A decades-long drought and population growth has left the Colorado River over-leveraged and in dire need of a new management plan before the water runs out for millions of Americans.
 Negotiations between seven states to reapportion the river’s water have been deadlocked for months, and the federal government is threatening to break the deadlock with its own management plan — whether the states like it or not.
The Department of the Interior has given Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming a deadline to reach an agreement twice, and each time the states blew past it without reaching consensus.
The federal government’s request is unprecedented in U.S. history. The Colorado River supplies water for roughly 40 million Americans. The Bureau of Reclamation has asked the Basin states to cut water usage by about one-third.
The latest deadline passed on Wednesday with six of the seven states agreeing on a plan to cut water usage, with only California dissenting. The Golden State put forward its own plan emphasizing its priority rights over the Colorado River that have been a part of the legal framework governing the basin for a century.
The lack of consensus increases the chance that the Bureau of Reclamation will devise its own plan and force the basin states to follow it whether they like it or not. The bureau needs a plan soon in order to model the water level of the river and its reservoirs and complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the basin. The EIS will inform the Department of the Interior’s long-term water management strategy.
The Colorado River has been governed under the same rough legal framework of water apportionment for the past 100 years, though it has been updated as new infrastructure has been added and court cases have been settled. The body of law that governs the basin is collectively known as “<a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g1000/lawofrvr.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Law of the River</a>.”
The cornerstone of that legal framework was set in 1922 in an agreement called the Colorado River Compact. The agreement divided the basin into upper and lower halves and guaranteed each 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the river. The Mexican Water Treaty of 1944 allotted 1.5 million acre-feet of the Colorado River to Mexico. One acre-foot is about the amount of water two or three households use in a year.
The upper basin, where the Colorado River originates, consists of parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming and is above the river’s two reservoirs: Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam, and Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam. The lower basin states – Arizona, California, and Nevada – are located roughly below the reservoirs and can pull from them, whereas the upper basin must rely on the river’s natural flow.
<div id="attachment_497819" style="width: 569px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-497819" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-497819" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Colo-River-Basin-states-3-559x576.webp" alt="" width="559" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/02/Colo-River-Basin-states-3-559x576.webp 559w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/02/Colo-River-Basin-states-3-291x300.webp 291w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/02/Colo-River-Basin-states-3-768x791.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/02/Colo-River-Basin-states-3.webp 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 559px) 100vw, 559px" />Colorado Foundation for Water Education</div>
The 1922 agreement that set out the apportionment for the upper and lower basins may always have been too optimistic. The compact <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/07/11/running-dry-in-the-american-west/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> the Colorado River’s annual flows at 17 million acre-feet. In the century since, the river has averaged about 12 million acre-feet annually. The compact, we now know, was drawn up during the river’s wettest season in the past 500 years, according to Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Property and Environment Research Center.
In addition to poor planning and population growth, the river is under stress from an extended drought that has beat down on the American West for over two decades. A study <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-west-megadrought-f02449c2db4f0ebeb1557bb39504c62d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> last year suggests that the West is the driest it’s been in 1,200 years.
“In the Colorado River Basin, the period from 2000 through 2021 has been the driest 22-year period recorded in more than 100 years of record-keeping,” Tanya Trujillo, an experienced water lawyer and Interior’s assistant secretary for Water and Science, <a href="https://www.doi.gov/ocl/colorado-river-drought-conditions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Congress in 2021. “The reservoir system was 95 percent full in 2000, but as of September 28th, Colorado River system reservoirs sit at just 39 percent, the lowest levels since they began to fill.”
The water level has continued to drop since Trujillo’s testimony. The strain is evident in the Colorado River basin’s two major reservoirs. Lakes Powell and Mead are both at all-time lows. Lake Mead, in particular, has made a number of ghastly headlines over the past year as its water level has dropped, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sixth-set-of-skeletal-remains-found-in-lake-mead" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealing</a> sunken ships and bodies weighted and sunk to its lake bed.
Officials across the seven states fear what could happen as each reservoir approaches two low-water <a href="https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2022/05/16/what-is-dead-pool-a-water-expert-explains/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">benchmarks</a>, each of which would have severe consequences.
The first and highest benchmark is known as the minimum power pool elevation: the level at which the lakes need to sit in order for their dams to produce hydropower.
The Glen Canyon and Hoover dams produce power for millions of Americans. Should that power be cut off, the worst effects could be mitigated by siphoning power from other parts of the U.S. electrical grid.
The scenario officials are seeking to avoid at all costs, which would likely have catastrophic effects, takes place at the lower benchmark, a condition known as “dead pool.” If the reservoirs reach dead pool status, no more water can flow downriver from the lakes. The effects would be disastrous for cities such as Los Angeles, which <a href="https://viterbi.usc.edu/water/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gets</a> half its water from the Colorado River, and Las Vegas, which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/california-water-proposal-colorado-river-climate/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gets</a> 90% of its water from the Colorado.
Despite the urgency, officials across the seven states have not been able to agree on a way to collectively cut down water usage from the Colorado by two to four million acre-feet as the Interior Department has requested. The brunt of the responsibility to cut has fallen on the lower basin states. The upper basin states are only <a href="https://www.coloradoriverdistrict.org/imbalances-in-the-colorado-river-basin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulling</a> about half their legal allotment of water because the drought has crippled the river upstream.
The lower basin states cannot agree on how to implement the cuts. The two sides on Wednesday clashed to a large extent on California’s insistence that priority water rights, a feature of the current legal framework that give priority to claims to the Colorado River’s water made earlier, still apply.
“[D]espite big disagreements about how to approach this, we have unanimity among all seven states that very deep cuts in Lower Basin water use are needed,” University of New Mexico professor and Colorado River expert John Fleck <a href="https://www.inkstain.net/2023/02/deadpool-diaries-the-numbers-in-the-states-two-proposals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> Wednesday. The two sides both presented plans based on cuts that scale up as the water level in Lake Mead falls.
“The difference is in timing,” Fleck wrote. “California’s cuts don’t kick in until later – essentially a gamble on good hydrology once again helping us avoid conflict by letting us use more water in the short term.”
Officials in Arizona, which has the second-largest water usage in the lower basin behind California, recognized California’s legal claim, but said the approach simply is not realistic.
“If you want to model cutting off most or all of the water supply of 27 million Americans, you can go through the exercise but implementing that on the ground would have the direst consequence for almost 10% of the country,” Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager John Enstminger told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/california-water-proposal-colorado-river-climate/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>.

Lake Mead near Hoover Dam

Over 40 Million People Rely On Water From The Colorado River. It’s Dangerously Close To Drying Up.

Arizona

California

Colorado

Department of the Interior

Drinking Water

drought

Lake Mead

New Mexico

Readers Pass

U.S.

