minds and souls.
There are better alternatives than Ms. Rachel — like reading a book to your child.

Ms. Rachel Isn’t The Innocent YouTuber You Think She Is

Bentkey

kids

Matt Walsh

For the first time in decades, the nation&#8217;s childhood vaccine schedule is getting a major overhaul. 
Under the new guidance, issued Monday after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-to-shake-up-childhood-vax-schedule-what-comes-next?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=5&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Wants+To+Shake+Up+Childhood+Vaccines+To+Mirror+Denmark.+Here’s+What+That+Could+Mean+For+Parents">President Donald Trump ordered the department to review the United States&#8217; vaccine schedule</a> in relation to other developed nations, there are fewer shots recommended for kids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now advises vaccines for eleven diseases instead of eighteen, aligning more closely with Denmark’s approach.
Dropped from the vaccine schedule are recommendations for Hep B, Rotavirus, MenACWY, Hep A, and the flu shot. Still recommended for all children — not those who are specifically high-risk — are the vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus (HPV), and chickenpox.
Health officials say their assessment, which reviewed 20 developed peer nations&#8217; schedules, found that the United States is a &#8220;global outlier&#8221; among developed nations in both the number of diseases addressed in its routine vaccine schedule, as well as the total number of recommended doses, while still not achieving higher vaccination rates than the other nations.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been a longtime critic of the vaccine industry. Last summer, his agency moved to fire all seventeen members of the government&#8217;s advisory committee on vaccines, saying &#8220;a clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.&#8221;
He has argued that the government health agencies have for years been a &#8220;rubber stamp&#8221; for the pharmaceutical industry, which has prioritized profits over science.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rfk-to-shake-up-childhood-vax-schedule-what-comes-next?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=5&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=RFK+Wants+To+Shake+Up+Childhood+Vaccines+To+Mirror+Denmark.+Here’s+What+That+Could+Mean+For+Parents">RFK Wants To Shake Up Childhood Vaccines To Mirror Denmark. Here’s What That Could Mean For Parents</a>
The changes, his top officials argue, are aimed at restoring public trust after the COVID pandemic, not discouraging vaccination. 
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible c-link--underline" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
All vaccinations recommended by the CDC as of December 31, 2025, will continue to be fully covered by Affordable Care Act plans, and in insurance plans and federal insurance programs like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Vaccines for Children program.
A press release from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.&#8217;s Health and Human Services said insurance &#8220;will continue to cover more vaccines for children in the United States than in peer nations, where insurance generally only pays for recommended vaccines.&#8221;
As for what&#8217;s coming next, health care providers will soon have access to the updated Child and Adolescent Immunization Schedule by Age (through age 18) of immunization recommendations for all children, immunization recommendations for certain high-risk groups or populations, and immunizations based on shared clinical decision-making, according to HHS.
Additionally, the department is working with states and physician groups to educate parents and providers on the updated schedule. The CDC says it will closely monitor vaccine uptake, infectious disease rates, and vaccine safety.
&nbsp;

Syringe and Coronavirus vaccine

RFK Jr. Orders Major Overhaul Of Childhood Vaccine Schedule

Health

U.S.

