The Daily Signal

Today, Aug. 26, marks one year since an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and about 200 Afghans outside the international airport in Kabul.Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, one of the 13 service members who died, was only 20 at the time of the fatal attack. His widow, Jiennah Crayton, also known as Gigi, gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, less than a month after the bombing.His son Rylee was “fun,” Jim McCollum says. “He was genuine, real,” McCollum says. “He had a huge heart, very compassionate, but you had to know him to see that side of him, because he was also very abrasive.” “We have pictures of him at about 3 years old, 2 or 3, in a diaper, in his sister’s boots, no pants, with his gun and his dog out playing Army, Marine, whatever, protecting the family,” McCollum says of his son. “Just loved it. He was very fascinated with the military his whole life.” One year after the terrorist attack that killed his son and 12 other service members, McCollum says he doesn’t want to talk with President Joe Biden about the attack or his handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan:I’m highly disappointed. If you could sit down and have a discussion and know that it was sincere and that somebody was going to listen to you, it would be different. But so far the government, they’ve been less than honest with me, and it’s all lip service and just standard routine. They’re just going through the motions.McCollum joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the life and legacy of his son Rylee, his 1-year-old granddaughter Levi Rylee Rose, and how the Biden administration handled the exit from Afghanistan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s back to school time! But preparing for school no longer only means buying pencils and binders and other supplies, it also requires being prepared to stand against the woke ideology that has penetrated classrooms across the country. Parents sending their kids to public school, and even some private schools, need practical tools to equip them to protect their children from gender ideology, inappropriate sexual content, and critical race theory.  Jill Simonian, a school mom, says she was shocked when she realized “how corrupt the system was and the age-inappropriate lessons and ideologies and lies that our children were being taught in their classrooms.” Simonian, director of outreach for PragerU Kids, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" today to discuss what classes parents should consider opting their children out of, how to file freedom of information requests with a school district, and the best ways to build relationships with school administrators to learn what's being taught in class. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dave Donaldson recently returned to the U.S. after his second trip to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of its Eastern European neighbor. “The city is pretty much obliterated,” Donaldson, co-founder and board chairman of CityServe International, says of the city of Bucha, where Russians are said to have massacred 1,300 people. “It's like watching a sci-fi film.” CityServe is a Christian humanitarian aid organization that works with churches all over the world to meet the needs of local communities.In addition to visiting Bucha, Donaldson also spent time in Kiev and met with bishops from all over Ukraine to learn about the spiritual and physical needs of the people. It's been six months since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and Ukrainians need “prayer that this war will end,” he says.Donaldson joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss what he saw and experienced in Ukraine, and how the people of Ukraine are coping with the death and devastation.Enjoy the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Texas congressman is sounding the alarm over how fatal even the smallest amount of fentanyl can be as the lethal drug continues to pour into the United States. "People don't understand how deadly fentanyl is. A sugar packet, a Sweet'N Low packet of fentanyl could kill, in its pure form, all of the people in a crowded room—say a hundred people," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, says.The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 2 milligrams of fentanyl can kill someone depending on their size, drug usage history, and tolerance. "You don't understand how particularly dangerous it is until you read stories about, for example, somebody who is overdosing from fentanyl, or frankly they're poisoned by fentanyl. And then someone tries to perform CPR on them. And then they go into cardiac arrest from the transitive property of having [performed] CPR," Roy, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, says. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seized about 10,600 pounds of fentanyl this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, compared to about 11,200 pounds last fiscal year, The Daily Signal reported. Roy joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the ongoing crisis on the southern border, Anthony Fauci's plans to retire this winter, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's handling of monkeypox.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we approach the next election cycle, many Americans wonder whether or not their votes will count.But given the incredibly high stakes in any election, how can Americans know that their votes actually matter and that their elections are free and fair?Chad Ennis, director of the Forensic Audit Division with the Texas Secretary of State’s office and former senior fellow for the Election Protection Project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was instrumental in getting his state to take steps toward securing the election process.“I really feel like Texas has been a leader in all kinds of voting,” he says. “We were one of the first states to have early voting, but we’ve always been very keen on keeping the security in place.”Ennis joins the show to discuss the steps Texas took to secure its elections and offer some guidance on what other states should do to secure theirs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’ve seen the headlines: President Joe Biden and his Justice Department are weaponizing law enforcement to target the left’s political opponents. It’s happening with the prosecutions of Jan. 6 protesters, the relentless attacks on Trump administration officials, and former President Donald Trump himself.The raid on Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, was among the most blatant efforts yet by Biden’s Justice Department to punish and intimidate his political opponents—and the man who could challenge him for re-election in 2024.There are few people more knowledgeable about the government’s recent actions than Julie Kelly, whose fearless reporting helps shine the light on what’s really happening. Her book, “January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right,” tells the story you didn’t hear from the Jan. 6 committee.Kelly joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to provide an update on the FBI raid, the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot, Rep. Liz Cheney’s resounding defeat, and Jan. 6 defendants. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans still remember how the COVID-19 pandemic led not only to the loss of lives, but the loss of livelihoods. As businesses closed, the government grew in power and Americans' liberties shrank, contends journalist Cheryl Chumley, author of the book "Lockdown: The Socialist Plan to Take Away Your Freedom.""It was alarming to me how the left used fear to steal our constitutional, God-given rights," Chumley says.Online opinion editor for The Washington Times and host of the "Bold and Blunt" podcast, she has reported on Capitol Hill and covered state and local politics before coming to Washington.Chumley, who joins this episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast," says the biggest long-term effect of the government's response to the pandemic may have been "shifting the mindset of American citizens from one of individualism into one of collectivism.""I wrote 'Lockdown' basically as a look back on where the government got it wrong and how the Democrats used it for political gain, but more importantly, looking forward to how the Democrats plan to continue to use a pandemic to segue into the next cause to justify continuing lockdowns," she says. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More parents than ever are taking their kids out of failing public schools and educating them in the way that benefits them most, whether that’s in a private or charter school, or through homeschooling.In the vanguard of the fight to achieve school choice across the nation is Corey DeAngelis. DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, adjunct senior fellow at the Reason Foundation, and executive director at the Educational Freedom Institute.He joins this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss how school choice is gaining ground, and how proponents can keep the momentum for education freedom going.Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Monday, Aug. 15, marked one year since the Taliban reclaimed Afghanistan after 20 years of war and bloodshed. The New York Times reported that upward of 300,000 Afghans helped U.S. efforts in Afghanistan over those years. On this episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast," Aziz, an Afghan interpreter whose full name is being withheld by The Daily Signal, shares his story of escaping the Taliban and the fallout after the botched U.S. withdrawal."To be honest with you, it was a really dark day and very bad time," Aziz recalls of the days leading up to the fall of the capital city of Kabul. "There was fear. There was disappointments as the provinces were collapsing and the Taliban were reaching to the capital. I was totally dying, like a battery will lose its charge. I was seeing my body from inside; it was dying."Aziz served as interpreter for Chad Robichaux during his eight deployments from 2003 to 2007 as a staff sergeant in the Marines' Force Reconnaissance special operations unit or as a Defense Department contractor. The Aghan fought side-by-side with the Americans. Robichaux, author of the forthcoming book "Saving Aziz: How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands From the Taliban," also joins the podcast to describe helping to evacuate Aziz, his family, and thousands of others as chaos unfolded in Afghanistan.Aziz says that he didn't expect his country to fall so quickly to the Taliban."We were thinking it will probably at least take them a few years before the regime collapsed," Aziz says. "We were not expecting it, that the regime will collapse all of a sudden within the matters of hours. Like within 24 hours, the whole system collapsed. That was totally unpredictable," Now residents of The Woodlands, Texas, Aziz, 39, and Robichaux, 46, share their journey out of Afghanistan, their message to the Biden administration, and what the future holds for the terrorist-run country.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, transgender activists have pushed a narrative that the only way to prevent confused kids who say they're transgender from killing themselves is to provide them with hormone therapy such as puberty blockers.Parents, scared into submission by politically motivated activists and doctors, then agree to pump their children full of dangerous hormones that render them permanently sterile. The activists tell the parents that this is the only way to save their child's life.New research by Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Jay Greene, however, suggests that not only do these hormones not lower the sky-high suicide rate among so-called transgender kids, they make things worse. (The Daily Signal is Heritage's multimedia news organization.)"There's a lot of depression and anxiety, particularly among girls. And they're looking for solutions to these problems that they're having," Greene says. "Today it's body transformation in a different way through transgender ideology, which then involves not just social transition of changing names and pronouns, but eventually pharmacological transition [by] taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and eventually surgical transition of having double mastectomies or castration."Greene, who is part of Heritage's Center for Education Policy, continues:We're able to compare the suicide rates in states where it's easier versus harder [to get hormone therapy] both before and after 2010. And what we see is that before 2010 there's no difference between the states, just like we would expect. After 2010, the suicide rates diverged, so that in the states where it's a little bit easier for the kids to get them, there's a ramp-up in the suicide rate and it spikes up in 2015. So that by 2020, we see an extra 1.6 suicides among young people per 100,000, which is a 14% increase in the suicide rate.To Greene, the best cure for this transgender moment is for parents to reclaim responsibility over their kids."I think removing the coercion is the most important thing, which is don't believe that you have to do things or your kid is going to die," he says. "Parents need to be skeptical of what experts tell them. And ultimately, remember that they're responsible for raising their own children, and they know best for their own children."Greene joins this bonus episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss his research and how society can fight to protect children from gender ideologues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices