This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
If you ever feel compelled to steal a dead-end sign, do not attempt to uproot it post and all. Instead, focus just on the sign itself. Even if you don’t have the tools necessary, there are tricks to popping it from its perch. I will not be sharing those here — this is not “The Anarchist’s Cookbook” — but suffice it to say that tools are not always necessary when brute force, a modicum of ingenuity, and unyielding idiocy are readily available.
Part two of this advice is that if you do attempt to steal a dead-end sign, post and all, and abandon said plan upon realizing it’s not going to work, do not hop into the getaway car and floor it down the same dead-end road from which you were attempting to steal said sign. Remember, there is a reason it was placed there. You may not find, as my idiot friends and I did, a large unfenced and un-landscaped yard at the end offering the opportunity to do a sliding 360 through before exiting back out onto the road and driving away. 
I can admit this because we’re well beyond the statute of limitations for this attempted crime; also I am generally long past the urge to engage in petty theft of public property. As a teenager, though, as teenagers are wont to be, I was stupid. I was reckless. I sometimes had conversations with the police, conversations that on two occasions resulted in court appearances. We used to call these rites of passage. Today, though, teens have decided to be responsible rather than reckless, which sounds well and good, but greatness is not built upon the shoulders of responsibility. 
Looking at <a href="https://x.com/grantjbailey/status/2056407935291465782">this graph</a>, I can see my escapades occurred around the time an appetite for destruction peaked. I graduated high school in 1994, which looks to be when roughly 57% of young men craved danger, when doing so often literally involved saying, “Hold my beer.” Now, though, only 35% of young men feel similarly, which is no way to create an enduring future. 
A large part of the problem lies with my generation. We Gen Xers love to boast, but we helped invent participation trophies and helicopter parenting. We bragged about our limitless freedoms while taking our own kids to scheduled and adult-monitored activities most nights of the week. We compared stories about various whuppings while engaging in gentle parenting. We did this. 
Granted, in the words of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/22fern/am_i_so_out_of_touch/">Seymour Skinner</a>, we’re not wrong. It’s the kids who are out of touch. They’re supposed to rebel, not conform. And rebellion would be super easy right now. Not rebellion like we see via influencers and their bizarre reenactments of Bret Easton Ellis’s fever dreams — see, for instance, <a href="https://x.com/facetedcarapace/status/2055990136282755248">Clavicular</a> — but in terms of abject stupidity. 
There are structural obstacles to overcome thanks to the digital surveillance state and smartphones, but GPS spoofing technology is readily available. It’s quite easy to set your location to a known safe space while instead “borrowing” a friend’s dad’s car and taking a road trip for the weekend. There are still dirt roads just waiting to have a campfire built at the end of them. There are still older brothers to buy beer and parents who don’t visit the room when the kids have company over.
But it also takes us, as parents, to gently nudge our progeny to do something senseless every day, especially if it scares them. We have to loosen the reins and let them live, to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-pTlLMKIOqU">tell them</a>, “The older you do get, the more rules they’re gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep living, man. L-I-V-I-N.&#8221;
And sometimes we’re going to have to help them. At a graduation party recently, the fathers and celebratory son gathered in the kitchen. An exceptionally nice bottle of bourbon was produced. The young man, close to heading out into the world, joined the old men in a soupçon of the nectar, then proceeded to go outside and light up a cigar. At one point, when it started to go out, someone had to hold his beer while he hit the end with the flame. 
He did not look natural with his Glencairn, nor his cigar, but he did look like someone who might need bail money at some point. And at some point after that, he’ll be a captain of industry. For as <a href="https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Clancy_Wiggum">Chief Wiggum</a> said, when some killjoys attempted to bring back prohibition, “Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine.”
The United States, despite much handwringing to the contrary, is still a great nation, one full of hope and promise. But if we’re going to keep building upon the greatness that previous generations have bequeathed us, we’re going to have to remember that truth. We’re also going to have to remember that the future founders, mars colonizers, and world-class athletes are likely young degenerates today. They’re the ones too stupid to realize they can’t accomplish whatever risky venture they put their minds to. Now if someone could hold my beer, I see a dead-end sign off in the distance that would look fantastic in my oldest daughter’s dorm room.

GettyImages-2669737

Why The Next Great American Success Story Might Start With A Dumb Teenager

Culture

Teenagers

Upstream

Authorities in a New Jersey town took aggressive action this week after fights broke out when a mob of teens and young adults caused chaos on its popular beachfront. 
The city of Long Branch imposed an emergency 8:00 p.m. curfew after it said there was an &#8220;unauthorized pop-up gathering” of hundreds of people at Pier Village on Tuesday evening. This pop-up “quickly deteriorated into fights, individuals jumping on parked vehicles, and disorder along the boardwalk and surrounding streets,” the city <a href="https://www.longbranch.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/198">said</a>. 
The city deployed 139 law enforcement officers to respond to the incident, including 69 Long Branch officers and personnel from the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office and New Jersey Transit Police. The officers cleared the pop-up by 9:15 p.m. 
Videos posted to social media show large crowds of people sprinting through the area as police officers clear the streets. 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Unruly teen crowd takes over Pier Village in Long Branch, police respond" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jJOoiYovu3o?start=60&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;It really was a ton of people screaming, running,&#8221; Anthony Pizzi, who witnessed the chaos, told CBS. &#8220;Somebody pulled up the car right there and they just started jumping on the car.”
Six people were arrested as a result of the chaos, and police are investigating multiple aggravated assault cases and reports of a stolen car. Those arrested included a 19-year-old woman and a 20-year-old woman for disorderly conduct, three juvenile females for disorderly conduct, and a juvenile male for an eluding incident. 
The females arrested were all from Newark, about 45 miles away from Long Branch. The male was from New Brunswick, about 38 miles away. 
The city said that many of the people who arrived for the pop-up traveled by train to arrive in Long Branch. 
“The City of Long Branch takes these events seriously and will not tolerate conduct that endangers residents, visitors, business owners, or our public safety personnel,”said Long Branch Director of Public Safety Charles Shirley. “Pop-up gatherings of this nature have repeatedly disrupted Jersey Shore communities, and Long Branch is prepared to act decisively whenever public safety is threatened.”
Ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, the city said that anyone visiting the area “intending to engage in violence or disorder should expect to be arrested and prosecuted.”
Major cities throughout the country have faced so-called “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teen-takeovers-turn-blue-cities-into-scenes-from-the-purge">teen-takeovers</a>,” where massive groups of teenagers shut down public spaces, and engage in assaults, robberies, vandalism, and shootings. Earlier this week, multiple stabbings <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/20/us-news/rhode-island-beach-chaos-leads-to-three-stabbed-11-arrested/">took place</a> at beaches throughout Rhode Island during similar events.