Vaccines

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in November, Amanda Prestigiacomo exposes the horrifying new frontier of Canada&#8217;s assisted suicide program.
Advocates for assisted suicide in Canada, where it’s been legal for just under a decade, are pushing to expand the practice to children.
Canada’s euthanasia program, known as MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying), started back in 2016 for people whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable” and wanted to end their lives. It’s already been expanded — both expanding the pool of adults who are eligible and how it can be administered, leading to an explosion of suicides in recent years.
Now, groups are calling for minors as young as 12 years old to be included in the government-funded suicide program. One advocacy group, called “Dying With Dignity Canada,” recommends minors as young as 12 be included in the program, and goes as far as to suggest 16 and 17-year-olds shouldn’t even need parental consent to be killed by a doctor if they fit broad criteria.
The group calls for assessing age eligibility based on “maturity” rather than “chronological age.”
<div id="attachment_993695" class="wp-caption alignnone">
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-993695 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.55.52-PM-786x576.png" sizes=" (max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.55.52-PM-786x576.png 786w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.55.52-PM-300x220.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.55.52-PM-768x563.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-30-at-1.55.52-PM.png 1526w" alt="" width="786" height="576" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-993695" /></div>
Dying With Dignity Canada
</div>
Experts say the advocacy shows there was merit to the “slippery slope” argument made against the law from the outset.
“There is a kind of gruesome, relentless logic at work here, and this is why the logical ‘slippery slope’ argument is a valid argument,” Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and director at Ethics and Public Policy Center, told The Daily Wire. “Once you cross the line of allowing doctors to kill patients, once you cross the line of accepting the basic premise of the euthanasia movement — which is that some lives are not worth living and therefore these people should be killed by the medical profession, then it’s very hard to argue that there should be any limitations.”
The MAiD program started back in 2016, with only people whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable” eligible. In 99% of cases, a medical professional administers a substance that causes a person’s death, which is technically euthanasia. In the other cases, a person will be provided a substance to self-administer to cause their own death, which is defined as assisted suicide.
There’s only been an expansion of these procedures since the creation of MAiD, with massive growth in 2021, when chronic illness and disability were included as sole reasons for someone to be euthanized.
With an increasing number of people being euthanized every year, 2023 data shows more than 15,000 people were killed via MAiD. That accounts for 4.7% of all deaths in Canada. Put another way, about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j1z14p57po" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 in 20</a> Canadians who die every year are being euthanized.
Advocates for including so-called “mature” minors in the MAiD program argue that children need more autonomy over their health care, and note that minors can already consent or refuse certain medical treatments, so including them, they argue, would be consistent. They say it’s about compassion.
The “slippery slope” argument, Kheriaty said, is playing out in real time in Canada. “Your basic premise, your basic argument is people should be able to do this on the basis of one of two things: autonomy and choice on the one hand, or pain and suffering on the other hand. And people can always invoke pain and suffering,” he said. “Who’s to say that they’re not suffering more than someone who qualified under the law, right?”
Kheriaty said that just a few years ago, he may have viewed the movement to euthanize minors as fringe. He doesn’t view it that way anymore.
“A few years ago, I would’ve said, ‘No, I don’t think the Canadian regime is going to go that far to have so-called ‘mature minors,’ adolescents avail themselves of euthanasia,&#8217;” he said. “But now, I’m sad to say I wouldn’t put it past them.”
In addition to the movement to include minors in the MAiD program, there’s a strong push to include people who suffer solely from mental health issues, like depression. That’s set to take effect in 2027. But Kheriaty says it’s already happening in Canada.
“There have been at least a few cases described and reported widely in the last couple of years in Canada,” he said. “I remember one case of, I believe it was a 27-year-old female, a woman in her twenties <a href="https://calgary.citynews.ca/2024/06/04/calgary-maid-appeal-case-advocacy-groups-intervene/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whose sole diagnosis was autism and ADHD</a>, neither of which are terminal conditions.”
“So even if it’s not officially legalized in Canada yet, that psychiatric conditions can be used as the sole criteria for euthanasia,” he said. “There have been reported cases in the literature where clearly that’s been happening already.”
Kheriaty believes opposition must come from the medical community.
“Most people who avail themselves of this have a deep-seated fear that they’re going to be a burden on others,” he explained. “They’re gonna be a burden on society. They’re gonna be a burden on the medical community that’s not gonna want to care for them.”
“And we have to respond, rather than abandoning the patient by saying, ‘Yes, here’s the poison pill,’ or, ‘I’ll administer the poison injection to you.’ We have to respond by saying, ‘No, it’s a privilege to care for you.’ It’s a privilege to walk with you through what might be the final stage of your life — in the cases where someone has been diagnosed with the terminal illness. Or, it’s a privilege to care for you if you’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness and maybe it’s been difficult to treat. Let’s continue to work to find ways to treat this.”
A failure to do so would hurt society’s most vulnerable.
“Assisted suicide is both dangerous and inhumane, and I would say all the more so true of euthanasia, because it abandons vulnerable patients who need help, treatment efforts at healing, or when healing or cure is not possible, they need support and care.”

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Best Of 2025: Movement Barrels Forward To Euthanize 12 Year Old Children In Canada

