Former &#8220;RuPaul&#8217;s Drag Race&#8221; contestant and actor &#8220;Shangela&#8221; has reportedly been accused of multiple sexual assaults after recently settling a civil lawsuit accusing the star of rape. 
<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/shangela-rupaul-drag-race-sexual-assault-1234974148/">Rolling Stone</a> detailed the accusations against 42-year-old Darius Jeremy Pierce from five individuals, including allegations that the drag performer attempted to get them inebriated beyond the ability to give consent.
The sexual assaults allegedly occurred between 2012 and 2018 in California, Texas, Louisiana, and the United Kingdom.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Drag Queen “Shangela,” who has now been accused of multiple sexual assaults, gave the welcome speech to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Pride event hosted at the VPs home in 2022. <a href="https://t.co/hVW3IUYoDQ">pic.twitter.com/hVW3IUYoDQ</a>
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) <a href="https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1769815052482220152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
One person reportedly filed a police report for an alleged assault he said happened in Los Angeles in 2017 when he was 20 years old. According to the police report, he recalled &#8220;waking up completely naked on a bed and believed to be at Pierce&#8217;s residence&#8221; after the two met for dinner and Pierce bought him a drink.  He said when he woke up, Pierce told him that they had had sex. 
Another man reportedly said he met Pierce in 2018 in Texas when he was 21. He accused Pierce of shoving him on the floor in a bathroom closet and trying to penetrate him.  
The other three accusations were similar, including claims that Pierce supplied drinks to men who passed out and awoke in a dazed state after they were allegedly sexually assaulted. In some of the cases, the men claim that there was another person in the room with them.
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In a letter from Pierce&#8217;s attorney to Rolling Stone magazine, Pierce denied the sexual assault accusations, calling them &#8220;false and unsupported by any evidence or reliable witness testimony.&#8221; 
All five of the people said they came forward after a civil lawsuit, filed by Daniel McGarrigle, a production assistant on HBO&#8217;s &#8220;We&#8217;re Here,&#8221; was dismissed. McGarrigle accused Pierce, who hosted the show, of drugging and raping him after a 2020 wrap party. The case was recently settled. The terms were not revealed.
In 2022, Pierce was invited to the White House by President Joe Biden for the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, The <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/new-drag-queen-invited-to-white-house-by-joe-biden-and-kamala-harris-accused-of-sexual-assaults">Post Millennial</a> reported. That same year, the drag queen was invited by Vice President Kamala Harris to her residence for a Pride event.

Ru Paul Drag Race Star

Former ‘Drag Race’ Star Accused Of Multiple Sexual Assaults: Report

Former 'Drag Race' Star Accused Of Multiple Sexual Assaults: Report

Celebrities

Drag Queens

Entertainment

Joe Biden

Rolling Stone

Sexual Assault

U.S.

A Jewish student at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dont-feel-safe-jewish-columbia-student-says-he-was-attacked-by-pro-palestinian-activist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Columbia University</a> doubled down after harassment and threats — over her accurate and consistent reporting on campus anti-Semitism — initially spurred her to flee campus. She fired back, writing an article for Rolling Stone Magazine about the anti-Semitism that has infected her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/i-am-just-a-dad-israeli-american-prof-explains-why-he-risked-columbia-firing-him-over-stance-on-hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college campus</a> and others.
Rebecca Massel, a senior staff writer for the student newspaper — The Columbia Daily Spectator — wrote the article for Rolling Stone after she got backlash for <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/12/general-studies-student-allegedly-assaulted-in-front-of-butler-library-suspect-arrested-and-charged-nypd-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reporting</a> on the on-campus assault of an Israeli student and the ongoing anti-Semitic protests, marches, and harassment that she and other Jewish students had seen.
The assault in question had occurred just a few days after the horrific attack perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians — as anti-Semitic demonstrations began to pick up speed worldwide — and the victim was reportedly afraid to have his full name printed in the paper.
Following her report on the assault, Massel wrote that she received an email with the subject line, &#8220;You are disgusting.&#8221;
The text of the email was worse: &#8220;I hope you f***ing get what you deserve … you racist freak.&#8221;
Next came a campaign of attacks on Sidechat, which Massel described as &#8220;an anonymous social media platform open to those with a Columbia email address&#8221; — where criticisms focused primarily on the fact that Massel was Jewish, and alleged that her reporting was biased because the victim was Israeli. The threats and harassment continued until she fled campus, feeling for the first time that she might not be safe there.
&#8220;This was the first time that I felt unsafe and unwelcome at Columbia. Following the online comments and the harassing emails about my story, I left campus out of safety concerns and only returned after Columbia Public Safety and the Public Safety interim director confirmed that being on campus would not pose a physical risk,&#8221; Massel said.
She referenced another Spectator article, published about one month after the Hamas attacks in Israel, for which she had spoken to a number 0f Jewish students on campus to talk about their experiences. Among the 54 students she spoke to, she said that 33 had reported feeling &#8220;unsafe or targeted.&#8221; Another 13 said that they had been harassed, and 12 reported trying to hide their Jewish identity — and nearly all of them said that they were uncomfortable with their full names being published.
Massel went on to describe a series of incidents — anti-Semitic protests, marches, threats, and harassment — that had been reported on other college campuses across the United States, noting that the problem was quickly becoming a universal one.
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&#8220;Antisemitic incidents on campus are not new,&#8221; Massel continued. &#8220;A Columbia graduate student shared with me in a Spectator interview that on the first day of classes last year, when she mentioned that her family is Israeli, a professor said, &#8216;So you must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?&#8217; In a meeting with another professor, she says the professor told her, &#8216;It’s such a shame that your people survived just in order to perpetuate genocide.&#8217; Now, she avoids mentioning her Israeli connection.&#8221;

Student Palestinian Group Holds Rally At Columbia University

Jewish Columbia Student Fires Back After Fleeing Campus Amid Threats Over Articles She Wrote — Exposing Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Columbia University

Education

Hamas

Israel

Jewish

When Republicans selected their new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, I was critical of the pick because of some of the stances Johnson has taken in the past. Primarily, I was concerned with his past support of the BLM narrative, and his expressions of outrage over the — to use his word — “murder” of George Floyd. But since then, despite these serious qualms, the media have been doing everything in their power to make me like Speaker Johnson. They’re not doing this on purpose, of course. They are trying to make him look bad. But, as we know, nothing makes a person look better than when the media tries to make them look bad. To that end, they have attacked Johnson repeatedly for being a Christian, socially conservative, and a theocratic fascist. That last description isn’t remotely accurate, sadly, but when a person is attacked along these lines, it only gives them more credibility. Johnson is racking up lots of credibility this way. 
And now we have the most desperate line of attack of all.
The latest crime committed by the speaker, according to the media and the gaggle of braindead leftist zombies on Twitter, is that — get this — he tried to prevent his children from looking at pornography. In the minds of these porn-crazed hyenas, this is a big problem. It’s an outrage. Mike Johnson’s attempt to protect his children from graphic sexual content is one of the great political scandals of our time. “What kind of freak doesn’t want his kids to watch porn,” they ask incredulously. They are pretending that they don’t understand it. Or maybe they aren’t pretending at all. 
Either way, this latest faux-controversy, like so many faux-controversies before it, starts with a Rolling Stone article.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1257-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
Rolling Stone is an amazing publication in a certain way. Even amid a media landscape populated almost entirely by lying, scheming, soulless parasites, Rolling Stone still manages to stand out. They are the gutter journalists that make other gutter journalists cringe. This article is no exception. And just to give you an idea of how weak the hit piece is, you should know that the entire article is just 373 words long. That’s because the article is irrelevant — they don’t spend much time on the story, because there is no story. They just wanted to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-johnson-son-monitor-porn-intake-covenant-eyes-1234870634/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">publish this headline</a>, which says: “Mike Johnson Admits He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Intake in Resurfaced Video.”
This framing has of course been immediately adopted by other media outlets, and hundreds of leftists on social media. Many articles and posts have repeated it, or a version of it. The Left insists that this supposed revelation is creepy and weird and gross. They’ve called Johnson a predator, and so on.
Of course, if this headline were literally true — if Rolling Stone wasn’t a worthless propaganda rag — then we’d all have to agree. Note the carefully selected phrase “porn intake,” which suggests that Mike Johnson is actively consuming porn and sharing the material with his son. “Porn intake” means that Johnson is a porn viewer and his porn viewing is being monitored by one of his kids. In fact, the website Political Wire makes this claim explicitly. Here’s their headline: “Mike Johnson Admits His Son Monitors His Porn Viewing.”
This implies — doesn’t imply, really, but outright claims — that Mike Johnson is actively watching porn, and the porn is being shared with his son. If that was really the case, then yes it would be extremely disgusting, but it is not the case at all. It is a slanderous lie by people who are determined to make normal, responsible parenting into something bizarre and even abusive.
That all becomes obvious if you read the article, to the extent that there even is an article to read. 
Better yet you can watch the “resurfaced clip” for yourself. Here it is: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
COMPROMISE ALERT: Speaker Mike Johnson uses software Covenant Eyes (learned about at a Promise Keepers retreat) that scans all his electronic devices &amp; gives a weekly report an &quot;accountability partner&quot; his 17 yr old son (so basically don&#39;t watch porn or your son/dad will know😬) <a href="https://t.co/SSWpB9IIDB">pic.twitter.com/SSWpB9IIDB</a>
&mdash; Receipt Maven (@receiptmaven) <a href="https://twitter.com/receiptmaven/status/1719402267537789152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Okay, so what’s the actual story here? The story is that Mike Johnson monitor’s his child’s internet usage to make sure that his child is not accessing harmful and objectionable material. The app he’s using — Covenant Eyes — also gives his son access to the content Johnson is viewing on his own phone. Anyone who isn’t an insane idiot immediately understands the point of this latter step. You have to be a perverted freak yourself to see it as something perverse.
Johnson is obviously trying to model good behavior for his son. He’s not having his son monitor his “porn intake,” because there is no porn intake. The whole point is that Johnson doesn’t look at porn, and he wants his teenage son to know that he doesn’t look at it, because he is trying to be a role model. This is called responsible parenting. And it may be necessary because Johnson’s teenage son is living in a culture — same as the rest of us — where people often claim that everyone — especially every man — looks at porn. Porn consumption is treated as an inevitability, as if it is literally physically impossible to refrain. It is important for a teenage boy to know that this is a lie. It isn’t true. It is possible to live free from the clutches of porn, and some men are in fact living that way. This would seem to be the point that Johnson is trying to make to his son.
I grew up in a time before smartphones, but we had a version of this kind of system in my house as a kid. The system was simple. We had one computer, it was in the most public and visible area in the house, and anyone could see what anyone else was doing if they happened to walk by. My parents did not have their own computer in their room or wherever. They used that one computer because they had nothing to hide, and they wanted us to know that they had nothing to hide. This is called setting a good example, which is a concept utterly foreign to the leftist social media mob.
Of course, these days it’s not necessarily practical to have only one stationary device with internet access to be shared by everyone in the home. Smart parents, then, look for other ways to practice openness and accountability in cyberspace. Smart parents — or just smart people in general, parents or not — understand that a desire for secrecy on the internet — wanting to keep your internet activity hidden from your loved ones — is almost always a sign that you’re doing things you should not be doing. Things that are harmful to you, and to your family.
Of course, the Left has looked for other reasons to object to Johnson’s responsible parenting. 
Rolling Stone throws another line of attack against the wall: “Outside of the creepy Big Brother-ness of it all, Receipt Maven also aired concerns about whether Covenant Eyes — which is still a working subscription-based service — might ‘compromise’ Johnson’s devices, if he’s still actively seeking accountability. “A US Congressman is allowing a 3rd Party tech company to scan ALL of his electronic devices daily and then uploading reports to his son about what he’s watching or not watching….,” Receipt Maven wrote. “I mean, who else is accessing that data?”
Now, again, if you think it’s “creepy” or “Big Brother” for a father to monitor his child’s Internet usage, you are simply too stupid to be participating in this discussion, or any discussion. The best thing you can do is shut up, you stupid child, and let the adults have this conversation. I assume you’re also the kind of person who would say that telling a child to do chores is “forced labor” and sending him to his room is “false imprisonment.” I can only take solace in the fact that most of these people are childless losers and will remain so for the rest of their miserable lives. 
As for the other concern, I think we can use our brains and assume that Johnson does not have Covenant Eyes installed on his work devices. It’s pretty clear that he’s referring to his personal devices and the ones in his home.
In the end, there are two ways of interpreting this story. One interpretation is that Mike Johnson has installed surveillance software on all of his phones and computers, including his work phone and the computer in his office on Capitol Hill, where he then proceeds to download an unlimited supply of pornography, which he shares with his son. The other interpretation is that Johnson has this accountability program on his family’s personal devices, so that he can protect his kids from pornographic content while also modeling good behavior for them. In other words, you can interpret this like a deranged lunatic who can’t comprehend the English language, or like a normal, sane person. That choice is really up to you.
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But obviously this is not really a matter of misinterpretation. We know the real reason why the Left is going after Johnson for this: These are weak, frail, porn-obsessed automatons who lack willpower and self-control and they feel shamed and rebuked whenever they encounter someone who doesn’t look at porn, someone whose life isn’t dominated by it like theirs is. They view these people with a mixture of astonishment and hatred. They themselves — being so emasculated and feeble — can barely even conceive of the possibility of not watching porn. They can’t wrap their heads around it. They’re such slaves to their impulses that they think anyone who exercises self-control is some kind of mutant. And this isn’t just about porn. Anyone who engages in healthy practices in basically any aspect of life is a freak of nature in their eyes. They instinctively lash out against the person, because the other option would be introspection. They would have to look at themselves and think, “If this person can make healthy choices and live a good, moral life, then maybe it’s not as impossible as I’ve convinced myself. Maybe I’m a coward making excuses for myself.”
This is the rabbit hole that you threaten to send these people tumbling down if you attempt to live a virtuous life in their presence. But they are too scared to take the ride, too timid and craven to actually look honestly at themselves. Instead, they descend on you and try to rip you to shreds, for committing the crime of being a better person than them.