The following is the opening satirical monologue from&#8221;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1116-leftist-racism-kills" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show.</a>&#8220;
The central purpose of this podcast is to bring the people of our nation together and heal the wounds of our divisions through compassion and understanding. Not really. But it’s fun to play pretend.
And sometimes, I know, in the heat of our political disagreements, it can begin to seem that those on the left side of the political aisle are nothing more than a degraded and self-deceived coven of moral deviants wallowing in the muck of their perversity while inventing lunatic theories to explain away their demonic evil, as they’re egged on to heights of hysterical irrationality by scheming leaders who expertly play the keyboard of their emotional disorders to convince them that virtue lies in destructive policies that fill politicians&#8217; pockets with the hard-earned money of better men, at the same time increasing the power of a corrupt government until American freedom is gone and humanity is plunged into a thousand years of darkness before it can even attempt to relight the sacred flame of liberty.
But when you calm down and step back a little, you can begin to see that leftists have some good points too. Some of them wear very attractive socks. And some of their women have pretty names like … Honoria … or Jim.
But if you want to move toward real compromise and unity, I believe it helps to take a serious and objective look at leftist philosophy so you can begin to develop a true understanding of what these toxic dunderheads are prattling on about.
For instance, what does the Left actually believe when it comes to gender? Why do leftist men wear dresses and pretend to have periods? Why won’t leftist women bring you a damn sandwich so you don’t have to keep getting up in the middle of the game? Also, all this child grooming? What’s that about? What are they, perverts?
Well, yes, they are. But also, they have a theory, developed by their greatest academic minds and then written down on a lunch tray with a crayon after they’ve had their meds and it’s nap time in the day room. According to leftist gender theory, there is absolutely no difference between men and women, and men can become women if they feel like women, who are absolutely the same as men, so if they do feel like women, they’re the same as men, and can save money on nail polish. Gay men are men who like other men, who are the same as women, so that gay men are straight. Unless they’re trans, in which case they’re gay women who like other women, who are the same as men, so basically they’re men who like women, and could have just started a family without babbling all that gender theory crap. 
What about race? I’m sure you’ve heard many leftists say — Critical Race Theory is not being taught in our schools. And you’ve probably wondered: What is Critical Race Theory, and why do they keep lying about it? Well, Critical Race Theory holds that race is a social construct that doesn’t really exist and it’s all the fault of white people. CRT says that people should be treated equally and should not be forced to adopt white people’s ideas like “people should be treated equally.” Most importantly, critical theorists point out that some dead white people, a social construct that doesn’t exist, used to hold some dead black people, who also didn’t exist, as slaves and so living white people who don’t exist should give living black people who don’t exist money because the dead black people don’t need it and the living black people would like some money.
Finally, there’s the question of abortion. Leftists feel that it’s moral to abort a baby up until the moment of birth because after birth, you can see the baby’s face and can no longer lie to yourself about what you’re doing. They feel abortion is a health decision, although obviously not for the baby. But the baby does not become an actual person until it can dial 9-1-1 and say, “Help, my mother’s trying to kill me.” Before that, it’s just part of a woman’s body. It’s the part that’s a baby, hoping his mother accidentally sits on her phone so he can dial 9-1-1.
Now that you understand leftist theory, I’m sure the next time you see a leftist, you’ll be able to greet him with a smile and a big wave, which hopefully will distract him as you sidle out the door and run for your life.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew Klavan</a> is the host of The Andrew Klavan Show at The Daily Wire. A popular political satirist and Hollywood screenwriter, Klavan is also an award-winning novelist. His newest novel is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Habit-Mind-Cameron-Mysteries/dp/1613163517/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Strange Habit of Mind</a>, book two in the Cameron Winter Mystery series.
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Man looking to formula and picture on blackboard

Allow Me To Explain Leftist Theory

Abortion

Andrew Klavan

Gender Identity

Leftists

Satire

I love to respond to Reddit users wondering if they are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-87-something-strange-is-happening-with-our-egg-supply-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the wrong</a> regarding certain social situations. 
These Reddit posts are known as “Am I The A**hole? (AITA)” and the users are asking the Reddit community if they are — well — an a-hole.
So today, I came across a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/10rhn66/aita_for_telling_gf_that_i_will_not_stop_using/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reddit post </a>that said, “AITA for telling GF that I will not stop using butter?”
Right off the bat, that title made me think he&#8217;s not an a-hole. Perhaps he’s doing something crazy. Maybe he&#8217;s using the butter for all the wrong reasons. 
Let’s review what he says, and then I will make a judgment. Here’s the post:
<blockquote>GF was a vegetarian when we started dating and is now completely vegan with no exceptions.
I am very meat conscious, and only eat it on holidays. I try to avoid animal products in general because of my GF, but personally have no problem with eating locally sourced/humane animal products including meat. I also eat eggs daily from my backyard chickens and butter for cooking. GF and I used to rotate cooking meals. GF now refuses to eat the meals I prepare because I use butter in most of my recipes.
I told her if she didn&#8217;t like what I made she doesn&#8217;t have to eat it, but I feel like I compromised a lot in order to satisfy her lifestyle, and it&#8217;s not fair for her to expect me to make completely vegan meals.
She says I am not respecting her choice to be vegan. She says she can&#8217;t make me vegan, but the least i could do is prepare vegan meals. I told her that I sacrificed eating lot&#8217;s of animal products i enjoy to respect her, while she hasn&#8217;t done anything for me. Such as eating my dishes were the only animal product is butter.
I told her I am making meals with no meat, no eggs, but I don&#8217;t like the vegan substitute for butter when I make my creamy dishes. such as pot pie (with fake chicken). I am trying to accommodate but it feels like i&#8217;m the only one giving anything up
AITA?</blockquote>
You are absolutely not the a-hole. 
The vegan here is the a-hole — which tends to always be the case. They&#8217;re very demanding. They decide they want to live a certain lifestyle, then it becomes a cult, and they try to force everybody to go along with it — especially those closest to them.
By the way, it’s great that you’ve decided to respect her so much by eating more of these substitute drops of crap. If you actually look at the ingredients in all these vegan substitutes, then you might as well just eat the real thing. It&#8217;s far healthier.
My real question is, what is she doing for you out of respect? You value her, but does she value you? Will she make you a chicken dish for example? Or, if she wants you to make her vegan meals, would she ever make you a carnivore meal?
Wouldn’t she probably say ‘Oh, I don&#8217;t want to do that because I have now decided that veganism is my new religion — and by religion, I mean cult.’ I think she would.
So it doesn&#8217;t really make sense for her to demand that you not consume butter — which, by the way, is a healthy fat that is good for you.
I don&#8217;t know the vegan rules. I do know there are way too many of them. I also know that if she continues being this strict vegan, then she&#8217;s probably going to end up sick because we are meant to eat meat.
Because I just said that, I also know I am going to have a ton of evil vegan people messaging me and saying evil vegan things.
Anytime I take on the vegans, I get bombarded.
It is a cult.
When vegans hear somebody give an opinion that is separate from their own beliefs, they attack and go ballistic online, and create videos, saying, ‘Oh my Goodness. Look at this person saying they proudly consume meat, what should we do? We&#8217;re all going to attack! We&#8217;re all going to attack because you can&#8217;t be a carnivore!’
Now, if you do eat meat and somebody says,’I&#8217;m a vegan!,’ most carnivores will say, ’OK, that&#8217;s fine. It&#8217;s your life, your choice.’
Not with vegans. Those freaks say, ‘I don&#8217;t eat meat, and neither should you.’
They are little princesses in their own minds. I find them all to be annoying.
To the Reddit poster, I think you need a new girlfriend. If you leave her and you date someone who eats meat, then you&#8217;re going to have a way better time.
Just try it. You’ll be reminded that people can go out to eat and not get accosted by a psychopath sitting across from them, yelling at them for eating butter.
I should also note it&#8217;s good to know where your meat comes from — making sure it’s humane and healthy. I do the exact same thing.
There is definitely a way to be a conscious meat eater, but I haven&#8217;t met one vegan whom I want to be friends with because they are just so cultish and demanding.
 So, Reddit boyfriend, I rule you not the a-hole.

