This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** With more college degrees handed out than ever, the relative advantage of holding one has decreased. Add to that the left-wing lurch of most higher education institutions, and it’s no wonder it’s become common for conservatives to argue that college is no longer necessary.  Yet the job market hasn’t adapted. A degree has become a blunt hiring filter that often screens out experienced, capable candidates. Virtually everyone in the application pool has one — except for me. That’s where my difficulty lies. I had made the decision to drop out of school midway through college to start a business. I began traveling to companies to train Gen Z in leadership and interpersonal skills so that they could excel and lead in life. Working two jobs and running a business was hard, of course. But I would still make the same choice today. While 87% of younger Gen Z teens (ages 12–15) are especially likely to view college as important — compared to slightly lower shares among older cohorts, ranging from 80% to 85% — this optimism sits in tension with the fact that 51% of Gen Z ultimately say their degree, once achieved, was a waste of money. Yet now, I’m back in school. Why? Because, as I hope to transition into a career in public affairs and government relations, I am asked the same question, time and time again, before the interview awkwardly fizzles into “so, uh, we’re looking to hire candidates with at least a bachelor’s.” From getting turned down during the final round to being unable to get a foot in the door, I have seen firsthand how brutal the job market can be for someone with experience, yet no degree. A dance studio owner had invited me in as a guest teacher. Now, in the dance community, having a degree — even one in “dance” — means almost nothing. You still must audition. You still need to “make it” as a dancer, whether you have a piece of paper that says you can dance or not. I am a retired contemporary and commercial dancer, having performed with Epik Dance Company, Belhaven Dance Ministry, as a backup dancer in music videos, and even in a Bollywood movie called “Love and Masala.” For this studio owner, my time on stage, film, and professional work was not enough. She told me she would never hire anyone without a degree again. I have been increasingly running into this dilemma. Hiring managers are quick to give the same response: “I won’t hire a candidate without a degree.” It’s a quick filter in the application portal. It makes the hiring process faster. But these hiring managers are missing out on the real gems. I know this because I have hired them. As the owner of a training company helping Gen Z grow in leadership for the workplace, I have hired multiple roles, from marketing and social media to executive assistants. I was surprised to discover that my best employees all lacked degrees. Typically, they were ambitious and coachable — and had five to seven years of experience. And these gems were having their résumés passed over by other managers because they “lacked qualifications.” In other words, they lacked a degree. Lucky for me, I learned my hiring lesson early and had the chance to mentor fantastic staff. But I am tired of getting locked out of a dream role — or any role — because I lack a piece of paper. So, now, I’m back in school, playing the qualifications game. My second go-around at college has proven that experience would have been enough. There is not an assignment that I have not done before — only I have been paid, at real jobs and consulting gigs, to do it. Now, I am the one paying to do this work for a grade. Ultimately, if we want the best workers, we must be willing to dig a bit. Sometimes it means ignoring the “perfect match” the AI bot dragged out of some LinkedIn algorithm. Don’t let the diamond hire that you have been searching for slip through in the process because a middle manager cuts out any résumé without a B.S. or B.A. I challenge hiring managers to give the person without a degree an interview. She may just be the unicorn you have been looking for, and worst case, you gave her some interview experience. Try giving a few extra interviews to unlikely candidates with unique work experience. You may be surprised at what you find. *** Taryn Enos is a student media fellow at the Network of Enlightened Women. She is the founder and owner of Bold Speakers Consulting and a communications major at Grand Canyon University.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** It’s Pride Month, and rainbows gonna rainbow. But the pink, white, and blue transgender flag is flying higher than ever for Tinseltown’s gender-nonconforming youth. It seems like literally every celebrity has a trans kid these days. From Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck to Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Charlize Theron, it isn’t hard to find a smiling A-list parent proudly standing by as their child rejects their own God-given body. But is it a symptom of our safe-space era? Or the first raindrops before a torrential storm? “There has to be some reason why this enormous percentage of Hollywood kids are trans. How many celebrities have trans kids?” Joe Rogan said. “It’s not a thing that was going on just a few years ago.” When Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s daughter Emme Muñiz came out as “Oskar Muñiz” last month, the subject resurfaced. “They have ADHD,” Lopez told Extra, speaking about her twins, Emme (“Oskar”) and Max, who got their father’s unconventional looks. “They’re loving, good-hearted people.”  The pro-trans campaign among the elite is real and well-funded. Just the global sex reassignment surgery market alone is expected to reach nearly $8 billion by 2033. But while the situation remains fluid, the larger discussion is hardly open to alternative perspectives. “I hope you know that you will find yourself,” trans “Baby Reindeer” actor Nava Mau told “trans kids” from the 2024 Emmys red carpet. “You will find your purpose and everything will be alright.”   Over in politics, Democrat Texas state Rep. James Talarico told “A Superbloom Podcast,” “I love … the trans children who showed up yesterday at the state capitol to advocate for their humanity.”  