US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-SPEAKER

The Media Attacks Republican For Protecting His Kids From Porn

Matt Walsh

Mike Johnson

Parenting

Pornography

Readers Pass

Speaker of the House

The Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame Foundation ousted Rolling Stone magazine co-founder Jann Wenner from its leadership for suggesting black and female musicians weren&#8217;t as &#8220;articulate&#8221; as white artists.
&#8220;Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,&#8221; the hall <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jann-wenner-rolling-stone-rock-hall-4052a04c35ce13cc2b17b5455ebe6883" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> said Saturday.
<a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.tmz.com/2023/09/16/rolling-stone-founder-jann-wenner-removed-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TMZ</a> reports that officials voted to remove Wenner from the Hall of Fame&#8217;s board, adding that Bruce Springsteen&#8217;s manager, Jon Landau, was the lone dissenting vote.
Officials announced Wenner&#8217;s removal a day after the New York Times published an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/arts/jann-wenner-the-masters-interview.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with the 77-year-old American magazine magnate that centered around his forthcoming book, &#8220;The Masters.&#8221; It contains seven new and collected interviews with some of the most legendary rock stars and cultural icons of the past generation, including Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Pete Townshend, and Jerry Garcia.
During the Times interview, the reporter asked Wenner why he did not include other subjects, specifically black or female artists — who he reportedly acknowledged were not in his &#8220;zeitgeist.&#8221;
&#8220;When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK?&#8221; Wenner said. &#8220;Just to get that accurate. The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.&#8221;
The interviewer pushed back, asking if he believes artists like Joni Mitchell are not intellectually articulate enough for an interview.
&#8220;It&#8217;s not that they&#8217;re not creative geniuses,&#8221; he said in an attempt to rephrase his previous answer. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that they&#8217;re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock&#8217; n&#8217; roll. She didn&#8217;t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock.&#8221;
&#8220;Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right?&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I suppose when you use a word as broad as &#8216;masters,&#8217; the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield?&#8221; 
&#8220;I mean, they just didn&#8217;t articulate at that level,&#8221; he said.
Wenner then told the Times that for &#8220;public relations sake&#8221; he should have included &#8220;one Black and one woman artist &#8230; just to avert this kind of criticism.&#8221;
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His comments immediately sparked a firestorm of criticism that pushed him to issue an apology through his publisher, Little, Brown and Company. 
&#8220;In my interview with The New York Times I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks,&#8221; Wenner said. &#8220;I totally understand the inflammatory nature and badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.&#8221;
The publisher reportedly <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jann-wenner-removed-rock-roll-hall-fame-board-interview-rcna105448" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a> that his upcoming book was &#8220;not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career,&#8221; and that he would &#8220;celebrate and promote&#8221; artists not represented for the rest of his life.
Wenner co-founded Rolling Stone with journalist Ralph J. Gleason in San Francisco in 1967. He served as its editor or editorial director until 2019. 
In 1983, Wenner also co-founded the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame, which the founders launched four years later. He served as its chairman until 2020.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Makes Announcement

Rolling Stone Co-Founder Removed From Rock Hall Board Over Comments About Black, Female Musicians