Assisted Suicide

Canada

Euthanasia

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in April, Matt Walsh dismantles the ADHD scam.
***
At the risk of angering all the people who will scream from the rooftops that “correlation doesn’t equal causation,” like it’s some kind of Scriptural edict, here’s some data that’s worth considering. From 1980 to 2020, the share of male teachers, in both elementary and middle schools, declined from 40% to less than 20%. Men have mostly stopped teaching young children in school. And during this same period, as men have abandoned elementary schools, there’s coincidentally been another major change in childhood education: Everyone’s being diagnosed with ADHD.
More than 21% of 14-year-old boys in this country now supposedly suffer from this condition. The number goes up to 23% for 17-year-old boys. As a result, prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin and Adderall have skyrocketed. From 2012 to 2022, the total number of prescriptions for stimulants to treat ADHD increased dramatically by nearly 60%. Boys between the ages of 10 to 14 were the demographic that saw the highest increase in these prescriptions.
For decades, you’ve been instructed to believe there’s no significance to this correlation whatsoever. As women increasingly enter the workforce and replace men in teaching jobs, we’re not supposed to draw any conclusions about how the behavior of male children is now being addressed. The truth, we’ve been told, is not that a feminized education system has increasingly punished normal male behavior it doesn’t understand. It’s not that schools have lost their capacity to educate male students. It’s not that smartphone use and electronics in general have become distractions teachers have been unable to control.
Instead, we’ve been led to believe that, in truth, boys have suddenly become afflicted with a severe psychological disorder. There’s no objective, biologically-based test for this disorder, nor can anyone point to a specific gene or pathogen that might cause it. But the scientific consensus, for many years now, has nevertheless been clear: ADHD, they’ve said again and again, is real. And the way to treat it is to give children “speed,” in the form of drugs like Ritalin.
As I’ve said repeatedly, for over a decade, the science behind the theory of ADHD isn’t simply underbaked or inadequate. It’s comically useless, to the point that it’s obviously fraudulent. To give just one of many examples, a few years ago, researchers at the University of Central Florida conducted a grand experiment where they put a child in front of a computer. Here’s what it looked like:
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The researchers showed a child two separate videos. One of the videos was about mathematics, and it involved a teacher talking about basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The other video was the pod-racing scene from “Star Wars.” And, as you can see from the videos, the child became bored during the math lecture. He starts spinning in his chair and fidgeting. On the other hand, when the child is shown something more engaging, he suddenly stops fidgeting. He’s actually paying attention to “Star Wars.”
Unless you’re an alien who’s never interacted with a child, and was never a child yourself, there is nothing remotely interesting or surprising about this footage. It’s exactly what you’d expect a normal, healthy child to do. But in the academic world, which exists to sell pharmaceuticals to children, this was a groundbreaking experiment. The footage was the basis for a peer-reviewed article in the“Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.”
The University of Central Florida bragged about their findings with this headline: “ADHD Kids Can Be Still – If They’re Not Straining Their Brains.” Their conclusion was that ADHD is a nefarious disorder that’s only triggered by “cognitively demanding tasks,” and that we need to be vigilant of ADHD whenever children have to use their brains in specific ways.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1576-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
In reality, of course, the University of Central Florida had simply discovered the concept of “boredom.” That’s all they accomplished. It’d be like discovering that children prefer ice cream to broccoli, and then announcing you’ve identified a major new psychiatric disorder. It’s exactly like doing a study to discover that children are more excited about opening presents on Christmas than they are about doing their chores, and then concluding that there must be some previously undetected mental illness infecting every child on Earth.
Multiply this garbage study by about ten million, and you get the sum and substance of “ADHD research” over the past few decades. None of it is legitimate. As a result, we’ve all been waiting for the moment when, at long last, the medical establishment and mainstream media will finally acknowledge that none of this science is legitimate — because when that happens, millions of children will be spared these damaging and grossly unnecessary ADHD drugs.
This week that moment has belatedly arrived.
The New York Times Magazine has just published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lengthy article</a> entitled: “Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong?”
It’s important to note, at the outset, that this article is not the result of some new discovery in the field of ADHD. There hasn’t been any new, groundbreaking research. Instead, the piece is a collection of existing studies about ADHD — some of them dating back more than a decade — along with testimony from researchers who, in the past, were some of the leading voices promoting ADHD medications. Now these researchers would like you to know that they’ve changed their minds because, after thinking about things for a while, they realize they were completely wrong.
The article opens by discussing a researcher named James Swanson, who conducted a famous experiment in the 1990s that tracked three groups of students over a long period of time. One group of students received drugs for their alleged ADHD. Another group received “behavioral training.” And a third group didn’t receive any kind of treatment. After a little over a year, the study supposedly showed that the kids who received Ritalin were doing a lot better than any other group. This study immediately became a major national news story. It was sold as proof that Ritalin works and that ADHD is real. And researchers like Swanson became highly-paid consultants for the pharmaceutical industry, shilling ADHD drugs. So everyone was happy. This is in spite of the fact that, even if the drugs really did improve a child’s behavior or academic performance, that in and of itself doesn’t prove that he has a disorder. Steroids improve athletic performance, but that doesn’t mean that a child who lacks athletic skill is disordered. Just because a drug enhances performance doesn’t make it a legitimate medication. But, it turns out, these drugs don’t even do that much.
As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now admits</a>, the researchers understood very quickly that their narrative was false:
<blockquote>As time passed, Swanson began to grow uneasy. He and his colleagues were continuing to follow the almost 600 children in the M.T.A. study, and by the mid-2000s, they realized that the new data they were collecting was telling a different — and less hopeful — story than the one they initially reported. It was still true that after 14 months of treatment, the children taking Ritalin behaved better than those in the other groups. But by 36 months, that advantage had faded completely, and children in every group, including the comparison group, displayed exactly the same level of symptoms. Swanson is now 80 and close to the end of his career, and when he talks about his life’s work, he sounds troubled — not just about the M.T.A. results but about the state of the A.D.H.D. field in general. ‘There are things about the way we do this work,” he told me, ‘that just are definitely wrong.’</blockquote>
In other words, now that he’s 80, this researcher — who played a vital role in the mass-prescribing of ADHD drugs — has no problem going on the record and explaining that the so-called “science” on ADHD is essentially meaningless.
In the end, we’re not correcting any kind of disorder in the brain. We’re not providing a long-term solution to a medical problem. We’re just giving children amphetamines, which have the predictable effect of artificially stimulating their brains so that they seem less bored — while introducing a whole host of catastrophic side effects that we’ll discuss in a moment. And like all drug highs, eventually it stops working, and reality sets in.
The “top scientists” are all admitting this now. It’s not just James Swanson who’s recanting his old research on ADHD. For example, in 2017, a Dutch neuroscientist named Martine Hoogman announced that she had discovered evidence confirming that ADHD is a real, observable disorder that’s reflected in human biology.