Candace_3b16x9 copy 12 (2)

Reddit Boyfriend, You Need To Dump Your Vegan Girlfriend

Candace Owens

Reddit

Social Issues

Veganism

Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek, Reese Witherspoon, and more were quick to voice their support for the #MeToo Hollywood non-profit organization <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weinstein-accuser-blasts-hollywood-me-too-group-for-focusing-on-left-wing-political-interests-instead-of-victims" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Time&#8217;s Up</a> five years ago, but have been absolutely silent now that it&#8217;s collapsed.
Time&#8217;s Up was originally created to fight sexual harassment in the entertainment industry following numerous allegations against Harvey Weinstein. However, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/times-up-metoo-1ac800e48a96357d7fb29c18848c50d2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news recently surfaced that the time is up for Time&#8217;s Up</a>, after it announced it was halting operations and the group&#8217;s remaining $1.7 million in funds were being reallocated to a legal defense fund.
The collapse for the group started two years ago when the head of Time&#8217;s Up Tina Tchen and attorney Roberta Kaplan were found to have helped then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo handle sexual harassment allegations brought by accuser Lindsey Boylan and 10 others, The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/times-up-metoo-sexual-harassment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a> reported. The group was also found to remain silent when it came to helping Joe Biden&#8217;s former aide, Tara Reade, in her sexual assault accusations against Biden, the outlet noted. In 2021, the two resigned amid revelations the group was found to be partisan.
But five years ago, things looked very different for the group started by founders Witherspoon and Winfrey, who helped the charity gain huge media attention, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/times-up-metoo-sexual-harassment.html">Times</a> noted. Stars like Michelle Williams, Meryl Streep, and Emma Watson proudly showed off their &#8220;Time’s Up&#8221; pins at the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2018/01/07/golden-globes-why-stars-wearing-times-up-pins/1007799001/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 Golden Globes</a> on their black gowns in support of the group, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/times-up-metoo-1ac800e48a96357d7fb29c18848c50d2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Associated Press</a> noted.
On stage at the Globes, Winfrey warned abusers that &#8220;Their time is up!&#8221; and was greeted by a standing ovation. A year later, celebrities donned black and white &#8220;Time&#8217;s Up&#8221; <a href="https://www.glamour.com/gallery/golden-globes-2019-times-up-ribbons-red-carpet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ribbons</a> at the 2019 Golden Globes.
However, in 2020 Winfrey walked away from her Apple TV+ documentary that would have highlighted the &#8220;Time&#8217;s Up&#8221; group citing creative differences, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oprah-winfrey-quits-apple-times-up-documentary-2020-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Business Insider</a> noted. 
In August 2021, co-founder Shonda Rhimes, released a statement showing her support for the group&#8217;s agenda amid allegations about Tchen and Kaplan, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/times-up-metoo-sexual-harassment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NYT</a> noted.
&#8220;The fact that Time&#8217;s Up has become viewed as a receptacle for and the focus of men trying to cover up their obscene behaviors is exhausting to me,&#8221; producer Rhimes shared at the time. &#8220;Saving men, especially predatory men, is not on Time&#8217;s Up agenda.&#8221;
Not long after Tchen and Kaplan&#8217;s resignation, board members Rhimes and Eva Longoria left Time&#8217;s Up, <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/what-does-the-end-of-times-up-mean-for-the-future-of-the-metoo-movement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vogue</a> noted. 
&#8220;Time’s Up is ready for new leadership, and we want to move forcefully toward its new iteration,&#8221; a statement from the exiting board members read, <a href="https://deadline.com/2021/09/shonda-rhimes-eva-longoria-jurnee-smollett-exit-times-up-board-1234827540/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Deadline</a> noted.
In September 2021, <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/eva-longoria-times-up-1235058259/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Longoria defended the group,</a> but shared that there was more work that needed to be done.
&#8220;It&#8217;s okay to make mistakes in the efforts to topple the patriarchy. Mistakes will be made,&#8221; the actress shared. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t mean the efforts should stop. We have to continue. We&#8217;ve been under thousands of years of a patriarchal society. It&#8217;s not going to topple in the three years that Time&#8217;s Up has existed. We have so much more work to be done.&#8221;
At that same time, the organization&#8217;s advisory <a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-times-up-dissolves-advisory-board-that-had-a-listers-like-natalie-portman-jessica-chastain--others-411984" target="_blank" rel="noopener">board</a> quietly dissolved which included a star-studded list of Hollywood&#8217;s leading ladies; Natalie Portman, Jessica Chastain, Laura Dern, Julianne Moore, Janelle Monae, Brie Larson, Tessa Thompson, Padma Lakshmi, America Ferrera, Kerry Washington, Alyssa Milano, and Amy Schumer. 
And all these actresses mentioned connected to the group in some form or another have been absolutely silent since news broke in January about Time&#8217;s Up shutting down operations.
Time&#8217;s Up board member Ashley Judd has remained silent as well about the organization&#8217;s implosion, only sharing in November 2021 that despite the revelations about Tchen and Kaplan, the world needed &#8220;Time&#8217;s Up,&#8221; <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/columns/times-up-ashley-judd-women-in-hollywood-1235118691/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Variety</a> noted.
&#8220;We still need Time&#8217;s Up, and that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re going down to the studs, taking a look at the mistakes we made, learning from our errors and being completely transparent and accountable in the same way that we demand other organizations be transparent and accountable,&#8221; Judd said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to get it right.&#8221;
Judd also promised that Time&#8217;s Up would rise again in 2022.
In January, Judd — one of the last remaining board members — stepped down as Time&#8217;s Up Now and the Time&#8217;s Up Foundation, the two groups that formed what is commonly known as Time&#8217;s Up, shut down, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/times-up-metoo-1ac800e48a96357d7fb29c18848c50d2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AP</a> noted.
During a recent episode of &#8220;The Megyn Kelly Show&#8221; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Z2G-vPrSQ&amp;source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&amp;feature=emb_title" target="_blank" rel="noopener">podcast</a>, the host asked where are all the stars who spoke out for Time&#8217;s Up now that it&#8217;s collapsed? Because, she said, it went &#8220;partisan&#8221; in the people it supported.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="&quot;It Could&#039;ve Helped a Lot of People, Instead They Went Partisan&quot;: Megyn Kelly on Time&#039;s Up Closure" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S1Z2G-vPrSQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;I wanna hear those actresses come out and say they are sorry,&#8221; Kelly stated. &#8220;And that they will fund a new organization that gets back to mission focus of helping anyone whether they are accusing a Democrat or a Republican  who has been harassed at the office. Otherwise they can pound sand.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/crisis-point-metoo-organization-times-up-faces-reckoning-following-attempts-to-shield-powerful-men-from-sexual-misconduct-allegations">CRISIS POINT: #MeToo Organization Time&#8217;s Up Faces Reckoning Following Attempts To Shield Powerful Men From Sexual Misconduct Allegations</a>

75th Annual Golden Globe Awards – Show

Time’s Up For Time’s Up: The List Of Celebrities Who Are Silent Now That Organization’s Proven A Fraud

Time’s Up For Times Up: The List Of Celebrities Who Are Silent Now That Organization's Proven A Fraud