Hall of Fame

Media

Rock and Roll

It turns out that something I <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> last Sunday is now very big news. One of the biggest news items of the week, in fact. This is not according to me — I don’t find it especially newsworthy, to be honest — but rather it’s according to the social media mob, and the news media, and daytime talk shows. The post had me trending for days, with thousands of outraged people screaming various unintelligible insults and telling me to kill myself in various gruesome ways, and so on. It was the subject of a lengthy and angry think piece by NBC News, another one by Rolling Stone, and various other articles by other outlets including the National Review which called me out for “shaming.” It was also discussed during a segment on “The View.”
What makes all of this quite funny, and ironic, is that everyone from the mob, to NBC, to Rolling Stone, to the ladies on “The View” — they all agree that my post was stupid because I shouldn’t care so much about the thing I posted about. In fact, the subject of my post was so irrelevant that they have all decided to spend days telling me how irrelevant it is. This is a rather common phenomenon. 
So, let’s back up and tell the whole story. How did I become this week’s super villain? What was the content of this post — this dumb post about a subject that doesn’t matter? Why did it inspire multiple news articles informing us of how little it matters?
Well, it began with a TikTok video published by a woman named Julia Mazur. Julia has a TikTok account where she frequently posts videos about her life as a single and childless 29-year-old woman. She also has a podcast about the same subject, where — NBC tells us — she talks about being “pretty much done” with the societal expectation that she’ll be married and have kids by the age of 30. The podcast is called “Pretty Much Done.” So, this is a woman who talks about this subject quite a lot, and talks about it publicly, which would lead you to the conclusion that she wants people to notice and hear what she’s saying. 
Typically if you have a social media account and a podcast dedicated to talking about your lifestyle choices, that’s a good indication that you consider your lifestyle choices to be open for public discussion. If you do not want public discussion about the choices you make in your life, then the smartest strategy would be to refrain from speaking publicly and frequently about your lifestyle, and even hosting a whole podcast on the subject. Granted, this woman’s following was relatively small up until now, but I’ve never heard of a burgeoning TikTok influencer and podcaster who only wants a few thousand people to interact with their content.
The point is, when I saw one of her videos floating around on Twitter, I figured it’s fair game to respond to. If this was a secretly recorded video of Julia venting to her friends in the privacy of her own home — taken and posted without her knowledge — then I certainly would not respond or repost it. I would never want to participate in the invasion of another person’s privacy. But I don’t consider a public response to public comments to be an invasion of privacy. 
As for those public comments, here is the video that started all of this ruckus: 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Her life doesn’t revolve around her family and kids so instead it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all she’s too stupid to realize how depressing this is.
 <a href="https://t.co/eLRsQBF1yz">pic.twitter.com/eLRsQBF1yz</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1698375234909307373?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
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I responded to that by tweeting: “Her life doesn’t revolve around her family and kids so instead it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all she’s too stupid to realize how depressing this is.” 
Now I will admit the word “stupid” was a little harsh. I don’t think it was a crime against humanity. I don’t think it was worthy of four days of intense national outrage. I don’t think it was newsworthy, but it was a bit harsh. Perhaps “oblivious” would have been a more accurate, certainly more charitable, choice of words. I have been known to use harsh language at times. I will tend to do that when I feel especially passionate about an issue. And I do quite passionately oppose the promotion of childlessness and the idea that we should spend our young adulthood focused on self-centered pursuits and mindless amusements. I very much oppose that idea. I think it leads to despair and societal decay. I think that if a critical mass of people adopts this approach, it eventually brings about the collapse of human civilization. That’s not to say that Julia on TikTok will cause the collapse of civilization, but rather that the idea, the life philosophy, she promotes — if accepted by enough people — will have that effect. Which is why I tend to attack this idea quite vigorously.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1217-hear-how-i-became-the-media-s-villain-this-week-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
This could have been the end of the conversation. It was one tweet about one TikTok video. Not a big deal. But then the outrage mob got to work. They swarmed and screamed and called me a bully and a Nazi and many other things. Many other influencers — including some conservatives — condemned me in no uncertain terms. Random famous people like Mark Cuban jumped onto the dog pile. They said that she’s just a young woman having fun and I should butt out. They said that her choices are none of my business. They blamed me for bringing attention to Julia that, they assumed, she didn’t want. Which, again, is ironic because the whole reason I was trending — and thus why Julia was trending — was because of all of the people outraged at me. If they had all shut up and gone about their day, there wouldn’t have been any of this attention. But then again, shutting up and going about their day is not exactly the MO of the outrage mob. 
Next came the media. First, NBC News published <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/was-childfree-woman-enjoying-saturday-came-culture-warriors-rcna103581" target="_blank" rel="noopener">their article</a>. This makes, I believe, my third NBC hit piece since July — a respectable pace of one per month, but frankly I think we can pump those numbers up. The article has this headline: 
<blockquote>“She was a child-free woman enjoying her Saturday. Then came the culture warriors.” </blockquote>
The article states: 
<blockquote>“Julia Mazur was having a relaxing Saturday when she decided to chronicle her day on TikTok. By Sunday, she had become the most recent fodder for the internet’s ongoing culture war around societal expectations for women. Mazur, 29, had posted a 92-second video to her 7,000 TikTok followers, laying out a day in her life as a single, childless woman, planning to take a crack at making the egg dish shakshuka and watch some TV. The next day, the hate started to pour in. ‘All of a sudden on Sunday, I started receiving hateful comments, and then I caught wind that he had posted my TikTok,’ Mazur said. He, in this case, is Matt Walsh, a conservative media provocateur who posted Mazur’s video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to his more than 2.4 million followers, stating that she is “too stupid to realize how depressing this is.” Other conservative pundits piled on. Some on the left came to her defense.&#8221;</blockquote>
I actually didn’t post the video on the platform, someone else did. But we can’t expect accuracy from NBC after all. 
We’re then told this: 
<blockquote>“Mazur had inadvertently found herself in an ongoing and fervent corner of the culture war that is increasingly playing out online, one where content that directs hate toward women — even against women with relatively small social media presences — has become profitable and popular inside and outside of conservative circles. Walsh and many other right-leaning voices are part of a larger conservative movement that promotes what they consider to be traditional family values. That has included targeting medical gender transition procedures and openly criticizing women who have not married and had children. One version of this ideology has become known as ‘trad wife’ content, where women envision ‘50s-style housewife ideals including subservience to their husbands, which has made the practice controversial.&#8221;</blockquote>
I think the word “inadvertent” is doing a lot of work there. She quite &#8220;advertently&#8221; has created a lot of content talking about being “child free.” This is not a conversation she finds herself in by accident. But the article continues: 
<blockquote>“NBC News reviewed hateful comments made on X about Mazur’s appearance and her ability to have children in the future, while Mazur said she also received direct hate and threats. &#8216;I understand that with social media you’re putting yourself out there to be judged or criticized. But I don’t believe anyone has the right to spread hate, and the way his followers spoke about me and to me was deplorable,&#8217; Mazur said in a phone interview. &#8216;It definitely gave me empathy for celebrities and influencers who put themselves out there. It painted a new light for how the internet works.&#8217;” </blockquote>
Now, a couple of quick things here. I don’t believe I was “spreading hate,” but whatever you want to call it, I do have the right to say what I said, for the record. Second, obviously if anyone is making threats against this woman, that is insane and wrong and grotesque. I will say that I did not see a single person make anything even resembling a threat, and it is interesting that NBC News reviewed the “hateful comments” but didn’t review the alleged threats. Make of that what you will.
From there, the article tells us how Mazur wants people to ignore “societal pressure” and “live the lives they want to live for themselves.” It says that she rejected the “rhetoric” from her “first generation Russian Jewish family” that she should get married and have kids. It ends with this: 
<blockquote>“I found myself in those safe, good-on-paper relationships, but I also found myself feeling deeply unhappy and unfulfilled because I felt like I was checking off a box to appease other people. Throughout that process I realized, ‘That’s not the only thing that can make you fulfilled.’ I’m 29 and single and I feel fulfilled by my life and my career, by my friends and family.”</blockquote>
So, she was in good relationships with good men but, she says, she left them because she was “unfulfilled” for unspecified reasons, and now she’s 29 and childless, and focusing on spending her time watching TV shows and so on. What’s more, she says she wants to encourage other people to adopt this same strategy, to, as she says, “live for themselves.” 
I must say again that I absolutely reject that, I think it’s terrible advice, it’s a terrible way to live, and I will never tire of fighting back against this despair-inducing philosophy no matter who is promoting it. Because the philosophy is really the point here. This isn’t about some woman on TikTok and that’s not what the Left and the media are concerned about. They aren’t angry at me for being mean to Julia. They’re angry at me for attacking a philosophy — a philosophy of self-centeredness and materialism — that they all personally live by. 
This was made clear in the Rolling Stone article about this, titled: “The Right Would Like All Women to be 1950s Housewives, Please.&#8221; Apparently, we have moved on from transphobia-for-clicks to shrieking at women for not giving birth.” What follows from there is all the tripe you would expect, we probably don’t need to read through any of it. We also don’t need to listen to Joy Behar’s take on all of this, but we will anyway: 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Mark Cuban Defends TikToker Speaking Out Against Expectations For Single Women | The View" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZqA4vz35564?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Joy, you don’t have to act like you’ve never heard of me. We all know you secretly listen to my podcast every day, just like I secretly watch “The View” every day, as penance for my sins. 
In any case, it’s obvious what’s really going on here. The media and the mob are pretending to “white knight” for a small time TikTok influencer and podcaster who suffered the horrific fate of going viral — the one thing that every influencer and podcaster dreads most of all — but they don’t actually care about her. As I said, they’re angry not that I criticized what Julia said, but that I criticized them. She was expressing a point of view that they all agree with, and live by, and it is that point of view they are passionately defending. It is the point of view that says, “We should live for ourselves, focus on ourselves, and find happiness in our own pleasure and amusement.” It is a point of view that says, ”The highest joy is that which can be found by consuming pop culture content, unencumbered by the demands of family life and parenthood.” This point of view — the one that places “living for yourself” over living for something greater and more enduring than yourself — is the dominant view in our culture.
This is the point that Julia gets wrong most of all. She says that “society” tells her she should be married and have kids by 30. But that is not at all what society says. In fact, the mainstream of society — the most powerful voices and institutions, including corporate media — fully agree with her that young people should “focus on themselves” and have fun and put off marriage and family life. They agree that, even if we find ourselves in a good relationship with a good person, we should leave it anyway in order to give ourselves more time to scroll social media and make Shakshuka.
Between the two of us, if anyone is living in a way that is not approved by society, that is in fact scorned by society, it’s me. I’m 37 with six kids. She’s 29 with none. The powers that be approve of her choices much, much more than they approve of mine. She is already living as society wants her to live — or at least as the forces driving society want her to live. Because those forces do not actually want her, or anyone else, to be happy and fulfilled. But I do want that for her, and for everyone. 
Which is why I say, yes, you should get married and have kids. That is what most human beings on this planet are meant to do. It is what we are called to do. It is what we are designed for. To form families, to build homes To fill those homes with love. And live in service to something greater, deeper, and more beautiful than our TVs and our phones and our careers. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, in proper proportion. But there is more to life, or at least there should be. And that’s what I want the Julias of the world to understand.
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Matt Walsh 1