Softened by the agreeing coos of everyone on set, Marlon Wayans told “IMO with Michelle Obama” of his own child, Kai, “Their transition really taught me what unconditional love was.” Wayans says he came around to “full acceptance” of the trans thing within a week.  It’s not completely out of bounds to pin a lot of this on the debauched rules of the game in a left-leaning bubble. Rife with stories of casting couches, toxic sets, and open secrets about king-making predators in the C-suite, the celebrity entertainment machine holds onto a blurry status quo.  “These kids are not our accessories. They’re little human beings that need structure,” Sylvester Stallone’s wife Jennifer Flavin told Katie Miller. Having left California for Palm Beach, Florida, in 2024, Flavin detailed the challenge of raising the couple’s three (tomboy) daughters in the belly of the beast. “Growing up in a Hollywood home, there’s really no structure … you’ve got private planes, you’ve got all these giant homes with chefs and secretaries and assistants and housekeepers or nannies, and there’s just too much of everything.”  If we’re just living in a trendy popularity contest, it’s almost impossible to nail down why this epidemic is surging among the jet-set. Energetic headlines praise well-known parents for publicly supporting their trans-identifying kids. As BuzzFeed claims, “It really is that easy to love your kids unconditionally!”  Voices that challenge the narrative are quickly taken out with society’s trash. See Mario Lopez’s apology tour after mentioning in an interview that age three was too young to decide that a child is trans. “It’s sort of alarming,” he said. “And my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on.” He subsequently pledged his LGBTQ allegiance, emphasis on the T.  Virtue signaling feeds the fame monster, but it’s not the only reason so many celebrity kids call themselves trans. It’s also not even the most sinister. To unpack the psychology behind the celebrity push to trans their kids, The Daily Wire spoke with licensed therapist Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, LCSW. Also the author of the children’s book “Froggy Girl” and “A Practical Response to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for Families,” she didn’t need to work with these particular celebrity children to have thoughts.  “Most people look at the social contagion aspect of it, and I think it’s deeper than that,” she says. “A lot of these kids are either adopted, or surrogates, or raised by someone other than their primary parents so there are some attachment issues there.” Noting the potential fallout from any trauma, Garfield-Jaeger also points to the notorious depravity of Hollywood. “Exposure to pedophilia, or just the culture of being hyper-sexualized, can really lead them to want to reject their bodies,” she shares. “It’s in their zeitgeist.” The struggle to establish themselves in the shadow of a world-famous parent can also serve as a trigger. “In regular families this happens a lot where the wallflower kid can come out as trans because they have not been noticed or aren’t getting the same kind of attention and praise as the star football player brother,” she says.  It’s even worse when a parent scores higher on the self-obsession scale than the average mom and pop. “If you’ve been raised by a narcissist, that’s also another common factor for people who end up being trans,” Garfield-Jaeger notes. “Perhaps it’s a way for their parents to notice them, and wield some control or power in a circumstance where they don’t feel like they have any.” Elon Musk described being “tricked into signing documents” that allowed his son, Xavier, to transition. The oldest of Musk’s 14 children, now known as model Vivian Wilson, told Teen Vogue, “I’m financially independent, which, cool, love that for me.” Claiming Musk was largely absent and cruel, Vivian assured a live audience, “Right now, they’re painting us all as violent mass shooters. I’m not gonna shoot anyone. I’m a model!”  Hormone therapy has been billed as a mild intervention, but it has devastating repercussions when administered and tapered off. “Ever heard of roid rage?” Garfield-Jaeger posits. “That’s basically what it is.”  Detransitioner Helena Kerschner described the terror that testosterone wreaked on her body. After repeatedly being admitted to mental hospitals, she wrote, “I began experiencing uncontrollable episodes of rage and paranoia, where I was a danger to myself and others. I lost control over my body.”  Explaining how hormone treatment affects everything from sexual preference to the ability to maintain committed relationships, Garfield-Jaeger says, “You’re basically inducing an endocrine disorder into a healthy person when you do this. There are a lot of consequences. The kids are just being celebrated into turmoil.” “The whole trans thing is really, in my opinion, crazy, because it’s a symptom of some kind of problem or pain, but yet our entire healthcare system praises it, reinforces it, and medicalizes it,” she says. “We’re not trying to address what’s really happening that’s bubbling under the surface. With trans, all of a sudden it means they have a magical gendered soul that otherwise they’ll kill themselves, and that’s not true.” “Anybody with eyeballs can tell this is not natural. This isn’t just more people just coming forward after being accepted. If that were true, why aren’t the older celebrities coming out as trans?” she asks.  For some famous faces of alt lifestyle trends, the tide may be shifting toward common sense. Riling up his fanbase, outspoken makeup mogul Jeffree Star shared on TikTok, “There’s science and there’s facts. You can pretend in your head you’re a cat. You can pretend in your head that you’re this, and you’re that. Good for you. You’re still only A or B.” But Garfield-Jaeger notes that even doctors and therapists seeking to reverse course on the trans epidemic aren’t exactly sure how to do it yet. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all these Hollywood kids are trans. It’s not because they were born in the wrong bodies,” she says. “The darkness inside of them, the pain, is not being addressed, it’s being covered up. There’s something about them that’s lost.”