People enjoy warm weather at New Jersey beach

WATCH: Police Crack Down After Teens Cause Chaos In Popular Beach Town

Crime

New Jersey

Police

Teen-Takeover

A Washington D.C. father who had to physically shield his children from a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/late-night-troublemakers-tear-up-d-c-chipotle-as-trump-admin-vows-to-crack-down-on-teen-takeovers">violent teen brawl</a> inside a Chipotle says the incident left his family shaken, with his son telling him afterward, “I can’t unsee that.”
Rafael Jauregui, an Air Force veteran and father of seven, was taking five of his children out for dinner after a Washington Nationals vs. Baltimore Orioles game on Saturday when a large fight erupted inside the restaurant, according to local reporting. Video of the chaos showed teens throwing punches and smashing chairs as customers scrambled for safety.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
A chaotic teen takeover turns violent inside a Washington, D.C. Chipotle.
The group of teens can be seen throwing punches and hurling restaurant chairs and stools at one another as innocent bystanders huddle for safety in a corner of the restaurant.
The incident comes just days… <a href="https://t.co/HcHeOftGcf">pic.twitter.com/HcHeOftGcf</a>
— Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/2056415804493627661?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2026</a></blockquote>
“At that point, I tell the children, ‘get with me, get up, let’s start backing up,’” Jauregui told <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/navy-yard-brawl-comes-after-us-attorney-pirros-promised-crackdown-on-teen-takeovers">ABC7 News</a>. “And then it was like an ambush.”
Jauregui said the group “looked like ninjas, dressed in black, with ski masks,” as they flooded into the restaurant and began swinging chairs at one another. He said he and his children were forced into a corner while he scanned the crowd for weapons, relying on his military training to assess whether any of the teens were armed. He watched as the fight escalated into what U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro described Monday as a “takeover of a restaurant.”
“It was not just violence occurring between individuals. It was simply destruction of property,” Pirro said during a press conference. “It was a takeover of a restaurant by individuals who felt like they could get away with it. Well, they’re not going to get away with it.” Pirro said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now involved in identifying those responsible for the weekend melee, which broke out in the city’s Navy Yard neighborhood one day after she announced a new crackdown on juvenile crime.
She vowed to prosecute not only the teens involved but, in some cases, their parents. “If you know where your teen is and what they are doing and allow them to continue their conduct and continue to allow them to flourish, we’re going to prosecute you,” Pirro said. Jauregui said he supports that approach, arguing the violence went far beyond teenagers “messing around.”
“[I’m] in line with what the U.S. Attorney is trying to do,” he said. “This is next level. Where a dad can’t bring their kids to a Nats game and grab a bite after.” The father said his two sons helped shield their younger sisters during the chaos, but the emotional impact lingered after the family left. “My son said on the way home, ‘Papa, I can’t unsee that,’” Jauregui said. “Those individuals have now directly impacted my security, my life.”
The incident is the latest in a string of so-called “teen takeovers” that have disrupted public spaces in Washington, as city officials face growing pressure to rein in youth violence ahead of major national celebrations planned in the capital this summer.

Teen-Takeover-4.jpg

‘I Can’t Unsee That’: Man Who Shielded Kids From Urban Teen Brawl Speaks Out

Violent Crime

In the final major debate of the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, D.C., the candidates spent as much time accusing each other of corruption and Republican sympathies as they did defending their own visions for the city — a revealing display in a race where the Democratic nominee is all but certain to win in November.
The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6ngPu8G9A">hour-long forum</a>, hosted by Fox 5 D.C., quickly became a combative showdown between Kenyan McDuffie and Janeese Lewis George, who repeatedly traded barbs over crime, campaign donations, and ties to President Donald Trump. Businessman Gary Goodweather was on stage as well, but drew less attention, often struggling to break into the sharper exchanges between the two council veterans.
The clash over public safety was among the night’s most pointed moments. After moderators raised a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/late-night-troublemakers-tear-up-d-c-chipotle-as-trump-admin-vows-to-crack-down-on-teen-takeovers">violent brawl involving teenagers at a Chipotle</a> in Navy Yard, Lewis George defended her opposition to the city’s youth curfew by arguing that enforcement could put minors in danger because of the federal law-enforcement presence in the district.
“Using the curfew as a tool for our young people is dangerous,” Lewis George said. “It is dangerous because we have federal troops who are in our city, mass ICE agents who are in our city, and these are the people enforcing this law on our young people.”
McDuffie seized on the opening to portray her as soft on crime. 
“What they need to do is treat these teen takeovers like the public safety emergency that they are,” he said. &#8220;Doing nothing is not an option.” He went further, directly blaming Lewis George for delaying action on the curfew. &#8220;The council had an opportunity to act just a few weeks ago, before the curfew expired, but they didn’t act, because Janeese Lewis George shut it down.&#8221; 
Lewis George responded by accusing McDuffie of opportunism and trying to appeal to conservatives in a city that remains overwhelmingly Democratic. 
“Now that he is taking big Trump donor dollars and Republican dollars, he’s now using cheap political points from Republicans to score in this moment,” she said. “It’s disingenuous and disheartening.”
That charge became a recurring theme throughout the night, with Lewis George repeatedly invoking what she described as McDuffie’s acceptance of donations from “Trump donor dollars,” while McDuffie countered by accusing her of facing <a href="https://campaignforaccountability.org/watchdog-files-ethics-complaint-against-d-c-mayoral-candidate-janeese-lewis-george-over-financial-disclosure-failures/">campaign finance scrutiny</a>.
“There’s only one person on this stage who’s actively under investigation for violations of the campaign finance laws, and it’s Ms. Janice Lewis George,” McDuffie said.
The debate also underscored just how far Left the race has moved in a city where Republicans are effectively noncompetitive. All three candidates said they would end cooperation between D.C. police and ICE. Asked whether they would direct the Metropolitan Police Department to work with U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on enforcing the youth curfew, both Lewis George and Goodweather answered flatly: “No.” McDuffie likewise pledged to cut off cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, saying he would “sign an executive order to rescind ICE” from the city.
Goodweather had perhaps the most unusual proposal of the evening, suggesting that Washington eventually construct “a fourth-generation air-cooled nuclear reactor on federal land in D.C.” as part of his energy plan, a remark that stood out in a debate otherwise dominated by housing, public safety, and mutual accusations.
In a city where the Democratic primary will almost certainly decide the next mayor, Tuesday’s debate showed candidates not racing to the center, but competing to prove who is more liberal — and who can paint their Democratic rival as secretly aligned with the Right. The Washington, D.C., primary is on June 16.

Washington, DC skyline

D.C. Democrats Face Questions Over Teen Takeovers As Mayoral Race Heats Up

Debate

Democrats

Donald Trump

Washington D.C.