Here’s How I Became This Week’s Super Villain

Here’s How I Became This Week's Super Villain

Children

Social Issues

TikTok

The left-wing magazine <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/rolling-stone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rolling Stone</a> was forced to issue a correction this week in a report that falsely portrayed a group of purported neo-Nazis in Florida as being supporters of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The article highlighted a small group of approximately two dozen individuals dressed in Nazi paraphernalia who marched in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend shouting obscenities.
The original article stated that one member of the crowd said, &#8220;We&#8217;re all DeSantis supporters! We like Ron DeSantis.”
However, what the article did not include was that the same person then immediately attacked DeSantis, meaning he was kidding with his previous remarks.
“F*** Ron DeSantis! Ron DeSantis is a joke,&#8221; the person <a href="https://twitter.com/emeriticus/status/1698398680510775703/video/1">said</a>. &#8220;Ron DeSantis is a joke.”
The correction from Rolling Stone stated:
<blockquote>The original version of this article quoted a marcher as saying, “We’re all DeSantis supporters!” without including his second remark, “F*** Ron DeSantis! Ron DeSantis is a joke. Ron DeSantis is a joke.” The story has been updated.</blockquote>
Some of the extremists in the crowd wore nazi swastikas or held swastika flags.
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Rolling Stone faced widespread backlash online over their story and their post on X, formerly known as Twitter, and were later forced to delete the social media post.

Hurricane Idalia Slams Into Florida’s Gulf Coast

Rolling Stone Forced To Issue Correction On Article Claiming Nazis Support DeSantis

Florida

Neo-Nazis

Ron DeSantis

Florida Republican governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R) recently <a href="https://www.wiltonmanors.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=141#:~:text=On%20May%2017%2C%202023%2C%20Governor,to%20an%20adult%20live%20performance." target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed</a> a bill that bans children from attending events that include &#8220;sexually explicit content,&#8221; such as drag shows or drag brunches. So of course, a writer at Rolling Stone is mad at him for, and we quote, &#8220;having successfully sucked the pleasure out of many of life&#8217;s little joys.&#8221;
Why is having children around adult content something worth celebrating to Rolling Stone? We don&#8217;t dare ask but we thought the column was worth highlighting to show the utter insanity — and perversity — of the American Left.
“This is sad that you kind of have to do this,” DeSantis <a href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/612838-gov-desantis-signs-bill-banning-minors-from-attending-drag-shows-lewd-performances/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> after signing the &#8220;Protection of Children Act&#8221; in mid-May. “There’s these, like, drag shows. It’s sexually explicit, what they’re doing. And look, adult entertainers — people can do what they want with some of that. But to have minors there, I mean, you have situations where you’ll have an 8-year-old girl there, where you have these really explicit shows, and that is just inappropriate.”
In turn, DeSantis has been attacked by the far Left for assaulting the LGBTQ community or something. &#8220;Drag queens,&#8221; and other adults, seem confused about what they can do in front of children. Now, a &#8220;furry convention&#8221; hosted by Megaplex in Florida has banned children from attending so as not to defy the law, even accidentally.
A certain EJ Dickson of Rolling Stone magazine seems especially incensed that DeSantis is using his authority to guard the innocence of children and keep creepy adults away from them.
&#8220;Florida Gov. and GOP presidential nominee Ron DeSantis has successfully sucked the pleasure out of many of life’s little joys, from drag brunches to Disney adult TikTok,&#8221; Dickson <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/furries-beefing-ron-desantis-1234742107/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. &#8220;And thanks to the passage of SB 1438, or the Protection of Children Act, DeSantis may now be bringing the ax down on furries.&#8221;
What&#8217;s a furry? Well, as described by National Geographic, a furry, at its most basic level, is a person &#8220;who believes that they are part human part animal.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Furries | National Geographic" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kzBGTAvKfPg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As Dickson describes, though, some people who consider themselves &#8220;furries&#8221; do it purely for a sexual fantasy of sorts, replete with dressing up as various animals and engaging in vulgar behavior. So in other words, Dickson is mad that children aren&#8217;t allowed to be around a bunch of adults whose sexual fetish might be dressed as beasts and different creatures.
&#8220;While SB 1438 does not specifically target minors dressing as furries, it prohibits children from attending adult performances, which it defines as &#8216;a presentation that depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, or specific sexual activities,'&#8221; Dickson noted before claiming, &#8220;And, like drag, there are pervasive misconceptions that this mode of expression is inherently sexual.&#8221;
However, the writer notes that while it is &#8220;true that there is a segment of furrydom that does treat it as a kink, it is not a representation of the wider community, and many furries do not view their interest in anthropomorphized creatures as sexual at all.&#8221;
Where that line of sexualization starts and stops is murky — apparently — so Megaplex decided to make the convention age-limited to those older than 18.
Rolling Stone spoke to one transgender furry named SemJay who owns a furry adult toy company. He agreed with Megaplex’s decision but said he would not be attending.
&#8220;I don’t want to end up in a confrontation, or worse, jail or dead, for just going to the bathroom in Florida,&#8221; he said in reference to another law signed by DeSantis which requires individuals to use the bathroom that correlates with their biological sex.
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In reaction to Rolling Stone&#8217;s article, DeSantis staffer Christina Pushaw tweeted, &#8220;Don’t expose children to your fetish and we are good.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Don’t expose children to your fetish and we are good
&mdash; Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1662815265652965380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 28, 2023</a></blockquote>
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It should be noted that as a good rule of thumb, common sense and basic morality would dictate that if there is any question about whether your behavior could be perceived as &#8220;sexually explicit&#8221; — then it surely is not appropriate for children to see. Apparently, Rolling Stone needs to learn that lesson — as does the furry community.
<div>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
</div>