Andrew Cuomo

Ashley Judd

Celebrities

Entertainment

Harvey Weinstein

Megyn Kelly

MeToo

Oprah Winfrey

Sexual Harassment

In an age of rising anxiety and depression in teens, the last thing they need is to be told their problems can be resolved by becoming the opposite sex. What they need is to be heard, given compassion and help to dig deep into their pain. 
We live in a world that wants to put every problem in a box, fix it and move on. As physicians we are anxious to give concrete help and I often feel this way. There are so many ailments that we don’t completely understand and often we just write a prescription. 
This isn’t because we don’t care, but we do fall into the same trap as parents and counselors. We hate to see kids hurt, so we do our best to give any help — even if it’s a band aid. But now we’ve walked into dangerous territory. When kids come to us and say they are gender confused or dysphoric, we are too quick to advise a dangerous solution — medical transition.
Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, director of the University of California San Francisco’s Mental Health Department, said, “Parents say to us, ‘what do you really know about the long-term effects of puberty blockers? Who has really studied the children over 20 years?&#8217; We say: &#8216;That’s what we plan to do.’”
Gender dysphoria is a complex issue. I fear taking children down the road of “fixing” their dysphoria with hormones and/or surgery will deepen their angst.
Several years ago, a young boy I had seen since he was a baby came to me saying he wanted to transition to a girl. He was confused and depressed and it was getting worse. He wore camouflage pants, sparkly nail polish, and one half of his hair was buzzed while the other half was long. My heart sank, because I could list the reasons he was depressed and one of them was not desiring to be a girl.
He grew up as the oldest of four kids. When his mom and dad divorced, two of the younger kids struggled with the divorce, so he stepped in to “parent” them. His dad was a drug addict and sold drugs out of his home during the days and nights his kids stayed with him.
“I would hear men’s voices in the living room after we went to bed. I cringed. They were using drugs. Some of them would say weird things about sex and I was terrified they would come in one of our rooms and hurt my sisters.”
As the years went on, he kept going to his dad’s because the court said he had to. His mother knew this was going on but was too afraid to confront her ex-husband for fear that he might become violent. She met a boyfriend and he moved in. “He hated us” my patient said. “We never liked being around him because he was mean.”
This went on for years. He would often cry when he came into my office and we spent countless hours talking.
By the time he was 12, he came in to see me and his mother came along. She did most of the talking. 
About halfway through the appointment she said, “We need to call him Clare now, Dr. Meeker. He wants to transition to a girl and we fully support that.” From my experience, parents are frequently the ones to push for gender transition, believing they&#8217;re genuinely helping their kids.
I stared at my patient. He looked empty. 
“We’re taking him to U. Michigan to the gender transition clinic,” stated his mother.
I tried hard to get them to wait. “We need to treat his depression aggressively before we consider this,&#8221; I said. 
I also cited research: A 30-year-long study from Sweden showed that 10 years after reassignment, transgender patients were 19 times more likely to die from suicide. And those transitioning from male to female are higher risk.
My pleas failed. He went to the University of Michigan and here is what he told me happened. He was interviewed for two hours by therapists and then spent one hour with a physician. Then, he came home with the first round of puberty blockers. I felt sick. I had known this boy for 12 years and they talked to him for three hours and began the process of changing the trajectory of his life.
This is happening all over the country. Health care workers are well-intentioned. The problem is, they don’t know these kids. They give them a ‘fix’ because they are anxious to help. But giving kids growth hormones to stop puberty doesn’t help.
There is a plethora of data arising on the harmful effects of transitioning children. Researchers, Irene Ericksen and Stan Weed from The Institute for Research and Evaluation meticulously reviewed hundreds of papers on it. Here is <a href="https://institute-research.com/pdf/Transgender_Research--5_Questions_for_Parents_%26_Policymakers_%28IRE%209-26-22%29.pdf">a summary</a> of what they found:
First, “Scientific evidence has not shown that cross-sex medical treatments are beneficial to children or adolescents. The research making these claims is not scientifically liable. In fact, there is evidence of harmful impact. Consequently, a growing number of scientific agencies do not recommend such treatments. Instead, they recommend counseling and watchful waiting for gender confused youth.”
I want to be clear. We are not denying that children with gender dysphoria have legitimate feelings and desires. What we must do is fastidiously examine our response to these feelings.
Second, many parents and practitioners fear that if gender confused children aren’t transitioned, they are more likely to commit suicide. The mantra, ‘it’s better to have a transitioned child alive than one who wasn’t, dead.’
Fear is a powerful motivator and I get it. But, as the study states, “Research does not show that medical gender transition is necessary to prevent suicide. In fact, there is evidence that medical transition procedures may increase risk of suicide in gender confused teens.”
Even if you are a staunch advocate of gender transition in kids, there is powerful evidence to at least pause. Empathetically embrace the child and help him/her with his/her feelings.
Third, many believe that if kids aren’t allowed to transition, they will live with gender confusion for the rest of their lives. This isn’t true. “Research shows gender dysphoria in children usually goes away on its own by young adulthood, if transition is not encouraged. This avoids the harmful effects of cross-sex medical interventions.”
Fourth, “Scientific evidence indicates that the causes of gender dysphoria are complex. Social and cultural factors have significant influence on whether a young person will identify as transgender.&#8221;
The research goes on and on. Here’s the bottom line: There is enough evidence from the most respected institutions around the world that the real and long-term effects of transitioning kids is still unknown. Therefore, it is completely unreasonable to put puberty blockers into children to transition them. Changing a child from male to female or female to male is very serious business.
An article in the prestigious European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states, “Empirical evidence concerning the psychosocial health outcomes after puberty suppression and gender-affirming medical intervention of adolescents is scare.” This alone is justification for not giving puberty blockers. Realize too, that the hormones: growth hormone, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone are not approved by the FDA for use in transition. This is sobering.
The best response we should give to children who claim gender dysphoria is: wait. 
Understand and empathize. Talk to the kids. Tell them why gender transition is not a treatment that should be done on children. If they still want to undergo the transition when they are 25, they will be the ones to decide. But teenagers are completely incapable of making such a life-changing decision. As adults, we must step in and stop such a serious process.
Meg Meeker, M.D., has spent more than thirty years practicing pediatric and adolescent medicine and counseling teens and parents. Dr. Meeker is a fellow of the National Advisory Board of the Medical Institute, an associate professor of medicine at Michigan State School of Human Medicine, and a best-selling author.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

stethoscope on blue wood background

Here’s The Best Thing Adults Can Tell Kids Who Claim ‘Gender Dysphoria’

Here's The Best Thing Adults Can Tell Kids Who Claim 'Gender Dysphoria'

Children

Puberty blockers

Transgender

Question of the Day: Why do women wear <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-86-women-it-s-time-for-us-to-stop-wearing-yoga-pants-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">yoga pants</a> everywhere?
This question was actually partially inspired by my colleague Ben Shapiro — but I have a different opinion than he does, for slightly different reasons. 
Here&#8217;s what he had to say about yoga pants on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1660-if-you-re-black-and-cops-kill-you-the-vice-president-will-speak-at-your-funeral-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ben Shapiro Show</a> today:
<blockquote>Listen, I made this case to my friend Ali Beth Stuckey, who&#8217;s like, &#8216;yeah, yoga pants are fine. Women can wear yoga pants.&#8217; But don&#8217;t be surprised when men stare at you because it hugs your ass. That&#8217;s just the reality. And when I say stare, it doesn&#8217;t mean to gawk at you. But if a man takes an occasional glance at the fact that you have a spray-painted ass, that is not a shock. That is not sexism. That is basic human biology.</blockquote>
Ben made a very fair point — absolutely. Yoga pants are sexier and men will look at you if you are wearing them. But, that&#8217;s not the only reason I wanted to cover this topic today. That&#8217;s not the issue I am most concerned with.
A few weeks ago I was at a dinner and looking up I saw an old photo of a very well-dressed gentleman working in a field taken decades ago.
The photo made me yearn for the olden days, when people dressed respectfully. That nostalgia was made even stronger when my husband and I recently went to the park, without kids, after eating out.
I looked around and I realized every single woman was wearing yoga pants. There were many variations, but they all were wearing yoga pants.
And I wondered, &#8220;Why is everyone wearing yoga pants?&#8221; These weren&#8217;t women who just left a workout — these were women who chose to wear yoga pants to the park. They grabbed yoga pants and put them on as if they were an appropriate outfit to wear outdoors.
Now, I need to be very careful here and tell you guys I&#8217;m a hypocrite, okay? I was that woman for a very long time — probably up until two weeks ago. 
So, there isn&#8217;t any &#8220;gotcha here!&#8221; if somebody digs up a photo of me in yoga pants. I admit it.
Yet something in my mind has transformed and I&#8217;ve realized how ridiculous it is to wear yoga pants.
Why are we wearing these yoga pants? When did this trend start? Did it start when it became trendy to wear spandex? Was it with Victoria&#8217;s secret with the folded own spandex pants?
For me — and a lot of ladies my age — wearing yoga pants became fashionable in college and we never let go of the trend. So, I asked women I know — at work, in my family, my friend groups: &#8220;Why do you wear yoga pants everyday as if they are a pair of jeans?
And the number one response I got was, &#8220;Well, it&#8217;s comfortable.&#8221; The second best response was that it&#8217;s &#8220;quick and easy.&#8221;
Well, that doesn&#8217;t entirely make sense when you think about it. You can wear comfortable jeans. It takes just as long to put on pants or wear a dress. Just because it&#8217;s effortless — doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s good for you.
Which is why I have a different opinion than Ben Shapiro on yoga pants. Yoga pants to me are part of the decline of our culture.
Everywhere I look, our culture has become relaxed, so careless, and intent on putting in as little effort as possible.
This occurs with our manners, our work ethic, and our grammar — as I have discussed in many of my shows — such as where I broke down <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-deadly-sin-that-terrifies-me-most-and-why-its-become-a-cancer-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the sin of slothfulness</a>. 
That is not progress. It&#8217;s regression. And now, we&#8217;re passing it on to our children. Everyone&#8217;s toddler looks like they&#8217;re going to the gym. They are all in sweatpants.
I do believe that how you dress children early on teaches them life lessons. They either learn to be presentable or that it&#8217;s okay to dress like a slob. That impacts their mindset.
The way we as adults dress influences our mindset and therefore our thoughts and actions. In turn, those actions shape our society.
As I&#8217;ve discussed, society is becoming less beautiful. When you see overseas culture — people in London or elsewhere in Europe — and you see how they make a little bit more of an effort, you quickly realize we&#8217;ve lost something here in America.
If we want to change that, then we need to start doing little things that will transform our mindset. And if we practice beauty on an individual level, we will begin to see beauty on an outward external level — and that can shape our nation for the better.
It has to start somewhere.  It starts with you, it starts with you at home. So, I will be the first one to bite the bullet. I think that we should stop wearing yoga pants everywhere. 
I have added this to my list of things I&#8217;m going to do this year — not be that weekend mom who throws on a pair of yoga pants. Small things can make a huge difference.
Humor me: This weekend, I challenge you to not wear yoga pants.

Candace_416x9 copy 23 (2)

Ladies, It’s Time To Stop Wearing Yoga Pants — But Not For The Reasons You Think

Ladies, It’s Time To Stop Wearing Yoga Pants — But Not For The Reasons You Think

Clothes

The Ben Shapiro Show

Women

Mainstream media seemed triumphant to report that Jinger Vuolo, nee Duggar, was renouncing the strict religious sect her parents belonged to and forging her own course.
Headlines about Vuolo’s new book and subsequent interview circuit touted that the former reality star was “free” from the “<a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/counting-ons-jinger-duggar-religious-upbringing-was-cult-like/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cult-like</a>” atmosphere of her former church, which was “built on fear.” These journalists seemed delighted that someone from a strict Christian household would figure out that the whole thing was a trick.
Except Vuolo never said that.
Anyone who clicks on these attention-grabbing headlines or picks up a copy of the 29-year-old Arkansas native’s memoir “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Free-Indeed-Story-Disentangling/dp/1400335817" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Becoming Free Indeed</a>” would immediately realize she is still a Christian, and she doesn’t hate her parents. 
Vuolo did share strong words of condemnation, however, for disgraced minister Bill Gothard and his Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), the religion she was raised in. But even this bad experience wasn’t enough to sour Vuolo’s strong Christian faith.
Fans will recall the Duggar family from the TV reality show “19 Kids and Counting.” The series followed Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar as they raised their larger-than-average brood, including Vuolo, who is now married with two children. The show ran from 2008 until 2015.
The former reality star flat out said that she didn’t blame her parents for being part of IBLP or how it affected her upbringing. “My parents loved me and sacrificed so much for me. For all of us,” she wrote in the book.
“They invested their time and energy and souls into raising me and my brothers and sisters. Their patience, kindness, and love are things I want to imitate in raising my girls. They pointed me to Jesus. So, this is not a book about them.”
Vuolo also discussed some of her feelings about writing the memoir during a recent interview with Us Weekly. She said she “sought to be open” with her family members because the book wasn’t meant to sour those relationships.
“I remember initially, like, when I started wearing pants, that was a huge thing. And so … I felt like it was the most loving thing to do, to share [with my family], ‘Hey, this is why I see this in the word of God differently than I used to.’ And so we talked through those things. And [it was] the same with this book,” she <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/counting-ons-jinger-duggar-religious-upbringing-was-cult-like/">told</a> the publication. 
“I think this journey is continuing every day,” Vuolo explained. “There are days where fears will come back and try to grip me and I’ll just have to think on what’s true. … I think that I really now have a more balanced view of [what faith is].”
While the former “Counting On” star shared words of love for her parents, she is much harsher in critiquing Gothard and the religious rules he inflicted upon his congregation. 
“Fear was a huge part of my childhood,” Vuolo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jinger-duggar-vuolo-describes-cult-like-religion-of-her-childhood-said-she-was-terrified-of-the-outside-world">told</a> People during a recent interview. “I thought I had to wear only skirts and dresses to please God. Music with drums, places I went or the wrong friendships could all bring harm.”
She said this anxiety extended even to benign activities, like playing sports. Vuolo grew up believing that she should only spend her time in prayer and worship.
“I thought I could be killed in a car accident on the way because I didn’t know if God wanted me to stay home and read my Bible instead,” she explained of forgoing sports. 
“[Gothard’s] teachings, in a nutshell, are based on fear and superstition and leave you in a place where you feel like, ‘I don’t know what God expects of me,&#8217;” Vuolo told the publication. “The fear kept me crippled with anxiety. I was terrified of the outside world.”
She also said the IBLP was rife with “cult-like tendencies” which ultimately drove her away from that sect of Christianity. “His teachings were so harmful, and I’m seeing more of the effects of that in the lives of my friends and people who grew up in that community with me,” Vuolo said.
Gothard was forced out of IBLP after allegations he abused young women working at its headquarters came to light. The 87-year-old former pastor founded the religious group in 1961, preaching strict conservative values such as modesty and a strict patriarchal family structure. IBLP had rules against television, modern music, alcohol, dating, and public schools.
While some of his ideas were in line with more mainstream Christian conservatives, IBLP went further to the extreme and propped Gothard up as a celebrity, savior-type figure in the movement.
The Duggars have since stated they don’t agree with many of Gothard’s preaching, but they maintain that his lessons were interspersed with nuggets of truth.
“We do not agree with everything taught by Dr. Bill Gothard or IBLP, but some of the life-changing Biblical principles we learned through IBLP’s ministry have helped us deepen our personal walks with God,” they shared in a February 2022 statement.
“The public accusations against Dr. Gothard in recent years are troubling and grievous. However, our faith in God is not based on following a fallible human man. … Truth is truth, even if the messenger fails,” the couple <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ministry-nourished-duggar-familys-faith-falls-grace-rcna14024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> NBC News at the time.
Now Vuolo is married to a pastor in training. She said while she and Jeremy didn’t have a modern dating experience due to her family’s strict rules, she knows picking him was the right choice. “Marrying him was one of the best decisions I ever made,” Jinger <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/counting-ons-jinger-duggar-jeremy-vuolo-relationship-timeline/">told</a> Us Weekly.
“Jer came on the scene and I think my hesitation was mainly because of him being outside of my world,” the former reality star told Us Weekly of the couple’s courtship. “And that can be a fearful thing when you&#8217;re in that culture.”
In the end, Vuolo said Jeremy’s faith was a huge reason she knew he would make a good husband.
“I remember coming back [from a date] and telling my mom, ‘I feel so safe with him. Like he is everything that I&#8217;ve ever wanted,’” she continued. “He wasn&#8217;t in our setting, which is just crazy to think about, but he loved God and he was committed to the word of God and lived his life according to it. And that&#8217;s where I found, ‘OK, this guy is an awesome guy.’ It&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;ve wanted.”

download 55

Rooted In Faith: Jinger Duggar Vuolo Ditched Her Family’s Church, But Held Onto Her Strong Christian Convictions

Rooted In Faith: Jinger Duggar Vuolo Ditched Her Family's Church, But Held Onto Her Strong Christian Convictions

Books

Duggar Family

Parenting

Do you know how advanced artificial intelligence is these days? AI is so <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/chatgpt-passes-medical-license-exam-bar-exam-after-top-performance-on-wharton-mba-final" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unbelievable</a>, there are now tools you can use to create audio that sounds just like another person speaking in real life. You can essentially steal somebody&#8217;s identity with it.
So on today&#8217;s show, I thought I&#8217;d have some fun and steal my Daily Wire colleague Matt Walsh&#8217;s &#8220;Sweet Baby Gang&#8221; using AI technology. The experiment also raises some potentially very serious questions for our culture, law, and media.
So, a remarkable company called Eleven Labs has created an AI audio generator. A brief recap of how this works: you essentially type into your computer the phrase you want somebody to say via the generator. This technology takes a sampling of their voice and then uses it to create sound bites that sound exactly like the person you are imitating. The generator can read aloud entire audiobooks, speeches, and more.
If you <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-85-the-disturbing-truth-about-you-tube-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">watch my show today</a>, you can hear the spooky accuracy of how much this prompt sounds like my &#8220;non-friend&#8221; and &#8220;arch-nemesis&#8221; Matt Walsh:
<blockquote>Today on the Matt Walsh Show. I&#8217;ll be telling you why I&#8217;m formally stepping down as the leader of the sweet baby gang. I&#8217;ve searched long and hard for a successor and have finally found one. She is the host of my favorite podcast ever and has the best taste in bottled water. First, I have to admit that I was wrong. Dasani is absolute trash. Secondly, I am announcing that I am formally handing control of the sweet baby gang to my dear friend Candace Owens.</blockquote>
Here’s the video, listen for yourself:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Disturbing Truth About YouTube Kids | Ep. 85" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X7Fb655fl9Q?start=807&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It is incredible, but also truly alarming. 
It reminds me of numerous conspiracies about the U.S. government. Some people estimate the CIA has had this sort of technology for decades. Like with other rumors about technology, before the government allows the general public to have it, they will use it to stage their advantage first. 
Documentaries on different historical events claim the CIA or FBI has used this sort of technology to fake phone calls from loved ones to stage certain events. It&#8217;s never been proven, but sounds like just the sort of thing our own government might do.
If that hasn&#8217;t happened before, the new technology available to the public today certainly can be used to do it now.
What else can AI potentially be used for?
Well, harrowingly, imagine it being used in court. Imagine, God forbid, that you&#8217;re trying to get custody of your child. To block that from happening, your spouse uses an AI generator to make a recording of horrendous things — things you never said.
How&#8217;s the court going to know that it&#8217;s a fake? This AI will only get better with time. What ghastly amount of money will the court system have to spend to create an entire forensic analysis team to determine the veracity of recordings?
Or think about commentators such as myself. Individuals like me could lose their entire platform in one day. Somebody could use an AI generator to create a voice memo that sounds as if I am saying I hate my fans and that I am secretly pro-choice. That would obviously go viral even before I have a chance to respond. Even if I do respond, it would be my word against what sounds like my own.
How scary is that?
In the future, how are we going to be able to determine what is fact and what is fiction?

Candace_4b_216x9 copy 33 (1)

Here’s How Incredible — And Terrifying — Artificial Intelligence Is These Days 

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

Show business veteran Chris Licht took over CNN last year, vowing to bring more ideological balance to the network and reverse its <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/i-cant-offend-our-core-audience-cnn-ceo-chris-licht-on-why-not-a-lot-of-changes-have-been-made" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ratings slide</a>.
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” alum canned comically biased “media reporter” Brian Stelter, among other swift moves, but the channel remains a vehicle for Left-leaning news. Commentator Van Jones’ recent CNN column suggesting the five black officers who beat Tyre Nichols so badly he later died <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnns-van-jones-says-tyre-nichols-death-driven-by-racism-despite-black-cops-being-charged" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were driven by racism</a> is a perfect example.
The latter part of the plan isn’t going according to schedule, either, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nobodys-watching-cnn-ratings-plunge-even-further-for-good-reason" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that’s being kind</a>.
Reports circulated that CNN wanted to bring a liberal comedian aboard to sweeten its late-night lineup, hoping the change will restore some ratings glory. Team Licht took a baby step in that direction. CNN will broadcast “Overtime,” the online-only part of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” weekly series.
The long-running show finds Maher covering the latest headlines with a Left-leaning panel of rotating guests. Maher himself is an avowed atheist (remember his 2008 documentary “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religulous" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Religulous</a>?”) and reliably progressive. Few comedians loathe President Donald Trump quite like Maher.
Sounds like a safe, CNN-worthy selection. Not so fast.
Maher is one of the only liberal late-night hosts who routinely hits his own side. He’s started an ongoing, rhetorical war against the woke orthodoxy, slamming identity politics and extreme speech measures from his HBO bully pulpit.
The New Republic was one of several progressive outlets to clutch its pearls over Maher’s addition to the CNN lineup, no matter how modest it may be. The <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/170277/cnn-welcomes-bill-maher-lineup" target="_blank" rel="noopener">site’s headline captures the sentiment</a> – “CNN Welcomes Bill Maher, Who Once Used a Racial Slur on Air, to Its Lineup”
Why single out a singular episode from Maher’s past? His ability to mock both sides has drawn considerable fire from the hard Left. In a way, they have a point.
It’s one thing to watch Greg Gutfeld, an openly libertarian comic, scorch woke platitudes from his Fox News perch. It’s what viewers expect, which doesn’t diminish Gutfeld’s approach to the material.
Seeing an avowed progressive do the same, however, packs a punch. 
It’s like turning on today’s biased “Saturday Night Live” and spotting a sketch skewering President Joe Biden or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
That’s a “man bites dog story,” no doubt, worthy of attention. (It’s also something we’ll never, ever see, alas).
That approach is what Maher can bring to CNN, and it’s sorely needed. CNN viewers may get a glimpse of news narratives kept away from them by the channel’s gatekeepers. Not everyone is on board with the woke revolution, for starters.
Maher also routinely debunks progressive talking points on the pandemic, crime, and more.
Here’s just one recent example: Maher called out climate change advocates like John Kerry and Taylor Swift who, in between environmental lectures, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63KXfwC9BdU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fly private planes</a>. That’s a huge no-no given their massive carbon footprints.
No other liberal late-night comic would go near that kind of banter.
Licht suggests CNN isn’t interested in “<a href="https://www.thewrap.com/cnn-bill-maher-chris-licht-primetime-comedians/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partisan hackery</a>,” and choosing a comedian as a brand enhancement makes sense.
“There is nothing wrong with opinion or perspective, especially in prime time, but it has to be authentic. We are completely uninterested in partisan hackery and ideological talking points,” he said.
That’s true, depending on the comedian in question. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, for example, epitomize comics who spout “ideological talking points.”
Not Maher.
There’s another aspect to Maher circa 2023 that’s worth noting. The comedian throws sharp elbows from his HBO perch, but he does just the opposite with “Club Random.” His weekly podcast, which allows him to drink and smoke weed along with famous guests, takes a lighter look at the culture, and Maher is keenly interested in speaking to voices on the ideological Right.
The goal isn’t another screaming match session but to see where people on both sides of the aisle can agree to disagree.
In short, Maher wants to unite Americans … even if it means agreeing to disagree with folks like Kid Rock and Dave Rubin, both Right-leaning stars.
Does CNN, which loves dousing gasoline on raging cultural fires, want a performer who reminds us we’re all American citizens despite our differences? That’s another reason the Maher addition may come back to haunt CNN. Tribalism sells, sadly, and sometimes Maher doesn’t want to push that anger.
The move is also suspect based on what Licht must do, and fast — reverse the ratings free fall. “Real Time” isn’t a ratings disaster, but it’s hardly the kind of content that guarantees a larger audience. The show routinely lags behind other late-night fare, from Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” to “The Tonight Show” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” although those shows air on free, broadcast TV.
“Real Time” does regularly trounce “Last Week Tonight,” the HBO showcase featuring a more consistently liberal viewpoint.
Adding Maher to the mix could be jarring to CNN’s dwindling base, the folks who think Don Lemon is the ultimate truth-teller. They want Trump Derangement 101, not examples where the Left has overreached in the culture wars.
That kind of content may come as a shock to longtime CNN viewers, and the modern Left doesn’t take kindly to alternative points of view.
Chances are, CNN’s Maher infusion could yield a microscopically better product while chasing away the channel’s small but hardcore fans. That means the current, sorry ratings could get even smaller before too long.
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News&#8217; Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto?lang=en">@HollywoodInToto</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones – Arrivals