A group of rowdy young people flung chairs and threw punches in a Washington, D.C., Chipotle on Saturday night, just one day after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro vowed to crack down on parents who allow their kids to run wild through the streets.
The chaos in D.C.&#8217;s Navy Yard was captured on camera by a news crew and posted to social media on Sunday. Footage shows at least eight people engaged in a full-blown brawl in the restaurant, with some of the culprits picking up chairs and slamming them into other fighters. Girls were heard screaming in the background, and Chipotle workers watched the fight from behind the counter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Massive brawl broke out Friday night at a Chipotle in the Navy Yard area. <a href="https://t.co/xqZTliXWvK">pic.twitter.com/xqZTliXWvK</a>
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2056153477567438871?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The brawl took place just across the street from a large gathering of juveniles in a grassy area. Officers with the Metropolitan Police Department eventually arrived on the scene and arrested at least one person who was part of the teen gathering, ABC 7 News <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/navy-yard-chipotle-fight-washington-dc-brawl-crime-teen-takeover-caught-on-camera-mpd-investigation-jeanine-pirro-juvenile-curfew-violence-breaking-news-se-violent-restaurant-public-safety-chairs-thrown-in-incident-metropolitan-police-department-zones">reported</a>.
A man who lives in Navy Yard told ABC 7 News that the violent teen gatherings have become &#8220;routine on Saturdays and Friday nights.&#8221;
“It’s not shocking anymore, since this has become routine on Saturdays and Friday nights, but it’s disappointing to know this is still happening,&#8221; Ken Ledet said on Sunday. “I actually come to this Chipotle at least three or four times a week, so thankfully I didn’t come here last night.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teen-takeovers-turn-blue-cities-into-scenes-from-the-purge">Teen takeovers</a> are plaguing Democrat-run cities across the country, including the nation&#8217;s capital. On Friday, Pirro held a press conference to address the growing issue in Washington, D.C., and issued a warning to parents.
&#8220;Starting today, my office will prosecute parents under D.C.&#8217;s curfew law,&#8221; Pirro said.
“If the evidence shows the parent knew or should have known or permitted or failed to prevent participation, we are going to charge them,” she continued, adding, “If you drop your kid off and you fail to supervise them, or you let them skip school to join the chaos, you are going to face fines, court ordered classes, and possible jail time.”
The D.C. city council recently voted to extend the police chief&#8217;s power to impose an 8:00 p.m. curfew for kids under 18 in certain areas. Navy Yard has become a top spot for teens to meet on the weekends in gatherings that often turn violent. D.C. also has an 11:00 p.m. citywide curfew for juveniles on week nights and a midnight curfew on weekends.

U.S.-WASHINGTON, D.C.-TRUMP-SHOOTING-SUSPECT

Violent Teen Takeover Erupts Inside Chipotle As Officials Promise Parents Won’t Escape Blame

Trump Administration

A growing wave of juvenile crime and “teen takeovers” in major Democrat-run cities is prompting renewed scrutiny of leftist policing policies, with critics warning that years of anti-law enforcement rhetoric have created an atmosphere of escalating disorder.
The phenomenon has erupted in cities including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in recent months, with incidents often coordinated through TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media platforms.
Col. Frank Carpenter, chief of police in Chesterfield County, Virginia, told <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/03/30/us-news/teen-takeovers-turn-city-centers-into-scenes-from-the-purge-cops/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Post</a> these scenes resemble “The Purge,” a dystopian horror film franchise depicting cities descending into lawlessness. Police sources say that massive groups of teenagers have increasingly overwhelmed officers, shut down public spaces, and engaged in assaults, robberies, vandalism, and shootings.
As with Virginia, these incidents are especially concentrated in Democrat-led cities. Chicago, in particular, has emerged as one of the most visible examples.
Last week, a silver sedan <a href="https://x.com/ChicagoContrar1/status/2053107479580479701?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rammed</a> a Chicago Police Department squad car during a downtown street takeover near Grant Park while crowds of teens surrounded the vehicle, cheering, filming officers on their phones, and pounding on the patrol car’s hood. Just two days later, on Friday, a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWl_IufDx1X/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second takeover erupted</a> on the city’s South Side. In another incident earlier this spring, teens allegedly set vehicles ablaze by igniting fireworks inside them.
Similar incidents have recently unfolded in Los Angeles beach communities and <a href="https://x.com/WellsJorda89710/status/2043154989682511888?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Washington, D.C</a>., where viral videos show large crowds overwhelming police presence and turning public areas into chaotic scenes. Though no one was killed, in one Los Angeles-area takeover, gunfire broke out and struck four victims ranging from 17 to 22 years old.
In New York City, police arrested a 17-year-old suspect in the fatal stabbing of 39-year-old Leonides Baez near Times Square. According to investigators, the teen allegedly said he was inspired by a TikTok trend known as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/nyregion/teenager-stabbing-times-square-nyc-tiktok.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">messing with crackheads</a>,” in which vulnerable or homeless individuals are harassed for entertainment and online attention.
Authorities say several teens approached Baez before he was stabbed to death outside of a restaurant.
Critics say the social media component is central to understanding this crime trend. The Wall Street Journal recently characterized many of the incidents as “performative crime,” that is, criminal acts committed for viral attention and social status online.
But some analysts argue the deeper causes run far beyond TikTok.
Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of &#8220;The War on Cops,&#8221; said authorities are failing to confront the fact that these crimes are overwhelmingly being carried out by young African Americans and reflect long-term breakdowns in the black family structure.
“This is a long-standing problem, and nobody wants to talk about what the causes are,” Mac Donald said during an interview with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/hosts/morning-wire?elementPosition=7&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Browse+by+Hosts&amp;rowType=Hosts+Carousel">Morning Wire</a>. “The criminal justice system is terrified, really, to do anything about it.”
The extreme nature of the takeovers is prompting Republican leaders to act though. On Friday, U.S. Attorney <a href="https://x.com/foxnews/status/2055326776549605474?s=43" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeanine Pirro announced</a> a significant offensive against the parents of minors participating in these crimes. Pirro pledged to pursue criminal charges against parents who neglect their supervisory duties, warning that such failures could result in substantial financial penalties or incarceration.
“If the evidence shows the parent knew or should have known or permitted or failed to prevent participation, we are going to charge them,” Pirro stated, adding, “If you drop your kid off and you fail to supervise them, or you let them skip school to join the chaos, you are going to face fines, court ordered classes, and possible jail time.&#8221;
Another contributing factor Mac Donald pointed to is schools, which she said have historically been reluctant to discipline black students after years of pressure from leftist activists and federal officials who claimed disciplinary disparities were evidence of systemic racism.
“Teachers now have been told they can’t do that,” she said, referring to enforcing discipline and behavioral standards in classrooms. She also blamed the lingering effects of the anti-police movement that exploded after the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, riots and intensified following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
“Policing obviously has been under one prolonged assault since the Ferguson riots,” Mac Donald said. “The pressure is on them not to intervene at all because they don’t want another George Floyd riot or Ferguson riot in their city.”
The debate has intensified as some blue-city leaders continue pushing policies that restrict law enforcement.
Last week, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to curtail “pretextual” traffic stops by the LAPD. The stops are initiated for low-level violations such as broken taillights or expired tags that sometimes lead officers to uncover illegal weapons or narcotics. The city council&#8217;s vote is now set to be debated by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, which has the final say.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has previously described aggressive law enforcement approaches as a “sickness” in Chicago that he wanted to “eradicate.”
Mac Donald argued that years of political hostility toward proactive policing have worsened violent crime. “There’s nothing more important that the police can do to lower gun crime than these types of investigative stops,” she said.
Although officials in cities such as New York and Chicago often point to declining overall crime statistics, Mac Donald said those numbers can obscure broader public disorder. “Murders don’t lie. You can’t hide the bodies,” she said, noting homicide rates remain elevated compared to pre-2020 levels despite recent declines from their peak.
Police recruitment has also become increasingly difficult in major urban departments. Mac Donald said cities including Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago remain severely understaffed as officers retire early, leave for red states, or avoid entering the profession altogether.
“If current policies continue,” she warned, “people who can leave are going to leave.”