She stated at the time:
<blockquote>We confirm, with high-powered analysis, that patients with A.D.H.D. have altered brains; therefore A.D.H.D. is a disorder of the brain.</blockquote>
That’s what this researcher found with her “high-powered analysis” less than a decade ago. That was her statement. But now, this same neuroscientist is admitting that her data showed something completely different. This is again from the reporter who wrote this week’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Times article</a>:
<blockquote>When I interviewed Hoogman by email recently, I was surprised to learn that she now wishes she could have revised that statement. ‘Back then, we emphasized the differences that we found (although small), but you can also conclude that the sub-cortical and cortical volumes of people with A.D.H.D. and those without A.D.H.D. are almost identical,’ she wrote. In retrospect, she added, it wasn’t fitting to conclude from her findings that A.D.H.D. is a brain disorder. ‘The A.D.H.D. neurobiology is so much more complex than that.’</blockquote>
So here we have a leading “expert” who claimed, in 2017, that her research proved that ADHD alters the brains. And now, via email with a New York Times reporter, she casually admits that her research showed that the brains of people who are diagnosed with ADHD are “almost identical” to everyone else. To call this a walkback would be a massive understatement. These people are completely abandoning everything they’ve been saying with absolute certainty. And yet their research is still used by believers in ADHD to support their theory — even though the actual researchers themselves no longer stand by it.
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To be clear, it wasn’t just this one scientist. Dozens of leading “experts” pushed the idea that ADHD is a symptom of observable, physical issues in the brain. They even published a consensus statement claiming that a single gene caused ADHD, and that ADHD patients had less brain matter and less electrical activity in their brain. None of this was actually true. When they ran experiments to prove this was true, they got the opposite result — but they pretended otherwise at the time. That’s what this Dutch scientist is now admitting to.
It’s impossible to measure the full extent of the damage that’s been done to millions of young children as a result of this fraud.
Here’s just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one metric</a>, citing the MTA Study:
<blockquote>Children who took Ritalin for an extended period grew less quickly than the non-medicated children did. By the end of those 36 months, subjects who had consistently taken stimulant medication were, on average, more than an inch shorter than the ones who had never received medication. Many of the scientists in the M.T.A. group assumed that this height suppression in childhood would be temporary — that the shorter children would catch up during adolescence — but when data was collected again nine years after the initial experiment, the height gap remained. … Amphetamines can be powerfully addictive, and last year, a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that even a medium-strength daily dose of Adderall more than tripled a patient’s likelihood of developing psychosis or mania.</blockquote>
Yes, we have drastically increased the risk of permanently destroying children’s brains and bodies based entirely on junk science. And that’s just what The New York Times is willing to admit now. Give them another 20 years, and they’ll tell you all about the effects that amphetamines have on the heart, as well. All of this data already exists, of course. They’re just refusing to tell you about it.
To be fair, there is one study that the Times cites that’s actually recent. Here’s the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">groundbreaking insight</a> that the new “MTA” study has uncovered:
<blockquote>Last October, the M.T.A. group published a new study that explored how A.D.H.D. symptoms in M.T.A. participants changed over the course of their childhood and young adulthood. In contrast to the categorical model of A.D.H.D. — you either have it or you don’t — the researchers showed that for most subjects, their symptoms and level of impairment in fact fluctuated over the years, often quite substantially. Only about 11 percent of the children who entered the study with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis experienced the symptoms consistently year after year.</blockquote>
This is something you don’t need an “MTA group” or a controlled, high-budget study to realize. Any parent could have told you this. Anyone with common sense could have told you this.
Everyone — whether they have children or not — intuitively understands that children go through phases. We don’t need to administer psychoactive drugs every time they go through a phase we don’t like. And we all know that it didn’t really take decades for leading scientific experts to come to this conclusion. They knew it all along. But they had a financial incentive to say otherwise. Only now that the situation has devolved into total absurdity — now that we’re supposed to pretend that 25% of teenagers suffer from this diagnosis — are some of these experts finally telling the truth.
They’re also finally admitting that, in reality, the cure for ADHD is simply doing things that are interesting. That’s it. It turns out that, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Times</a>, ADHD patients suddenly lost their symptoms when they started doing things that actually interested them:
<blockquote>A hairstylist told the researchers that her inability to concentrate in school vanished when she began studying hair.. … A young man who was training to be an auto technician said that in his new career, his A.D.H.D. was no longer an issue. … Patients’ symptoms tended to improve, rather than worsen, during times of higher ‘environmental demands’ — periods of more responsibility and busier schedules. … Jobs or college courses that were demanding and interesting helped alleviate their symptoms. And as their symptoms lifted, they changed the way they thought about themselves.</blockquote>
Imagine that. It turns out that people become bored when you talk to them about something they’re not interested in. And they become more engaged when you talk about things they find interesting. This is the cutting edge of the science on ADHD medication. They’re figuring out things that anyone with ten brain cells could have told you a long time ago. I have gone through this myself. I was a terrible student in school. I could have easily been diagnosed with ADHD if my parents wanted to go that route, which, thankfully, they didn’t. But even though I couldn’t complete a school assignment to save my life, now, as an adult, I write the word count equivalent of two or three chapters of a book every single week while preparing for my show. I also read all the time and enjoy learning new things. What accounts for the change? Did my “ADHD” wear off? No, for one thing, I grew older and became more mature and more disciplined. For another thing, I enjoy what I do now and I’m interested in it. It’s not that complicated. But the medical field has treated it that way for decades.
This whole thing has obviously become something of a pattern in the field of modern medicine. In the last few years we’ve learned — or at least, the people who hadn’t been paying close attention learned — that the chemical imbalance theory of depression was a lie, gender affirming care was a lie, the claim about how lockdowns wouldn’t hurt children was a lie, and now ADHD is a lie. At this point, you have to ask: Why would anyone trust the psychiatric industry ever again? These are not lies of little consequence. Millions of people, especially children, have been hurt.
The only winner in this process, as always, has been the pharmaceutical industry, which has convinced millions of parents to buy their drugs and medicalize a completely normal part of the human condition. These are all points that some of us have been making for years, even decades. We were shouted down as science deniers. Now we get the inevitable missive in some corporate media outlet unceremoniously announcing that the people they defamed and insulted were actually right all along.
That’s what this New York Times article amounts to. I get no pleasure out of reporting on it. I find it infuriating. All you can do, going forward, is to treat the self-described experts in the field of psychiatry with maximum contempt and skepticism, especially when they’re trying to convince you to drug yourself or your child. Just be prepared for the inevitable backlash that will follow when you don’t go along with the next wonder drug they’re pushing for you or your child. First, they’ll call you a science denier. Then, they’ll try to censor you on social media. And then, many years later, without giving away a dime of the money they’ve made from their fraud or suffering any consequences whatsoever, they’ll tell The New York Times that you were right all along.