Bill Maher’s New ‘Overtime’ Segment On CNN May Come Back To Haunt The Network

Bill Maher

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Woke Culture

Illustration of a blue skull

The Medical Establishment Was Wrong Before And Is Wrong Again About ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

The Medical Establishment Was Wrong Before And Is Wrong Again About 'Gender Affirming Care' 

Big Pharma

Medical Research

Scandals

transgender surgery

In early January, Republicans in the House <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-republicans-to-start-committee-on-weaponization-of-the-federal-government-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced the formation</a> of a new committee to investigate the weaponization of government agencies, like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the FBI</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/cia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the CIA</a>, for potential abuses of power against American citizens.
Dubbed the “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” the new committee will aim to get to the bottom of things like the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-loses-but-lays-bare-fbi-corruption-in-russia-collusion-trials" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI’s connection</a> to the Russia collusion hoax, what it knows about the January 6 Capitol breach, its <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-pro-life-activists-targeted-by-fbi-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">apparent targeting</a> of pro-life activists, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-twitter-files-show-fbi-paid-twitter-millions-influenced-execs-to-censor-hunter-biden-laptop-story" target="_blank" rel="noopener">its handling</a> of the Hunter Biden laptop, and its relationship to tech companies like Twitter among other concerns.
Advocates of the commission have likened the newly formed body to <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/church-committee.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Church Committee</a> of the 1970s which uncovered a myriad of serious abuses of power by the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA. The Church Committee was <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/looking-back-at-the-church-committee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headed</a> up by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) and began in January 1975.
The committee combed through hundreds of <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/frank-church-and-the-church-committee/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thousands of pages</a> of documents, many of which were made available to the public or later declassified. 
The commission discovered shocking details about the operations and proposals of the intelligence community and led to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a fixed term limit for the FBI director, the banning of political assassinations, and permanent congressional intelligence committees.
Though much of what the senators <a href="https://aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0010b.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">uncovered was alarming</a>, several programs drew particular attention. 
Here are the five most shocking charges against the intelligence community. 
<h2>MK-ULTRA</h2>
Probably the most infamous of the intelligence operations uncovered during the Church Committee was the MK-ULTRA program, which involved the CIA attempting to learn mind control techniques and experimenting with LSD on unwitting participants. 
The evidence was apparently so damning that outgoing CIA Director Richard Helms worked with CIA chemist Sydney Gottlieb, who headed the program, to destroy evidence of the project&#8217;s work in the early 1970s before the program was reportedly shuttered.
&#8220;Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people&#8217;s minds, and he realized it was a two-part process,&#8221; journalist Stephen Kinzer, author of “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control,” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told NPR</a> in a 2017 interview. &#8220;First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We didn&#8217;t get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one.&#8221;
According to Kinzer, Gottlieb arranged for the CIA to buy out the world supply of LSD in the 1950s which he then distributed to hospitals, prisons, and other research institutions to research how LSD impacted humans. 
“The CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research,” Kinzer explains. 
<h2>U.S. Involvement In Foreign Assassinations</h2>
One of the areas investigated by the Senate was whether the U.S. had or at least attempted to assassinate the leaders of countries the U.S. was not at war with. According to one <a href="https://aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/html/ChurchIR_0008a.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the committee, the “evidence establishes that the United States was implicated in several assassination plots.”
For example, the senators said they had “strong evidence” that the U.S. was involved in a plot to kill Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of the Congo who was assassinated in 1961. Testimony from one official indicated that President Dwight Eisenhower had authorized an assassination of the leader.
Another favorite target of the CIA was Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro, with one proposal appearing to involve poisoning a box of Castro’s favorite cigars. The investigators found other plots and assassination proposals, which they detailed in a roughly 300-page report. 
In their conclusion, the senators <a href="https://aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/ir/pdf/ChurchIR_5_Recommend.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that at the time there was no U.S. official policy against assassinations, and recommended that assassination should not be “an instrument of American policy.”
Interestingly, a source from inside the intelligence committee <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6317311778112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has claimed</a> that the agency was “involved” in the killing of President John F. Kennedy, according to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 
<h2>COINTELPRO</h2>
COINTELPRO was an FBI <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">operation</a> that involved the infiltration of extremist groups by informants and FBI agents. Aspects of the operations were widely condemned as violations of the First Amendment with the Church Committee <a href="https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee/Church%20Committee%20Book%20III%20-%20Supplementary%20Detailed%20Staff%20Reports%20on%20Intelligence%20Activities%20and%20the%20Rights%20of%20Americans/page/n8/mode/1up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener">describing</a> the program as “covert action” against American citizens equivalent to operations a country would take during war.
“In these programs, the Bureau went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to ‘disrupt’ and ‘neutralize’ target groups and individuals. The techniques were adopted wholesale from wartime counter intelligence, and ranged from trivial (mailing reprints of ‘Reader’s Digest’ articles to college administrators) to the degrading (sending anonymous poison-pen letters intended to break up marriages) and the dangerous (encouraging gang warfare and falsely labeling members of a violent group as police informers),” the Church Committee found. 
According to the report, there were more than 2,000 COINTELPRO operations approved during the program’s existence. The senators said that the operation’s law enforcement had essentially accepted the premise that they could do whatever they wanted in order to protect the “existing social and political order.”
At one point, former FBI Deputy Associate Director James Adams <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/dec/08/fbi-kkk/">told</a> investigators that the FBI had roughly 2,000 informants out of 10,000 members of the KKK, meaning individuals linked to the FBI made up one-fifth of the organization&#8217;s membership.
While Bureau officials told senators that COINTELPRO had been discontinued, the lawmakers seemed skeptical that the program had actually been ended. 
Recently, the large number of FBI <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jessicagarrison/fbi-informants-in-michigan-kidnap-plot" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informants involved</a> in the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and the confirmed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/25/us/politics/capitol-riot-fbi-informant.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">presence of informants</a> among January 6 rioters have raised questions about whether the bureau has resumed similar activities.
<h2>Operation Mockingbird</h2>
Operation Mockingbird was a CIA program aimed at gaining access to the media through a network of journalists, both at home and abroad. According to the committee, the CIA had <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87B00858R000200310020-8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“covert relationships</a>” with 50 American journalists until 1976 when the agency introduced a new policy barring it from paid relationships with American reporters. 
These individuals, alongside hundreds of foreign journalists, provided the CIA with intelligence and “at times attempt[ed] to influence foreign opinion through the use of covert propaganda.”
While the CIA maintained the impact of this operation was wholly felt by foreign nations, reporter Carl Bernstein <a href="https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that the agency’s relationship to the American press was closer than detailed by the committee. 
According to Bernstein, top executives were working with the CIA, including William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time), and Arthur Sulzberger (The New York Times). Other organizations that also worked with the agency included ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters, Bernstein said. 
While the operation gained a lot of attention at the time, it is unclear if the legacy press learned any lessons about becoming pawns of the intelligence community. In recent years, the press eagerly ran with the assurances of former intelligence officers who falsely suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop was not legitimate, but rather Russian propaganda.
<h2>MK-NAOMI</h2>
Project MK-Naomi was a CIA operation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/17/archives/colby-describes-cia-poison-work-he-tells-senate-panel-of-secret.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tasked</a> with creating poisons and biochemical weapons, including dart gun technology. One dart gun that they created could shoot a dart about 100 meters, according to former CIA Director William Colby.
The program also developed poisons, some to kill crops and others people, and kept stores of shellfish and cobra derived poisons despite then-President Richard Nixon’s express orders for government bodies to destroy all poisons.
According to sources who spoke with The New York Times in the 1970s, the CIA ran a trial of a potential biological weapons attack on New York City by flooding the city’s subway system with a “harmless stimulant.”
Church said that “hundreds of thousands” could die if the shellfish toxin was used in a certain way.
<h2>Bonus: Operation Northwoods</h2>
Though not uncovered by the Church Committee, Operation Northwoods merits mention because of the scope of the proposed operation. 
In essence, Northwoods was a proposal of several false flag incidents to be orchestrated by top U.S. officials with the goal of justifying a war or other aggressive action against Cuba. In <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/doc1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documents</a> from the proposed operation, U.S. officials proposed arranging a “Remember the Maine” style incident (the explosion of the USS Maine provoked the Cuban-American War in 1898). 
Possible incidents might include the blowing up of a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and the developing of a “Communist Cuba terror campaign” in Miami and other U.S. cities. This campaign could be directed at “Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States,” according to U.S. officials.
This terrorism campaign could involve exploding bombs in U.S. cities and hijacking planes, events which could be pinned on Cuba.
The officials proposed sinking “a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated)” and fostering “attempts on lives of Cuban refugees” in the U.S. up to the point of “wounding” them.
Operation Northwoods was eventually rejected by then-President Kennedy.
<h2>Church’s Appeal: Don’t Let Tyranny Come To America</h2>
Church, who was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documents-reveal-nsa-spied-on-senators/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spied on</a> by the NSA during his time in office, declared in remarks on his committee’s work that the intelligence community had the tools and resources to have a tyrannical control over America, which is why they needed oversight.
“Now, why is this investigation important? I’ll tell you why: because I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss,” he <a href="https://www.levin-center.org/frank-church-and-the-church-committee/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a 1975 interview. “That is the abyss from which there is no return.”
The original Church Committee uncovered the rampant abuse of power that can come when a select few have a massive amount of power with limited accountability.
Hopefully the new House committee will be able to claw back some of the excesses of today’s deep state, or at least hold their feet to the fire for some much-needed oversight.