US-NEWS-CHICAGO-SHOOTINGS-TB

Teen Takeovers Turn Blue Cities Into ‘Scenes From The Purge’

Chicago

New York City

Today is May Day, and we begin hot with nationwide protests in our schools. This shouldn’t come as a surprise — the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of political events. From the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, there is no shortage of political controversy.
What is May Day, you might ask? For months, teachers&#8217; unions and high-profile left-wing nonprofits have <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/a-may-day-2026-host-toolkit-includes-training-information-for-a-coordinated-day-of-action-and-promotes-tactics-such-as-a-school-walk-in-nea-provided-1-7m-in-funding-to-organization-involved/">geared</a> up for mass mobilizations and boycotts to honor the socialist holy day and to flex their political power. Part of the preparation <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/a-sunrise-movement-training-guidebook-calls-for-students-to-take-action-monthly-to-disrupt-business-as-usual-to-bring-about-a-political-revolution/">efforts include</a> training and organizing children to engage in <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/k-12-student-walkout-and-protest-tracker/">school walkouts</a> and protests.
While left-wing activism is not new itself, what is relatively new is the degree to which the education system has been corrupted to engineer new generations to activists. These May Day protests are a feature, a byproduct really, of an education system steeped in radical ideologies designed to mobilize far-left activism and a “<a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/newly-obtained-slides-from-a-sunrise-movement-membership-meeting-calls-for-a-political-revolution-that-includes-the-need-to-structurally-change-the-foundations-of-this-country-to-achieve-eco/">political revolution</a>.”
Nor are these protests the end. They are an opening act for what the professional agitators and activists intend to be an ongoing affair leading up to the 2028 elections. K-12 schools are strategic collateral damage.
This pattern is visible in the series of <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/k-12-student-walkout-and-protest-tracker/">student walkouts</a> since January, many of which focused on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Less visible to the public, however, is the role of the <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/nea-president-becky-pringle-joins-sunrise-movements-roadmap-to-political-revolution-event-series/">teachers&#8217; unions</a> and <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/group-messages-and-training-documents-suggest-k-12-student-ice-protests-in-minnesota-may-be-organized-by-the-sunrise-movement-and-its-members-including-a-current-ivy-league-student-with-ties-to-past/">nonprofit allies</a> in these protests.
For American children, the learning experience is a constant barrage of heavily lopsided <a href="https://defendinged.org/incidents/minnesota-eighth-graders-shown-videos-of-ice-arrests-and-alleged-harassment-of-u-s-citizens-principal-says-its-part-of-state-geography-standards/">political messaging</a> meant to train the youngest kids to see the world through a <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/politics/critical-competency-consciousness/2023/12/07/id/1145144/">warped oppressor-oppressed</a> framing and to engage in action or activism to stop the perceived “injustice.”
Whether through <a href="https://web.ped.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/K12ParentandFamilySocialStudiesGuides.pdf">state standards</a> and guidance, such as New Mexico Public Education Department’s Social Studies “<a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/new-mexico-education-documents-for-high-school-history-and-ethnic-studies-include-climate-change-intersectionality-and-january-6-insurrection-content/">Instructional Scope</a>” or <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/liberated-k-12-liberated-ethnic-studies-industrial-complex/">ethnic studies</a> courses, students are being conditioned to be political actors from the <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Liberated-Ethnic-Studies-Model-Curriculum-What-is-Normal_-Slides-presentation-Gr-Pk-2.pdf">earliest ages</a>.
For example, a free <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/liberated-universities-landing-page/">lesson</a> produced by the University of Minnesota’s &#8220;Ethnic Studies Initiative” teaches sixth-grade students about the Black Lives Matter movement through the creation of “protest art.” The middle school students are then required to produce their own social justice protest art.
Such indoctrination is not only reserved for ethnic studies. It has permeated into our school system through Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) <a href="https://defendinged.org/resources/sel101/">programming</a>.
SEL is no less a political tool than ethnic studies. In 2019, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) <a href="https://www.aft.org/ae/summer2021/jagers_skoog-hoffman_barthelus_schlund">mainstreamed</a> “transformative” SEL, which integrates anti-racism and <a href="https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/research-evaluation/youth-organizing-and-transformative-sel">activism</a> into its framework.
Second Step, a popular SEL company that utilizes CASEL’s platform, went further and <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-28-at-4.17.30-PM.png">aligned</a> its curriculum with Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards, focusing specifically on action and activism. Learning for Justice is a program of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-wire-fraud-false-statements-and">Southern Poverty Law Center</a> (SPLC).
As students, teachers&#8217; unions, and left-wing activist organizations take to the streets this May Day to champion policies and an ideology that the majority of Americans reject, the public needs to understand that this is the starting gun, not the finish line.
Left-wing actors desperately want a “political revolution” and have no problem using other people&#8217;s children to achieve their goals. They have no issue turning the K-12 education system into a far-left activist pipeline. What we’re seeing now is just the beginning.
* * *
Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master&#8217;s degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of coaching experience from junior high to Division I.