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Best Of 2025: The ‘Experts’ Are Finally Admitting That ADHD Is A Scam

Mental Illness

Actor Kirk Cameron has spent the last several years bravely engaging in the culture war. 
Despite a history in Hollywood, however, the “Growing Pains” alum has been doing battle in public libraries. In an interview with The Daily Wire&#8217;s “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251224-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Morning Wire</a>” released on Wednesday, Cameron discussed why he believes the fight begins with young people.
Cameron said it was becoming a father and that really got him thinking about these issues. “Once you become a dad, and now I’m a grandfather, I’m beginning to think legacy,” he told Morning Wire. “I’m beginning to think of how can I help my children succeed and win.”
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For Cameron, that meant investing in “the moral spiritual health of my children and my grandchildren” by creating content that does not “bend with the political winds.” He pointed to beloved figures like Mr. Rogers and asked, “Who’s our guy today who’s gonna do that?&#8230; If not me, then who?”
This inspired Cameron to launch Brave Books and the children’s television series “Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk.” He described reception as divided along the Right and Left political spectrum. 
“Well, it depends on who you ask,” Cameron said of the reception. “The drag queens don’t like the books much. And the libraries that support progressive agendas don’t like me entering much.”
Cameron recounted being denied access to roughly 50 public libraries, including those that host drag queen story hours, because, he was told their “values don’t align.” 
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“I thought the rules were… diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he said. “Why do you exclude me? Why not diversity of thought instead of this monoculture that the kids are getting?”
When libraries ultimately reversed course after being threatened with legal action, Cameron said the response from families was overwhelming. “Thousands of parents and grandparents showed up and said, ‘Thank you. We don’t want this other stuff, but we’re being marginalized and silenced.’”
Critics often frame Christian values as inherently discriminatory. Cameron rejected that premise outright. “Every view is inherently discriminatory,” he said, “particularly the progressive inclusive view, as I experienced.”
The TV star quipped that he’s been “run over by the tolerance bus several times.”
“If someone’s coming at you with a sign that says ‘love everybody,’ be careful,” Cameron added. “They might whack you over the head with it.”
Cameron told Morning Wire that the root of the problem is conflicting worldviews. “There are ideas that lead to liberty and blessing, and then there’s ideas that don’t,” he said. The TV star said his own values are “the value set of Moses that’s been around for thousands of years and produced the world’s greatest civilizations.”
Cameron said he’s been encouraged by recent changes in the culture. “Three years ago we were being locked out of public libraries,” he said. “This last year we were invited by the Library of Congress… so that we could read these same books.”
“Whoever rocks the cradle rules the future,” Cameron said of inspiring the youngest generation. “Whoever gets to tell the kids the bedtime stories… you’re shaping the next generation’s hearts and minds.”

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron: Why Helping Children ‘Succeed And Win’ Matters More Than Ever

Kirk Cameron Discusses Faith, Children’s Media, And Winning Back The Culture

Culture

Library

Social Issues

For years, the pediatric cancer community fought to pass a single bill designed to help children with cancer access better drug treatments.
The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act empowered the FDA to push drug companies to study combination therapies that could save young lives. After countless setbacks, the bill finally appeared headed for success — unanimous passage in the Senate, a signature from the president, and long-overdue relief for families who had already waited too long.
Then one senator <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/p/pediatric-cancer-bill-bernie-sanders-mikaela-naylon">stopped it:</a> Bernie Sanders.
On the night the bill reached the Senate floor, advocates, reporters, grieving siblings, and a cancer survivor filled the gallery expecting a rare moment of bipartisan decency. Instead, Sanders objected to unanimous consent, killing the bill’s momentum in a dramatic floor exchange that most Americans never saw coming. His objection was not to the bill’s purpose — he supports it, in theory — but to unrelated provisions attached to it and to his insistence that other health-care priorities be passed at the same time.
“He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who forcefully supported the Give Kids a Chance Act, said. “It is ridiculous.”
“A unanimous vote in the chamber would have allowed the bill to bypass several steps, which typically involve the committee process and rules for debate, to move it straight along,” the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/12/21/us-news/bernie-sanders-blasted-for-tanking-bill-to-help-pediatric-cancer-patients-for-leverage/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">noted</a>. “Given that the bill had already unanimously cleared the House, it only needed to get through the Senate before going straight to President Trump’s desk for his signature.”
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The context makes Sanders’ move look even worse. The bill gained renewed momentum only because of Mikaela Naylon, a 16-year-old dying of osteosarcoma who had suffered below-knee amputation, multiple lung surgeries, radiation, and radioactive treatments. She spent her final weeks — after her doctors told her she had only weeks to live — lobbying Congress instead of resting. Even after she returned home to Colorado, she was meeting with legislators over Zoom. She became so weak that her parents ultimately had to speak for her while she listened. She spoke to Sen. John Hickenlooper on October 29, dying three hours later.
After Mikaela’s death, the House passed the renamed bill unanimously. Every senator but one was ready to do the same.
Sanders justified his blockade by arguing that savings in the bill should fund community health centers and that other bipartisan health provisions killed months earlier should be revived alongside it. By demanding everything or nothing, Sanders ensured that vulnerable children got nothing.
In the end, the Senate left town for the holidays, and the bill died with the clock. Sanders may claim he was fighting for bigger goals, but history will record that when given the chance to deliver immediate help to sick children, he chose procedural purity and political leverage instead. Incremental progress was available. He alone decided it wasn’t good enough — and kids paid the price.

Bernie Sanders 12/9/25

Bernie Sanders Singlehandedly Kills Pediatric Cancer Bill

When Politics Trump Compassion: Bernie Sanders Singlehandedly Kills Pediatric Cancer Bill

Bernie Sanders

Pediatric cancer

Senate

It’s a sure sign of Christmas when we hear Nat King Cole crooning about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. While few of us have experienced eating such warm roasted chestnuts, we can surely relate to seeing “tiny tots with their eyes all aglow.”
When children experience the bright lights of the Christmas Season, they can hardly open their eyes wide enough to take in all the beauty. From living room Christmas trees to sparkling downtown squares, bright, colorful decorations are everywhere. And, as the lyrics remind us, the bright lights are most exquisite when they are reflected in the eyes and on the faces of children, especially young children. 
What do we really see on these precious little faces? What best describes the look of wonder reflected in the wide eyes of children taking in the lights?
It’s joy.
The innocent expressions of wonder on the face of a child can bring joy to all of us, even when things aren’t stellar for us adults. A child’s perception of this light-filled season can even melt the hearts of all the Scrooges in our midst.
That’s because children don’t just reflect the season; they are represented by the central character in the Christmas story. After all, the Christ Child is the focus of the attention of all the participants in the nativity. The lowly animals, the shepherds, the wise men, and, of course, Mary and Joseph. Our front-yard nativity sets may have all of those frozen figurines at once, even though the story itself plays out over a longer period. Just as the Star of Bethlehem lit that special night more than two millennia ago, the bright lights we see today can brighten even our darkest nights.
Yet the message of joy that still flows from that manger came with its own set of challenges, many of which we still face today. The pregnancy was unexpected. Housing insecurity was real. A government edict forced an ill-timed travel issue. The soon-to-be husband was not the father of the baby. Such challenges have the potential to steal joy, not bring it. And yet, after 2,000 years, we memorialize it on our lawns, over the mantel, or in dioramas that dominate our home décor. No matter the conditions of their conception, babies have a way of bringing joy and smiles.
Carl Sandburg once said, “A baby is God&#8217;s opinion that life should go on.” That is true with every new life, as much as it was with the Christ Child. The next generation is the hope for the future of our families, our communities, and of the world.
The story of Mary and the manger reminds us that every woman should be loved and supported in her pregnancy, despite her immediate circumstances. The spark of life within every child in the womb should be welcomed and nurtured, cherished and treasured. Temporary obstacles should be overcome so that every tiny tot has a chance to be filled with wonder and joy at Christmas. Each of us should do our part to help someone near us, or close by us, or maybe even someone we’ll never get the chance to meet, be able to greet their little one with joy and gratitude.
That is what motivates the life-affirming work of pregnancy help in communities all over the country every day of the year. Whether around the kitchen table in a maternity home or through an ultrasound at a pregnancy medical clinic, or in the placement of a child into an adoptive family, pregnancy help provides real help for real needs to those dealing with temporary challenges.
All pregnancies are temporary, even the unexpected ones. And every life should have a chance to make a positive mark on the world and future generations.
That holy night reminds us of more than the value of just that one child. That “silent night” stands as a powerful proclamation for each of us to welcome the work of God when it comes as a baby. We should make way, or “prepare him room,” for “love’s pure light” to shine into, and through, our hearts at this special time of year and all year long. That’s what empowers each of us to light up with joy and sing, “Joy to the World!”
* * *
Jor-El Godsey is president of Heartbeat International.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Florida has scored a significant victory in its effort to protect children from exposure to sexually explicit content, as the state can now enforce its 2023 law aimed at preventing minors from attending sexually explicit drag shows.
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On Monday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower court injunction that had blocked enforcement of the law for nearly two years, allowing Florida to move forward while the broader legal battle continues. The ruling applies statewide, with the lone exception of Hamburger Mary’s, the venue that initially challenged the law.
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The appeals court’s decision follows a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited the use of universal injunctions — court orders that block laws for everyone, even those not involved in the lawsuit. As a result, Florida officials regained the authority to enforce a law passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to uphold basic standards of decency where children are concerned.
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised the ruling, emphasizing that the law was designed to keep minors away from adult-themed performances depicting nudity, sexual conduct, or lewd behavior. “For two years, our law preventing children from attending sexually explicit drag shows was held up in court,” he wrote on X. “Starting today, the law is in effect thanks to a win on appeal by our office.  If you&#8217;re exposing children to lewd conduct, you&#8217;re on notice. We’re watching, Pensacola.”
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
For two years, our law preventing children from attending sexually explicit drag shows was held up in court. Starting today, the law is in effect thanks to a win on appeal by our office. 
If you&#39;re exposing children to lewd conduct, you&#39;re on notice. We’re watching, Pensacola.
&mdash; Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2000671416199389202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Conservatives argue that this is a common-sense safeguard, not an attack on free speech. As Rep. Doug Bankson <a href="https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2023-04-20/florida-house-passes-bills-children-drag-shows-transgender-bathroom-use">put it</a> during legislative debate in 2023, the goal is simple: “Let kids be kids” and protect their innocence.
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The law reflects broader concerns among Florida lawmakers about the rapid normalization of sexualized content and radical gender ideology aimed at children. While critics claim the statute is vague, supporters counter that its definitions mirror long-standing standards used to regulate adult entertainment and protect minors from harm. The law also prevents local governments from issuing permits for inappropriate events and allows the state to discipline venues that violate the rules.
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The ruling may have immediate implications for events such as “A Drag Queen Christmas” scheduled at a city-owned theater in Pensacola. Uthmeier has warned that government entities hosting performances that mock Christianity or promote obscene material could face legal consequences, noting that the First Amendment does not require public institutions to endorse offensive content.
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Ultimately, conservatives view this development as a reaffirmation of parental rights, public morality, and the state’s duty to shield children — the most vulnerable members of society — from sexualized performances masquerading as family entertainment.
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Drag queen with hand on hip, close-up

Florida Wins Court Battle To Enforce Law Protecting Children From Sexually Explicit Drag Shows