Ron DeSantis, LGBTQ Protesters

Rolling Stone Claims DeSantis’ Adult Drag Show Crackdown ‘Sucked Pleasure’ Out Of ‘Life’s Little Joys’

LGBTQ

Politics

Rolling Stone magazine allegedly omitted references to child pornography in a report from the publication late last year about the FBI&#8217;s raid on an ABC News journalist.
NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/21/1164360143/rolling-stone-fbi-raid-journalist-james-gordon-meek" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Rolling Stone Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman edited the story from reporter Tatiana Siegel on former ABC News national security producer James Gordon Meek, who was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-abc-news-producer-arrested-charged-with-transporting-images-of-child-sexual-abuse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> earlier this year on child pornography charges.
The report said that Shachtman told Siegel not to use the words &#8220;child pornography&#8221; in her article.
Shachtman has reportedly always been skeptical of government sources and did not believe that the reporter had solid enough sources to be able to claim that the raid had something to do with child pornography, according to the NPR report. Shachtman also instructed those involved with selecting the photo for the story to use a photo of the FBI and not of Meek.
&#8220;The Meek case was a particularly complex one, and the editorial choices made while covering it weren&#8217;t always simple or easy,&#8221; Rolling Stone&#8217;s parent company, Penske Media, said in a statement. &#8220;So Rolling Stone stuck to a simple principle: publish in the moment as much information as it could confidently substantiate.&#8221;
Meek, 53, of Arlington, Virginia, was arrested at the end of January after the file hosting service Dropbox tipped off authorities about five suspected videos of child sexual exploitation material in an account. The information was ultimately received by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
FBI authorities conducted a raid of Meek’s residence in April 2022, and he resigned shortly after.
“Law enforcement seized multiple devices that allegedly contained evidence of the transportation of images of child sexual abuse,” authorities said in a news release.
According to court documents, devices belonging to the producer allegedly contained images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct and multiple chat conversations with users engaged in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children.
“In two of those conversations, a username allegedly associated with Meek received and distributed child sexual abuse materials through an internet-based messaging platform,” the statement reads.
Prosecutors claimed they found pornographic images on the producer’s iPhone 8, iPhone 6, an external hard drive, and laptop depicting the abuse of children as young as a toddler.
Meek’s iPhone 8 allegedly contained messages and child pornography exchanged with another alleged pedophile.
In the messages, Rolling Stone reported on in February 2023, Meek allegedly appeared to confess to previously abusing children.
“Have you ever raped a toddler girl? It’s amazing,” he allegedly wrote in one exchange, Rolling Stone reported.
If convicted, Meek faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, and a maximum penalty of 20 years.
Brandon Drey contributed to this report.

ABC News – 2021

Rolling Stone Allegedly Omitted ‘Child Porn’ Accusations In Story About FBI Raid On Journalist: Report

National Public Radio (NPR)

Guitar great Jeff Beck has died at the age of 78, according to a statement from his family.
The English rocker — who was born Geoffrey Arnold Beck on June 24, 1944 — rose to fame as a member of the Yardbirds and later fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert, and Appice. His skills as a guitarist landed him a spot in the top five of Rolling Stone&#8217;s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-153675/jeff-beck-4-39420/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">top 100 guitarists</a> of all time — ranking above Eddie Van Halen, B.B. King, and Chuck Berry.
A statement was released on Wednesday confirming the musician&#8217;s death and stating that he had passed after a brief and sudden battle with bacterial meningitis.
&#8220;On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday. His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss,&#8221; it read.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday. His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss. <a href="https://t.co/4dvt5aGzlv">pic.twitter.com/4dvt5aGzlv</a>
&mdash; Jeff Beck (@jeffbeckmusic) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffbeckmusic/status/1613294003398799360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Fans quickly rushed to Twitter to share their memories and express their thoughts in the wake of the news.
&#8220;Few things captured my musical imagination as a teen than the Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page lineup of the Yardbirds, which lasted all of about 5 minutes but absolutely f***ing smoked. RIP,&#8221; Jay Jaffe <a href="https://twitter.com/jay_jaffe/status/1613299422548353025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a>.
&#8220;OMG, this is a shocker,&#8221; Doug Sovern <a href="https://twitter.com/SovernNation/status/1613299235239383040" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a>. &#8220;The legendary Jeff Beck, one of the all-time guitar greats, dies suddenly at 78. &#8216;Blow By Blow&#8217; remains one of my most-played albums of all time.&#8221;
KISS&#8217; Gene Simmons <a href="https://twitter.com/genesimmons/status/1613298022594777089" target="_blank" rel="noopener">encouraged fans</a> to listen to Beck&#8217;s music and remember him. &#8220;Heartbreaking news to report the late, great Jeff Back has sadly passed. No one played guitar like Jeff. Please get ahold of the first two Jeff Beck Group albums and behold greatness. RIP,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;I was totally shocked to hear the very sad news of Jeff Beck’s passing. Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player &#8211; there will never be another Jeff Beck. His playing was very special &amp; distinctively brilliant! He will be missed. RIP Jeff -Tony,&#8221; Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi <a href="https://twitter.com/tonyiommi/status/1613296351613157380" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared his thoughts</a> as well as a personal photo.
&#8220;Oh, My Heart…RIP, Jeff…I miss you already…&#8221; Whitesnake&#8217;s David Coverdale tweeted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Oh, My Heart…RIP, Jeff…I miss you already…💔💔💔💔💔
Jeff Beck, Guitar Virtuoso and Blues-Rock Innovator, Dead at 78 – Rolling Stone <a href="https://t.co/oJ2O1vqbDk">https://t.co/oJ2O1vqbDk</a>
&mdash; David Coverdale (@davidcoverdale) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidcoverdale/status/1613299523258056712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions. Jeff could channel music from the ethereal,&#8221; Jimmy Page added. &#8220;His technique unique. His imaginations apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans. Jeff Beck Rest in Peace.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
His technique unique. His imaginations apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans. Jeff Beck Rest in Peace.<a href="https://t.co/4h1DfXXmWI">https://t.co/4h1DfXXmWI</a>
&mdash; Jimmy Page (@JimmyPage) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyPage/status/1613304120584069122?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Beck had just recently completed a tour alongside actor Johnny Depp. Over the course of his career, he racked up 17 <a href="https://www.grammy.com/artists/jeff-beck/293" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grammy</a> nominations and eight wins.