May Day Workers Rally

Teachers’ Unions Celebrate Socialist Holy Day

DW Opinion

Leftists

Protests

Public Schools

Students

Teachers Unions

For decades, Americans have viewed their primary adversaries as foreign nationals or international terrorist organizations. Yet this perspective has proven dangerously naive. Over the past 60 years, socialist and Marxist ideologies have taken root within our own borders, often hiding in plain sight. This internal threat operates not from distant shores but from within.
Recent events only underscore this concern. The arrest of a would-be assassin at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — reportedly a former “Teacher of the Year” — is deeply disturbing. It raises a critical question: how have individuals entrusted with educating our children become radicalized to such extremes? And more importantly — where is the line when freedom of speech ends and subversion begins?
<h3>Quietly Reshaping Society From the Inside Out</h3>
This enemy is not a shadowy cabal of spies but a network of socialist and Marxist-influenced elites who have methodically gained influence over key pillars of American life: universities, the legal system, media, political parties, and even religious organizations. Operating under the banners of progress, equity, and social justice, they have advanced while many citizens focused on daily responsibilities. The outcome has been a slow erosion of foundational American values and a deliberate division of people along lines of ethnicity, religion, and sexual identity and even splits amongst once close family members. The result is the gradual weakening of the nation’s core institutions and social fabric.
<h3>The Decimation of the Nuclear Family</h3>
One of the most striking impacts appears in the decline of the nuclear family. This trend began prominently in the black community. In the 1960s, roughly 80% of black children lived in two-parent homes. Today, that figure is reversed with 77% of black children born to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/693212/77-black-births-to-single-moms-49-for-hispanic-immigrants/">single mothers</a>. The problem has since spread nationwide. Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/">data</a> show the United States has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households among developed nations — 23% of U.S. children under 18 live in fatherless homes, more than three times the global average.
Marriage rates have also hit historic lows, undermining the stable family structures historically linked to prosperity, child well-being, and social mobility. A prosperous country cannot long thrive without strong families as its foundation.
<h3>Academic Excellence Subverted into a Marxist Trojan Horse</h3>
Nowhere is the transformation more evident than in education. In public schools, social justice curricula emphasizing systemic racism, gender ideology, and equity have often displaced core academics. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores — the Nation’s Report Card — reveal reading and math proficiency at historic lows, with declines affecting students across demographic groups. Resources flow into DEI initiatives and “restorative justice” programs that prioritize emotional outcomes over measurable skills.
The human cost is profound: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/most-us-would-fail-u-s-citizenship-test-survey-finds-n918961">surveys indicate</a> only about 19% of Americans under age 45 can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test, with many unable to name the three branches of government or explain the Bill of Rights. Older Americans pass at much higher rates (around 74% in some studies), underscoring that this reflects educational shifts rather than inherent generational differences. 
Teachers’ unions have sometimes embraced ideological language. During the 2022 Minneapolis strike, a union leader framed the effort as a fight against “the patriarchy” and “capitalism.”
Universities, once centers of free inquiry, now exhibit stark ideological imbalance. Faculty ratios have shifted dramatically, with liberal-to-conservative balances moving from roughly 2:1 in the mid-1990s to far wider margins today — often 10:1 or higher in many studies, with even greater disparities in humanities and education departments. In the national survey, Departments of Education faculty self-identify as Radical, Activist, Socialist or Marxist. This is especially concerning because they instruct the next generation of public-school teachers.
<h3>Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism and Advocacy</h3>
This academic capture influences media, law, and advocacy. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have faced scrutiny, including allegations in legal contexts of questionable practices while labeling mainstream groups. Media outlets often amplify such frameworks, shaping narratives through selective coverage. In politics, socialist ideas have moved from the fringes to mainstream Democratic platforms.
In November 2025, New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, as mayor — the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of America’s largest city. His administration prioritizes expansive government and redistribution. Similar dynamics appear in Minnesota: Minneapolis City Council includes self-declared Democratic Socialists of America members advancing related priorities amid ongoing challenges with crime and services. The 2020 unrest in Minneapolis, involving organized elements, accelerated “defund the police” experiments rooted in these ideologies.
<h3>Undermining Service to Citizens</h3>
Elected officials advancing such agendas can weaken state capacity and national cohesion. When civic education falters, informed citizenship declines — an outcome aligned with views that see the Constitution as an outdated instrument of oppression.
Religious institutions have also been affected. Some mainline Protestant and Catholic circles have incorporated critiques of “systemic sin,” shifting emphasis toward social justice over personal redemption. Sermons increasingly echo academic and media talking points on privilege and reparations.
<h3>Pattern Recognition and the Path Forward</h3>
This is not paranoia but observable pattern recognition. Socialist and Marxist influences advanced not through overt revolution but via tenure committees, HR departments, grants, and activist networks. They reframed compassion-based concepts like diversity, inclusion, and equity into tools against dissent.
Evidence surrounds us: politicized campuses stifling debate, advocacy groups facing credibility questions, socialist elected officials, schools prioritizing socialist ideology, unions opposing capitalism, coordinated protests and riots, and churches emphasizing liberal politics.
Americans must awaken to this reality. The adversary lectures from podiums, edits content, drafts laws, grades papers, and serves on councils — seldom wearing foreign uniforms. Reclaiming institutions require vigilance: restoring academic excellence and viewpoint diversity in universities, demanding transparency from nonprofits and unions, electing leaders focused on merit and results, and ensuring schools prioritize fundamentals — reading, writing, history, and civics — over grievance.
The republic was not lost overnight but inch by inch. The time to push back is now. Our children’s future and the nation’s character depend on it.
* * *
Kendall Qualls is an Army veteran, business leader, and the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota. TakeCharge is a national nonprofit organization led by Kendall and Sheila Qualls focused on restoring strong families as the foundation for opportunity, dignity, and upward mobility.

Former President Obama Joins NYC Mayor Mamdani On A Visit To Child Care Center

The Quiet Campaign Weaponizing America’s Youth

Education

Family Values

Gen Z

Legacy Media

Minnesota

Propaganda

A human rights tribunal in British Columbia recently <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/barry-neufeld-former-chilliwack-bc-trustee-pay-hate-speech-tribunal-2slgbtq-9.7098536">fined</a> a man $750,000 for public statements he made opposing a school board’s promotion of gender ideology. The tribunal found his comments, speeches, and social media posts brought &#8220;injury to their dignity, feelings, and self-respect.&#8221; The same tribunal <a href="https://thenewamerican.com/world-news/canadian-womans-former-landlady-fined-10000-for-saying-transphobic-things-to-her/">fined</a> a woman $10,000 for privately disagreeing with a friend’s gender transition.
In Canada, enforcing gender ideology comes at a steep cost: the suppression of free speech, the erosion of medical integrity, and harm to the wellbeing — perhaps even the future fertility — of young Canadians. And it is all justified as a necessary sacrifice for the “greater good” of a tolerant society, an ideal now woven into Canada’s national identity.
The scientific evidence against so-called gender transition, however, is mounting. Most countries around the world are beginning to realize it — except Canada.
In 2024, the United Kingdom moved to <a href="https://londondaily.com/the-indefinite-ban-on-puberty-blockers-for-minors">ban</a> puberty blockers outright. Australia’s state of Queensland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/28/queenslands-controversial-puberty-blocker-ban-overturned-by-supreme-court">prohibited</a> puberty blockers in January, while New Zealand <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/regulation-legislation/puberty-blockers">imposed</a> strict controls in November. In February, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons <a href="https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/health-policy/positions/2026-gender-surgery-children-adolescents.pdf">released</a> a position statement on gender surgery, warning against its potential harms.
Yet every Canadian health agency claims affirmation is the default solution for gender dysphoria. The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends accepting one’s gender identity as valid — even <a href="https://nationalpost.com/health/canadas-pediatricians-advised-to-support-affirming-gender-questioning-six-year-olds">six-year-olds</a>. The same organization explicitly <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadian-paediatric-society-vows-to-continue-prescribing-puberty-blockers">dismissed</a> the findings of the Cass Review, a landmark <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-bloody-angry-j-k-rowling-scorches-critics-in-the-wake-of-cass-review-on-child-gender-transitions">study</a> that discovered the weak evidentiary basis for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
Such stark defiance of evidence-based care is nothing short of negligence — not surprising for a country that now includes <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/movement-barrels-forward-to-euthanize-12-year-old-children-in-canada">death</a> in its definition of health care. But negligence alone is an insufficient explanation. Canada is not catching up with the rest of the world to dismiss medical transition because their commitment to it is rooted in ideology, not science. And it is propagated by elites through a centralized system of top-down planning.
First, legislation enforces affirmation of gender identity. Canada <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8434497/conversion-therapy-ban-canada-royal-assent/">passed a ban</a> on so-called conversion therapy in 2021, defined as a practice designed to “change a person’s gender identity to cisgender.” But the “conversion therapy” of changing a person’s body to match their gender identity — which is defined in a circular way — is allowed. In fact, it’s effectively mandated. Those convicted under this law can receive up to five years in prison. There are no carve-outs for adults seeking sex-affirming therapy to help them with gender dysphoria.
Where there is no law directly prohibiting speech, Canadian courts create one. The latest examples both come from British Columbia: the man fined $750,000 for public statements and the woman fined $10,000 for a private conversation.
Such outrageous penalties have a chilling effect on speech. Absent any serious dissent, the monolithic worldview promoted in Canadian schools, hospitals, and traditional media will continue unchallenged. And the children don’t stand a chance.
Consider Julia Malbogat, a Toronto mom who <a href="https://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/opinion/stop-asking-me-if-my-eight-year-old-trans-kid-is-just-going-through-a-phase/">wrote</a> in 2021 about her daughter “coming out” as transgender. During a family trip to their cottage, her daughter said that she’s a boy, to which Julia replied with a simple “ok.” When asked how she knew, the child pointed to the school’s Rainbow Alliance, a grade 4-6 club teaching “sexual and gender diversity.” Julia dismissed the possibility her child was mistaken and noted that surgery wouldn’t be an option until 16. By then, she assumed the dysphoria would be “insistent, persistent, and consistent” enough to justify medical intervention.
But how could someone’s gender dysphoria be anything except persistent if they are affirmed from the moment it is expressed? Gender-confused children rarely hear a serious alternative from schools or clinicians — though some later wish they had. Ask the detransitioners.
The largest <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2025.2538744">study</a> of detransitioners in Canada and the United States suggests that many who reversed a gender transition wish doctors “took a more neutral approach to care.” The participants reported feelings of alienation, emphasizing the high social cost of detransition. One woman <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=detransitioners%20ghosted%20&amp;qs=n&amp;form=QBRE&amp;sp=-1&amp;ghc=1&amp;lq=0&amp;pq=detransitioners%20ghost&amp;sc=6-21&amp;sk=&amp;cvid=4BE657D5CF8D46BFA48C72A857DF33F8">said</a> she was “ghosted” by the doctor who did her mastectomy. Treating gender identity as immutable and patients as infallible leaves minors, who are already going through emotional and physical changes, at risk of serious harm.
Look no further than their chosen cultural symbols. Publicly funded spaces across the country are decked out in pride flags, including city halls, legislative assemblies, walkways, libraries. This imagery is so pervasive in places of cultural importance that a first-time visitor might mistake it for the national flag.
In the absence of their rich traditions, Canadians have united around a new vision of the good. This new orthodoxy is summed up well in Bill C-4’s preamble, which states that conversion therapy “propagates” the myth that “cisgender identity is to be preferred over other gender identities.” While Canada elevates the dubious idea of an inner, gendered essence, it denounces the view that our bodies are essential to who we are.
That is a philosophical claim, not a scientific one. Science can’t disprove it.
Until Canada re-examines its commitment to this new orthodoxy, it will keep ignoring the warnings — until the damage is too widespread to dismiss.
* * *
Liana Graham is a research assistant in domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Close up of LGBT pin in the form of a flag with Canada pin is pinned on blue jeans jacket. LGBT rights in Canada concept.

He Spoke Out Against Gender Ideology. It Cost Him Nearly A Million Dollars.