The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency is displayed in

Mind Control, LSD, KKK Informants: What The Church Committee Revealed About The Weaponization Of Federal Agencies

Congress

House Republicans

Investigation

Is something diabolical permeating our culture? What does that term truly mean? How can we spot it?
After <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-time-to-say-goodbye-to-sam-smith-his-latest-music-video-belongs-in-the-trash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recording my show yesterday</a>, I couldn&#8217;t stop thinking of the vulgarity in Sam Smith&#8217;s music video and what it says about the decay in our society. While talking with my husband about the topic, he reminded me of a sermon about the Devil from Venerable Fulton Sheen that we had listened to over the weekend. 
My husband and I also discussed the timeless lesson found in Adam and Eve’s fall from the Garden of Eden.
Grouped together alongside the current definition of diabolical — before the Left changes it — I perhaps we can answer the questions posted above. 
<blockquote>&#8220;What is the diabolic from the purely psychiatric point of view?&#8221; the late-Roman Catholic Bishop Sheen once <a href="https://bigccatholics.blogspot.com/2016/07/venerable-fulton-sheen-on-devil-as.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “Dr. Rollo May analyzes the word diabolic, it comes from the Greek words dia and balime. Dia-balime is to tear apart, rend asunder. Anything, therefore, that breaks pattern, that destroys unity, that corrupts gestalt, produces discord, that is the diabolical. Now, there has been a great increase of the diabolic. Notice for example the discord in the Church, the discord in religious communities, the discord among the laity regards the Church, discord in the clergy. All these are manifestations of a spirit of the diabolic that surrounds us. Now this psychiatrist [Dr. May] analyzes the way in which the diabolic works. And he mentions three: First love of nudity. Secondly, violence, aggressiveness. Thirdly, split personalities, no inner peace, disjointed minds.&#8221; </blockquote>
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Devil - Venerable Fulton Sheen" width="500" height="375" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FuCw8UT5y6c?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Does anything explain Sam Smith&#8217;s music video better than that description? Under that definition, his new video is truly diabolical. 
It&#8217;s a love of nudity. It&#8217;s a love of violence. And, it even presents a split personality.
Sam Smith, once a normal individual, now identifies as &#8216;non-binary.&#8217; In other words, he has a split persona. He doesn&#8217;t know what he is. He&#8217;s everything. He has no identity. That&#8217;s what being &#8216;non-binary&#8217; effectively means. I have no identity. I think I can be anything and everyone at the exact same time.
He puts nudity on full display — in an aggressive and violent manner, no less — in the “Not Here To make Friends” music video. 
So, yes, according to the psychiatrist and Bishop Sheen, that is diabolic. 
Per The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, the definition of diabolical <a href="https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/diabolical#:~:text=Look%20up%20any%20word%20in,Oxford%20Advanced%20Learner's%20Dictionary%20app.&amp;text=2(informal)%20extremely%20bad%20or,terrible%20The%20traffic%20was%20diabolical." target="_blank" rel="noopener">means</a> “morally bad and evil; like a Devil.”
That description brings me to the conversation I had with my husband on Monday.
&#8220;Why is Sam Smith doing this? His music is already great. Why does he have to stoop to this level and force us to say goodbye to his music? Why must we delete his songs from our library?&#8221; I more or less wondered out loud.
And my husband, who studied theology in school, began to discuss the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Everybody — even non-Christians — knows that in the Bible, The Garden of Eden was wholesome and full. It was peaceful and there was unity.
Then the serpent — something evil, wishing to tear that unity apart, and destroy that wholesomeness — came to trick Adam and Eve.
The Devil&#8217;s goal wasn&#8217;t just to get them to eat the forbidden fruit — it was to destroy the harmony in the Garden of Eden and separate Adam and Eve from God.
 After being separated, they then see they are naked and feel shame. They feel shame because they know they have done something God didn&#8217;t want. The first sin was eating the Forbidden Fruit.
So what does the Devil ultimately desire? He wants us to feel no shame about offending God and thus be disconnected from our Creator forever. If we don’t feel shame about doing evil things and never ask for forgiveness, then we will never be reunited with God.
So, now we have a culture infested with that exact same evil. An evil that wants all of us to feel no shame. It&#8217;s accomplished by “pushing boundaries” — as the Left loves to say — of what they describe as rude, crude, and crass “art.”
Sam Smith is naked. Who cares?! Children can see this on YouTube? So what?! Have no shame! In fact, you should feel empowered by it all!
Yet Smith&#8217;s music video is really just the tip of the iceberg for this garbage. Evil is everywhere.
So, we have to do our own little acts to fight against it. 
And that&#8217;s why I deleted all of Sam Smith&#8217;s music. I will pray for him. I hope whatever he is suffering from gets resolved.
As for the larger culture, perhaps it&#8217;s best we learn how to spot diabolical entertainment  — using the definition described thanks to Sheen, May, and the Oxford Dictionary.

Candace_416x9 copy 28 (1)

Is Something Diabolical Permeating Our Culture?

Music

Menu