Jeff Beck Performs In Concert – Austin, TX

Legendary Guitarist Jeff Beck Dead At 78

Death

Music

Music Industry

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/music">Celine Dion</a> fans are furious that she was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/entertainment">snubbed</a> on Rolling Stone’s &#8220;200 Greatest Singers of All Time&#8221; list.
Rolling Stone&#8217;s official Twitter account preemptively responded to the potential backlash, explaining in a <a href="https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1609708576234160128">tweet</a> that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/music-industry">greatest singers</a> are not the same thing as the greatest voices. The outlet posted, “talent is impressive; genius is transcendent.”
But that disclaimer wasn’t enough to assuage fans of the Canadian songstress. 
“Rolling Stone needs to immediately exit the business of music journalism,” one person <a href="https://twitter.com/mtl_vocalist/status/1609711502876893187">fumed</a> in reply.
“The fact that Céline Dion isn’t anywhere in the top 200 is a crime against humanity,” another person <a href="https://twitter.com/elasticdijon/status/1609584140441235458">agreed</a>.
“Respectfully, not including Celine Dion, arguably the best vocal technician of all time, in this list is borderline treasonous,” a third person <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieCollabro/status/1609783065726910465">said</a> of the rankings. 
The top five greatest singers according to Rolling Stone are Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday, and Mariah Carey. Other names on the list include Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Michael Jackson, Adele, and Lady Gaga.
Boasting more than 200 million albums sold worldwide, Dion is one of the best-selling solo artists of all time. Seven of her albums have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide. The “Because You Loved Me&#8221; composer also won five Grammy Awards and many other accolades. She’s known for her vocal range and distinctive power behind her voice.
Dion was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as the decade&#8217;s top-earning artist in 2009, with combined album sales and concert revenue exceeding $747 million. And while she was snubbed by Rolling Stone, Dion inevitably popped up on other &#8220;best of&#8221; lists over the years. 
The 54-year-old singer recently revealed that she’d been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome (SPS), a progressive neurological disease that leaves its victims as “human statues” who cannot walk or talk, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/celine-dion-reveals-heartbreaking-news-about-her-health">reported</a>. Her diagnosis led to multiple concert cancellations. 
“I’ve been dealing with problems with my health for a long time and it’s been really difficult for me to face my challenges and to talk about everything that I’ve been going through,” she said while updating fans on her condition. 
Dion went on to explain how having spasms has made singing more challenging.
“While we’re still learning about this rare condition, we now know this is what’s been causing all of the spasms I’ve been having,” she continued. “Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to.”

Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time Hyde Park – Day 1

Fans React To Celine Dion Being Snubbed By Rolling Stone For ‘200 Greatest Singers’ List: ‘A Crime Against Humanity’

Fans React To Celine Dion Being Snubbed By Rolling Stone For '200 Greatest Singers' List

Celine Dion

World

In politics nowadays, there&#8217;s this general feeling that anybody from the party you don&#8217;t support is wrong, wrong, wrong.
But that&#8217;s silly, right? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut. And nobody is wrong 100% of the time.
Take Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic socialist from New York. She&#8217;s wrong about a lot &#8212; but not everything.
The young and hip AOC weighed in over the weekend on the Ticketmaster brouhaha. To refresh your memory, the concert ticket monopoly burst into the news last week during the sale of Taylor Swift tix, leaving thousands of fans frustrated and prompting scalpers to jack their prices into the tens of thousands.
Buying tickets for sports and music events has long been a joke. Even for the largest venues, tickets sell out online in minutes. Then they reappear on sites like SeatGeek and StubHub, but now that $35 ticket costs $300. And then there are the fees &#8212; the service fee, facility charge, order processing fee, and the ever-popular convenience fee.
AOC&#8217;s got it just right &#8212; and she correctly calls the company a &#8220;monopoly.&#8221;
&#8220;I was watching what was going on with the pre-release of Taylor Swift’s tickets,&#8221; she told <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/aoc-ticketmaster-live-nation-monopoly-interview-1234634599/">Rolling Stone</a>. &#8220;It came up on a more personal level; I actually have quite a few staff who were trying to get tickets that day. Between seeing their experience and seeing all the people online talking about it, I think it really showed how widespread the problem is and reflects the degree of market consolidation in this industry.&#8221;
She&#8217;s spot on. Ticketmaster and Live Nation merged in 2010, and it&#8217;s been a mess ever since. Ticketmaster controls the tickets and Live Nation often owns the venue, which means they&#8217;re 100% in control. Don&#8217;t like it, tough, don&#8217;t go to the show.
&#8220;One of the things we’ve been increasingly seeing,&#8221; AOC said, &#8220;is that these price increases because of inflation and abuse of market power are due to market consolidation. It’s gotten so bad that we’re really seeing it affect our everyday lives, from how much we’re paying at grocery stores, to not being able to see our favorite artists without paying an arm and a leg.&#8221;
The Swift mess prompted the Department of Justice to announce it is opening a probe into the monopoly.
But Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts wrote a letter to the attorney general saying that&#8217;s not enough, noting &#8220;an investigation alone does nothing for the stakeholders already harmed by Live Nation’s market dominance and seemingly ongoing anticompetitive behavior.&#8221;
They said the company, which controls about 60% of the market &#8212; including many of the biggest venues &#8212; &#8220;has continued to abuse its dominant market position,&#8221; adding, &#8220;we urge the Department to consider unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.&#8221;
AOC once again nailed the exact problem. &#8220;It’s getting to a point where if you want to see one of these large acts, there’s so little protection for everyday people that if you go into a secondary market, we are no longer in this realm of someone even charging double of what a ticket was. Tickets are going as high [as tens of thousands of dollars] after what was supposed to be a presale operation designed for people who are actually going to be using the tickets that they purchase.&#8221;
And she was right again here.
&#8220;Other industries have oligopolies; Live Nation is a true monopoly. And it’s affecting our culture if regular people can’t even see a live show for a major act in person anymore, and this just becomes a domain for the wealthy. I think that that’s also something to consider, because If you can’t even see your favorite artists without paying [the equivalent of] a down payment on a house or a car, it’s so antithetical to what music really is,&#8221; she said.
One hundred percent right, congresswoman!
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Taylor Swift