How Pushing Back On Gender Ideology Cost One Man $750,000

Canada

Children

Free Speech

Gender

Gender Transition

Heritage Foundation

LGBTQ

Social Media Censorship

Transgender

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
For years, progressives have been shrieking about book bans, insisting conservatives want to pull classics from library shelves or burn fantasy novels for promoting witchcraft. It was always a straw man. 
The real fight was never about classic literature; it was about books like &#8220;Gender Queer,&#8221; which includes illustrations of oral sex and masturbation, and which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/over-90-of-voters-say-sexually-explicit-images-in-gender-queer-are-inappropriate-poll">90% of voters</a> in a 2023 poll said was inappropriate for public school libraries. Or it was about “This Book Is Gay,” which introduces dating apps to teenagers.
Those books are undeniably gross, but they do have exactly one redeeming quality: They are obvious. If your kid came home with a copy of &#8220;Gender Queer&#8221; or &#8220;This Book Is Gay,&#8221; it would immediately signal that it was time to attend a school board meeting.
But there&#8217;s a much more dangerous form of young adult literature out there, and it&#8217;s lurking behind an intentionally deceptive cover that&#8217;s meant to trick parents into thinking everything is fine.
Rebecca Bendheim, the author of a YA book for teen readers, posted on social media about deliberately designing the cover art to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/author-proudly-says-she-made-book-cover-gay-enough-for-kids-but-invisible-to-parents">hide the book&#8217;s theme</a> from parents while simultaneously advertising it to children.
&#8220;When Penguin [Random House] asked me what I wanted for my cover, I said I wanted it to be gay enough for queer kids and teens to clock it, but for homophobic parents to just think it&#8217;s a friendship story,&#8221; the author and middle school teacher bragged on Instagram.
The book is called &#8220;When You&#8217;re Brave Enough&#8221; and was released on Tuesday. According to the publisher, it is recommended for children ages 10–14.
&#8220;So I said, no holding hands, make my character look gay,&#8221; Bendheim explained. She went on to point out subtle details she and the cover artist agreed on, including flowers growing between the pair to represent a crush that&#8217;s &#8220;growing.&#8221;
In a follow-up video, Bendheim showed her book cover to random people on the street to see if they could guess what it was about.
 &#8220;Shoutout to the people who answered and to librarians who help kids and teens find subtle queer books if they need them,&#8221; she wrote in the caption. &#8220;I&#8217;m a firm believer that positive representation saves lives!! Would you be able to tell?&#8221;
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVuH_7CDZfj/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
&nbsp;
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVuH_7CDZfj/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Rebecca Bendheim (@rebeccabendheim)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
Bendheim&#8217;s approach is insidious for what it hides. But other YA authors aren&#8217;t bothering to hide anything at all.
A &#8220;Good Morning America&#8221; YA Book Club selection, &#8220;Sibylline,&#8221; apparently includes graphic sex scenes depicting necrophilia, threesomes, and rape, with no warnings for unsuspecting parents.
The novel, written by Melissa de la Cruz, is advertised as &#8220;a heart-stopping dark academia romantasy series&#8221; in the YA genre. Typically, these books are aimed at middle and high school children, with characters around that same age range. &#8220;Sibylline&#8221; was published on February 3.
When the main character Atticus dies, two other characters attempt to revive him by engaging in sexual acts with his apparently lifeless body. The scene — presented from the perspective of the dying character — depicts a graphic, non-consensual sexual encounter between all three characters. There are no content warnings anywhere on the book.
The book has been earning mostly one-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, with readers noting the themes are wildly inappropriate for its target audience.
&#8220;The audience is children and there are graphic descriptions of sexual acts between characters. Yes, the characters are older. No, they&#8217;re not always consenting,&#8221; one reviewer wrote.
&#8220;The main three characters participate in a threesome that is graphic, and this book is listed as appropriate for 9th through 12th graders, which is completely insane,&#8221; another said. &#8220;If we think that it&#8217;s appropriate to market sex — let alone a threesome — to 12-year-olds, there&#8217;s a serious problem in this industry.&#8221;
Child sexualization used to be something the culture at least pretended to oppose. The exploitative imagery around a teenage Britney Spears, the Calvin Klein ads featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields — society claimed to reckon with all of it. So why have people in the publishing industry decided those lessons don&#8217;t apply to them?
The answer, it turns out, is that some of the people running that industry don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s a problem here.
Andrew Karre is an executive editor at Penguin Random House&#8217;s Dutton Books for Young Readers, the same publishing house behind &#8220;When You&#8217;re Brave Enough.&#8221; In an <a href="https://pen.org/andrew-karre-interview/">interview</a> with PEN America published in November 2025, he was remarkably candid about his worldview.
&#8220;Once you approach it that way, what is a part of teenage experience?&#8221; Karre said. &#8220;Sex. Whether actually having it or imagining having it, sex is inextricable from 13- to 19-year-olds.&#8221;
He went further, saying that a YA publishing industry without sexual content was essentially unimaginable.
&#8220;If, all of a sudden, it became impossible to publish YA novels with sex in them, I think it would effectively become impossible to publish YA novels as I understand them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s hyperbolic at all.&#8221;
Karre also argued that since teenagers will encounter sex anyway through what he called &#8220;ethically problematic&#8221; avenues like pornography, books serve as a healthier medium to instruct them. Those who would prefer sexual content removed from YA books, in his view, are simply making an error.
He speaks for an industry that seems to indicate it knows better than parents what children should be reading.
This all amounts to a multifaceted attack on parental authority. On one side, authors and publishers are deliberately designing books to slip past parents&#8217; radars with cover art engineered to look innocent. On the other, you have publishers saturating the YA market with graphic sexual content that has no warnings, all in service of providing instruction to sex-curious teens.
The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-one-of-the-moms-who-just-won-at-the-supreme-court-heres-why-we-fought">pushed back</a> last year. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court ruled 6-3 that parents retain a constitutional right to shield their children from objectionable material in public schools. That ruling was a start, but it doesn’t solve the problem of YA publishers believing they have the moral duty to impart sexual instruction on minors.
Parents need to know these books exist, and they need to keep speaking out against them. The publishing industry has made it abundantly clear it’s not censoring anything.

GettyImages-1496961701

Inside The Push To Get Explicit Content In Front Of Kids Without Parents Knowing

Books

sexual content

A legislative package that promises to be the largest overhaul of kids&#8217; online safety regulation in decades was advanced last month by the House Energy &amp; Commerce Committee. A good sign of a bill&#8217;s efficacy, however, is how strongly the industry it aims to regulate opposes it.
So far, most of the package — including the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7757/text">Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/836/text">Children’s Online Privacy Protection</a> (COPPA 2.0) Act — has not drawn serious opposition from Big Tech. What gives?
On balance, Silicon Valley has much to gain if these laws pass as drafted.
For starters, the Senate version of COPPA 2.0 doubles down on the existing age of internet adulthood being 13, thus maintaining the industry-preferred status quo. This ignores the harms social media can cause teens well after 13, such as fueling depression, social isolation, or worse. David Molak, to offer just one heartbreaking example, was <a href="https://www.today.com/parents/cliff-molak-petitions-against-cyberbullies-after-teen-brother-s-suicide-t66591">driven by online cyberbullying</a> to commit suicide at 16 years old. That’s why eminent figures like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/well/family/jean-twenge-social-media-screens-teens.html">Jean Twenge</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/jun/07/jonathan-haidt-anxious-generation-smartphones">Jonathan Haidt</a> call for raising the age of social media eligibility to 16, and others <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/01/sen-bernie-moreno-says-social-media-worse-than-cigarettes-for-youths-urges-complete-ban.html">call for 18</a>.
This is bad, but perhaps the legislation’s biggest gift to Big Tech is its numerous provisions to preempt or block a growing crop of state laws designed to hold these companies accountable. A look at the finer details of the legislation reveal that Congress would replace robust state regulation with a far lighter “federal standard,” setting a very low ceiling for kids&#8217; online safety at the state level.
Republican sponsors, of course, frame things differently.
In the Washington Post, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/09/congress-tech-online-safefy-social-media/">Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), E&amp;C Committee Chair</a> and lead sponsor of the KIDS Act, described the package in adversarial terms, as Congress moving to correct Big Tech’s egregious failure to “self-regulate.” Guthrie is doubtless correct about Big Tech’s shortcomings. But this only makes it more noteworthy that the tech industry does not oppose this legislation.
Big Tech hasn’t been silent about every bill in the package. The App Store Accountability Act, which has been enacted in four states (thus far), has received significant pushback. The Apple-backed App Association <a href="https://actonline.org/2026/03/03/the-fly-in-the-ai-package-ointment-why-asaa-doesnt-belong/">decried</a> the bill as a “poison pill” that would stifle “innovation,” explicitly calling it a “fly in the AI package ointment.”
By openly referring to the child safety package as “the AI package,” the App Association gives away the game. Insiders in Washington regularly admit that they are using the child safety package to mollify the concerns of parents and child safety advocates to pave the way for Congress to pass — <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/">what the White House calls</a> — a “minimally burdensome” federal AI standard. In an unguarded interview, Amy Bos, vice president of governmental affairs for industry group NetChoice, <a href="https://rollcall.com/2026/03/03/what-to-watch-from-trumps-national-ai-standard/">speaks of</a> “leveraging, or using, possibly, a kid’s package … to get AI across the finish line.”
Big Tech is only interested in kids’ safety if it comes with a much bigger payoff: a federal law that would stop states from enforcing tougher AI regulations. In fact, with help from Republican leadership, Big Tech has already tried twice — and failed twice — to get Congress to do exactly that.
According to a recent <a href="https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/03/12/congress/cruz-seeks-to-advance-senate-kids-privacy-proposals-in-next-six-weeks-00825098">announcement</a> by Senator Ted Cruz, one of Big Tech’s key Congressional allies, it looks like Silicon Valley is gearing up for a third attempt. And it seems they’ll have the buy-in to try again. As <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/inside-congress/2026/03/12/house-revolt-ahead-for-housing-bill-00824588">Politico recently reported</a>, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that a federal AI standard is “a ‘big priority’ for the Trump administration, and [he] said a potential bill could be folded into a larger package with other proposals like a kids’ online safety bill.”
But the American people see things differently. Weakening kids&#8217; online safety legislation by tying it to a sweeping “AI package” is a non-starter for American families. Parents nationwide have heard the terrifying story of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html">Adam Raine</a>, a 16-year-old boy who was goaded into taking his own life by ChatGPT. They fear that their child might be next. It’s no surprise, then, why, according to a <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/americans-want-ai-safeguards-by-a-9-to-1-margin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">national poll</a> by the Institute for Family Studies, American voters want Congress to prioritize kids&#8217; online safety over industry carveouts by a margin of nine to one.
Robust online safety for kids is a winning electoral strategy, but tying it to deregulation of AI is a political loser. As a second <a href="https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/the-artificial-politics-of-artificial-intelligence">national Institute for Family Studies poll found</a>, Republican voters in red states support Congressional candidates who protect children from AI harms and oppose those who push preemption. For a party expected to face serious challenges during midterms, it would seem that Republican leadership would be eager to champion the desires of its voters.
Congress should, like countless state legislatures, side with voters and not protect Big Tech companies from responsibility. We have had enough of that.
Ultimately, Rep. Guthrie is right: American families “deserve more than gestures and idle promises. They deserve laws that work.” That includes his.
* * *
Jared Hayden is a policy analyst at the Institute for Family Studies’ Family First Technology Initiative. 
Michael Toscano is the director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies.