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Democrats are looking at 2028 and see Republican vulnerability.
What they see is a 2024 election that — while it was fairly solid as a win for Republicans in the Electoral College — was a pretty narrow win in the popular vote. They think that perhaps they can reverse the tide, perhaps take the White House in 2028 with someone like Gavin Newsom.
Thus, Democrats have shifted away from their 2024 failing strategy, taking the least popular parts of their agenda and moving those to the back burner.
We heard all about equity in the run-up to the 2020 election. It was the centerpiece of the Joe Biden campaign. In 2024, it was again the centerpiece of the late-breaking Kamala Harris campaign in 2024.
You no longer hear Democrats talking about equity each and every day the way that they were before. Instead, they are talking about “affordability.” The same thing is true about radical trans issues. The politics of transgenderism are awful for Democrats.
The vast majority of Americans believe that boys are boys and girls are girls, and boys cannot become girls, and attempts to brainwash children into the idea that they are, in fact, members of the opposite sex, or even could be members of the opposite sex, is perverse. Telling a young kid that you might have a girl’s brain in a boy&#8217;s body is not only gnostic and scientifically nonsensical, it is also terribly wrong to do that to children.
That was the general perception among Americans, and it drove huge numbers for President Trump. The single most effective ad of the 2024 campaign was on this issue from the Trump campaign, and suggested that Kamala was for transgenders while President Trump was for you.
If you talk to people in minority communities who swiveled from Democrat to Republican, this was a major issue because the trans issue — which affected a fairly small percentage of the population, went to fundamental truths about our society.
Could you trust people who told such a basic lie: that boys could be girls?
The answer was no.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></div>
So Democrats have decided that they are going to put that on the back burner. One of those Democrats was Gavin Newsom.
A few months ago, Gavin Newsom was doing a podcast with the late Charlie Kirk in which Charlie pressed Gavin Newsom on trans politics. Newsom admitted that boys should not be playing in girls’ sports, admitting that it was unfair.
But — the other day, Newsom — having been asked questions by members of the Democratic base and believing that he is the front runner for the 2028 Democratic nomination — did a podcast with Ezra Klein of The New York Times in which he was asked about his take on trans politics.
Now that Newsom believes that he has to win primaries in the Democratic Party as he prepares for that 2028 run, he swiveled back into a losing strategy for Democrats. 
“I want to see trans kids,” he proclaimed, continuing: “I have a trans godson. There’s no governor that’s done more pro-trans legislation than I have. No one has been a stronger advocate for the LGBTQ community.” 
The normie position is that there is no such thing as a trans kid. There are kids who may have gender dysphoria. That is a different thing. There is no such thing as a kid who is a boy in a girl&#8217;s body, or upon whom we should be performing hormonal therapies and surgeries that are utterly unscientific and permanently damaging to them.
So when Gavin Newsom says, “I want to see trans kids, there&#8217;s no governor that&#8217;s done more pro trans legislation than I have,” that creates a real awkwardness for the Democratic Party. 
This broke into the open because it precipitated a confrontation with Elon Musk.
America, a PAC founded by Musk, posted the video of Newsom, and it went viral. Gavin Newsom&#8217;s press office replied, referring to one of Musk’s sons who identifies as a woman, “We&#8217;re sorry your daughter hates you, Elon.”
It&#8217;s insane to get personal on these sorts of issues.
When I discuss these issues, I try not to get personal. The reason I try not to get personal is because once you&#8217;re into the emotional valence of somebody&#8217;s family, you have a problem.
A few years ago, I spoke at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and it was about this issue. A person got up who identified as a woman. He started personalizing the question, saying, “My family treats me as though I&#8217;m a girl.”
I replied, “You know, I would really appreciate it if we could keep this on the level of the philosophical and issue-based, because once we get into critiquing interpersonal relations, this is going to get very personal very quickly.”
This person kept insisting, ”No, I know that I&#8217;m a woman because my family treats me as a woman.” And I kept saying, “Please, I don&#8217;t want to talk about how your family treats you because that&#8217;s about your family. It&#8217;s about the broader issue, which is the question of public policy and how we ought to deal with these issues as a general society”.
But the person wouldn&#8217;t stop. Finally I said, “The reason that your family is saying to you that you are a woman and confirming you in your delusion is because they are afraid that you will do something bad to yourself, not because they actually believe that you are a woman. They do not believe that you are a girl. They know that you are not. They are trying to humor you because they&#8217;re afraid of what will happen if they do not.”
This person got extremely emotional and rushed out of the room. It was a perfect YouTube clip, but the reason you&#8217;ve never seen that on YouTube is because I went to the organizers of the event and asked them to remove that from the tape of the event, because I knew that this person was going to be damaged by that tape. It would have hurt him.
Not only that, I then found friends of the person and asked this person to come to breakfast the next morning with me to make sure this person was okay.
That’s because when you merge the personal and the political in this way, it gets really ugly, really quickly.
Gavin Newsom&#8217;s press office targeting Musk over his child was truly ugly stuff.
Musk then tweeted back, “I assume you’re referring to my son, Xavier, who has a tragic mental illness caused by the evil woke mind virus you push on vulnerable children. I love Xavier very much and hope he recovers. My daughters are Azure, Exa (she goes by Y) and Arcadia, and they do indeed love me very much.”
The fact that Newsom&#8217;s office went that low is really disgusting, and shows how the Democrats are going to run headlong into their own radicalism on this issue.
Newsom seems like he&#8217;s trying to avoid the issue altogether. But if he is dragged back into discussing this issue, and if Democrats keep making the same moral litmus test as to whether boys can be girls, especially minors, then they&#8217;re going to be in for a world of hurt.

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