Late superstar Michael Jackson&#8217;s family is making it known they aren&#8217;t happy about Rolling Stone magazine&#8217;s latest cover featuring Harry Styles, labeling him &#8220;the new King of Pop.&#8221;
The October cover of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/harry-styles-harrys-house-dont-worry-darling-my-policeman-cover-1397290/">UK Rolling Stone magazine</a> was posted on Twitter Monday, featuring the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/harry-styles">28-year-old singer</a> wearing an ivory-colored coat with shimmering pink sequined shorts. The message on the cover read, &#8220;Harry Styles: How the new King of Pop set the music world aflame.&#8221; It can be seen <a href="https://twitter.com/RollingStoneUK/status/1561684956300152833?s=20&amp;t=M_RZthu1BKnstVsJqBzLVw">here</a>.
&#8220;There is no new King of Pop,&#8221; the late singer&#8217;s nephew Taj Jackson tweeted about the cover featuring the former member of One Direction. &#8220;You don’t own the title [Rolling Stone], and you didn&#8217;t earn it, my uncle did.&#8221;
&#8220;Decades of dedication and sacrifice,&#8221; the tweet added. &#8220;The title has been retired. No disrespect to [Harry Styles], he&#8217;s mega talented. Give him his own unique title.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
There is no new King of Pop. You don’t own the title <a href="https://twitter.com/RollingStone?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RollingStone</a>, and you didn’t earn it, my uncle did. Decades of dedication and sacrifice. The title has been retired. No disrespect to <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry_Styles?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Harry_Styles</a>, he’s mega talented. Give him his own unique title. <a href="https://t.co/td6SSSVkfX">https://t.co/td6SSSVkfX</a>
&mdash; Taj Jackson (@tajjackson3) <a href="https://twitter.com/tajjackson3/status/1561778102010650626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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And he wasn&#8217;t the only person who took issue with anointing the &#8220;Watermelon Sugar&#8221; hitmaker with the title of &#8220;King&#8221; of pop music. Styles solo career started with his self-titled debut album in 2017.
One person tweeted, &#8220;being called the &#8216;new king of pop&#8217; while not even being close to what Michael Jackson was is sick.&#8221;
&#8220;There is no such thing as the new King of Pop,&#8221; another tweeted. &#8220;Michael Jackson holds that title forever. This is so embarrasing wtf.&#8221;
One Jackson fan posted a former cover of the Rolling Stone magazine from its 2003 Yearbook calling pop star Justin Timberlake &#8220;The New King of Pop&#8221; to get their point across.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
lol, what? Nothing against Harry Styles, but he&#39;s not the new King of Pop. That title still belongs to Michael Jackson. You lot called Justin Timberlake the same thing &amp; that was also a huge fail. Stop trying to take the crown away from MJ. It&#39;s not happening. <a href="https://t.co/I6VKBV4ZoJ">https://t.co/I6VKBV4ZoJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/1Zrn2UZHJ6">pic.twitter.com/1Zrn2UZHJ6</a>
&mdash; Sha Hartley (@shahartley) <a href="https://twitter.com/shahartley/status/1561743163219480577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Lol, what?&#8221; the person wrote. &#8220;Nothing against Harry Styles, but he&#8217;s not the new King of Pop. That title still belongs to Michael Jackson. You lot called Justin Timberlake the same thing &amp; that was also a huge fail. Stop trying to take the crown away from MJ. It&#8217;s not happening.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
a prerequisite to even coming close to being coined the “new king of pop” is being black. cuz the current king of pop is black. meaning that’s who you’re “competing”with. if you don’t have to shatter racial boundaries, you cannot compete.
cut the shit.
&mdash; CHIKA 🌪 (@oranicuhh) <a href="https://twitter.com/oranicuhh/status/1561802861800931328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This title belongs to the black man who worked his ass off since the age of 5, who was a veteran by the age of 15, broke racial barriers and revolutionized the music industry. Michael Jackson is THEE King of Pop of EVERY generation. <a href="https://t.co/3jxtYWCHOa">https://t.co/3jxtYWCHOa</a>
&mdash; 𝓥𝓮𝓻𝓸𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓪💫 | fan account (@iamveronica777) <a href="https://twitter.com/iamveronica777/status/1561719975051636736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
rolling stone (uk) calling harry styles the king of pop is a very bold move considering the most notable person to hold the king of pop title is michael jackson. how do you put michael jackson and harry styles on the same level with a straight face.
&mdash; sk (@kirkxxs) <a href="https://twitter.com/kirkxxs/status/1561770478515232770?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Earlier in the day, the official Michael Jackson Twitter page, followed by millions of followers, shared a photo of the &#8220;Beat It&#8221; hitmaker gracing the cover of SOUL Newspaper in 1979 at the age of 21.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This week in 1979, “Michael at 21” was the cover story for SOUL Newspaper. Founded in 1966 in Los Angeles, this Black owned publication devoted to Black music, featured Michael on the cover several times, including his first solo appearance in August of 1970. <a href="https://t.co/LVyrBITLG3">pic.twitter.com/LVyrBITLG3</a>
&mdash; Michael Jackson (@michaeljackson) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaeljackson/status/1561745008499167233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/michael-jackson">Jackson</a> died at the age of 50 in 2009 following nearly four decades of hits as a solo artist starting in 1971.

Michael Jackson – In Concert

‘You Didn’t Earn It’: Michael Jackson’s Family Upset Rolling Stone Calling Harry Styles ‘The New King Of Pop’

'You Didn’t Earn It': Michael Jackson's Family Upset Rolling Stone Calling Harry Styles 'The New King Of Pop'

Harry Styles

Michael Jackson

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