teen capitol hill

Big Tech Is Making Its Play And Your Kids Could Be Caught In The Middle

Artificial Intelligence

Big Tech

Capitol Hill

Congress

Safety

Silicon Valley

Social Media

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled in Chiles v. Salazar. The basic concept of the Supreme Court ruling was that the state of Colorado was wrong to ban what is called conversion therapy. 
The 2019 Colorado law prohibited licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with patients under 18 years of age. They defined conversion therapy to include any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual&#8217;s sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as any effort to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex.
That same law allowed counselors to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding for identity exploration and development,” and to assist persons “undergoing gender transition.”
In other words, the Colorado law said that if a kid comes to you with gender confusion, you are not allowed to say, “Boys are boys and girls are girls. Let&#8217;s help you be more comfortable in your body.”
If a boy says, “I&#8217;m a girl, “you have to affirm him. And if you don&#8217;t affirm him, you&#8217;re engaged in conversion therapy, and you can be prosecuted under the law in the state of Colorado.
If a kid comes to you and says, “Listen, I&#8217;m confused about my feelings of sexual attraction,” you&#8217;re not allowed to talk that through and say, “You know what? You&#8217;re 14 years old. A lot of people are confused about sexual attraction at 14 years old. You&#8217;re being hit by hormones that you&#8217;ve never experienced before, and you really don&#8217;t have any sort of clear line as to how to live your life, so let&#8217;s talk this thing through.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2400-sub?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That might be conversion therapy, because that could be construed as an attempt to change behavior, or eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction toward individuals of the same sex.
Instead, you&#8217;re supposed to just give that kid a Pride flag and tell them to get out there and march.
The plaintiff in this case, Kelly Chiles, holds a master&#8217;s degree in clinical mental health and a state counseling license in Colorado.
According to the Supreme Court, Chiles doesn&#8217;t start counseling with any predetermined goals. Instead, she sits down with clients, discusses their goals, and then formulates methods of counseling that will most benefit them, seeking throughout to respect their client&#8217;s fundamental right of self-determination, matters of sexuality and gender. The clients sometimes have different agendas, according to the Supreme Court; some are perfectly happy being gay or lesbian or transgender identifying, and others want to reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, or change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with their bodies.
Under Colorado law, those last people are just plumb out of luck. There&#8217;s nothing they can do. Because if you, for example, are a person who has a fetish and you don&#8217;t want to have that fetish anymore, according to Colorado law, you are not allowed as a therapist to try to change an individual&#8217;s behaviors regarding sexual or romantic attraction.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who is not a strict textualist when it comes to these matters, wrote the opinion, and his basic opinion is pretty simple: The First Amendment allows therapists to say what they want to say during therapy. 
The only person who voted in dissent was, of course — wait for it — Ketanji Brown Jackson, the dumbest person on the Supreme Court.
This is saying a lot because Sonia Sotomayor is also on the Supreme Court.
Gorsuch wrote:
<blockquote>Consistent with the First Amendment’s jealous protections for the individual’s right to think and speak freely, this Court has long held that laws regulating speech based on its subject matter or “communicative content” are “presumptively unconstitutional.” &#8230; We have recognized, as well, the even greater dangers associated with regulations that discriminate based on the speaker’s point of view.</blockquote>
In other words, the big problem here is that it&#8217;s not just that Colorado is putting regulations on speech; those regulations on speech are content-dependent. Colorado says you can say these things that we agree with, but you cannot say these things with which we disagree.
Gorsuch continued:
<blockquote>While the First Amendment protects many and varied forms of expression, the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech. And that is exactly the kind of expression in which Ms. Chiles seeks to engage. As a talk therapist, all Ms. Chiles does is speak with clients; she does not prescribe medication, use medical devices, or employ any physical methods. &#8230;
Consider, too, where the State and dissent’s logic leads. Not long ago, many medical experts and organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, considered homosexuality a mental disorder. On the view Colorado and the dissent advance, a law adopted during that era prohibiting counselors from engaging in the “substandard care” of affirming their clients’ homosexuality would have been subject to only rational-basis or intermediate-scrutiny review—and likely upheld. Today, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from “current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments” could be silenced with relative ease.</blockquote>
In other words, the court is saying, “If Colorado is suggesting that a state can determine what is the best course of care with regard to opinions on open matters of gender and sexuality, and then mandate that sort of stuff on subject matter basis, that is violation of free speech.”
The court goes out of its way to really slap Jackson. That last statement — “Today, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from ‘current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments’ could be silenced with relative ease,” is followed by this: “It is a consequence Colorado freely acknowledges. And one the dissent embraces.”
The opinion then cites Buck v. Bell. That is a scathing rebuttal to Jackson, because Buck v. Bell was the case that suggested that you had the ability under the law to sexually sterilize inmates of institutions, because that was the prevailing science of the time. Jackson has said that she liked that law.
Jackson said in the Chiles case that Colorado was simply “restricting a dangerous therapy modality,” adding that the court&#8217;s opinion was “unprincipled and unworkable.” She followed with a long statement about how wonderful the gender orientation of left-wing philosophy is.
Ketanji Brown Jackson&#8217;s dissent is a reminder that if the Left had complete control over the mechanisms of government, it would simply regulate into law all of the most specious and idiotic views about science.
Without President Trump as president, we were super-close to that world, because President Trump is responsible for several selections on the Supreme Court. In this case, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor ruled with the majority. 
But if there were a bunch of Democratic appointees on the court, is that how this would have gone?

Menu