Detainees who are said to be on a “hunger strike” inside ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center are actually stocking up on snacks from the commissary, according to sources familiar with the situation. A commissary menu obtained by The Daily Wire shows detainees have access to a wide range of food options, including sushi, clams, sausage, and other elevated offerings. Sources have said that the so-called hunger strike at the Newark, New Jersey, facility has involved detainees opting not to eat the meals provided to them, while they rush to the commissary to load up on snacks. The store’s stock includes the typical vending machine snacks, such as Cheetos, Honey Buns, and ramen, while also offering “fresh catch tuna,” “yellow fin tuna steak,” “smoked clams,” a filet of mackerel, summer pork sausage, and teriyaki chicken noodles, according to the menu. Democratic lawmakers, like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), have cited complaints that there are worms in the food and poor conditions inside the facility as the reason for the alleged hunger strike. Former ICE New York Field Office Deputy Director Scott Mechkowski dismissed the claims as a complete hoax and said that activist groups are helping detainees pay for their commissary snacks. Delaney Hall Commissary Menu by Daily Wire Investigations Team “A hunger strike at Delaney Hall? Where the commissary sells out every single week and they can’t keep Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on the shelf. These folks are loading up on tuna steak, teriyaki chicken, Doritos and candy by the handful but sure, they’re starving,” he told The Daily Wire. “Nothing says ‘hunger strike’ like clearing out the snack aisle. The only thing going hungry around here is the story they’re trying to sell you,” he added. Commissary sales at Delaney Hall surged 161%, jumping from $11,498 on May 26 to $30,013 on June 1, according to internal data obtained by The Daily Wire. During that time, the detainee population fell from 724 to 621. White House border czar Tom Homan recently revealed that he made a surprise visit to the facility and ate the same food being served to detainees. “I even made a surprise visit this weekend and walked into the cafeteria and ate the same meal that the detainees around me were eating, and I made sure my tray equaled their tray. I had spaghetti and meat sauce, I had green beans, I had bread and rolls, I had drinks, I had dessert. The food was good, it’s all a false premise. There was never a hunger strike,” Homan said. “They may not be eating in the cafeteria, but what I found out they’re ordering food from the commissary and eating it in their cells,” he added. For days, protesters have clashed with authorities outside the facility, and dozens have been arrested. New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill waited to send in the state police until nearly a week into the melee.

This week, Scott Pelley got canned from CBS News for reportedly acting like a pompous jerk to the new executive producer of 60 Minutes. I met Pelley only briefly 16 years ago, so I won’t pretend to know the man intimately. But the one memory I do have of him suddenly makes a lot of sense. In the summer of 2010, I was working as an intern for CBSNews.com. As part of the program, the network would occasionally schedule informative sessions for us to learn more about the industry. One of those opportunities was a behind-the-scenes tour of the CBS Evening News. This was a dream for me because I had been a fan of Katie Couric for years. Sadly, Couric was on assignment that night. Some guy named Scott Pelley would be filling in. A group of us were ushered into the control room during the broadcast, where directors and producers manage the ins and outs of the show and speak to the anchor during commercial breaks. To be clear, I knew virtually nothing about TV news at the time. But even at 21 years old, I knew Pelley’s behavior was strange. During one of the commercial breaks, he instructed the control room to gently zoom in on him as he removed his glasses and delivered his opening line. He even gave them a demonstration of what he planned to do — putting on his glasses, then removing them as he tilted his head up slowly and dramatically. As if he had very, very serious news to deliver and he was a very, very serious newsman. A few of the guys in the control room exchanged knowing glances, as if to say, “What a douche.” I was so confused. Either he needs his glasses to read the prompter, or he doesn’t, right? Sure enough, the commercial break ended and Pelley acted out his schtick, putting his glasses back on, only to slowly remove them as the camera pushed in. It was so phony, I remember it vividly to this day. After posting my memory of Pelley on X yesterday, I learned that there is an entire Facebook page dedicated to Scott Pelley’s glasses. Apparently, he really loves taking them off, putting them on, putting them in his mouth, and waving them around. You’re not going to believe this. pic.twitter.com/dCt2ukfHlD — PlantsGardener (@PlantsGardener) June 3, 2026 Daily Wire Opinion Editor Benjamin Domenech posted a video of Pelley accidentally dropping his glasses while tossing to a commercial break. Turns out he’s been creating a spectacle with his spectacles for years. After my summer internship, I spent nearly a decade in TV news. It’s fair to say most anchors have a little bit of an ego (myself included, honestly.) It’s also not strange for anchors to have a specific way they like their shot to look. For example, and maybe this is too much information, but I always insisted my shot never be cropped right below my breasts because I didn’t like when it looked like my boobs were sitting on a shelf at the bottom of the screen. But never once did I encounter an anchor who used a prop to make themselves seem smarter. In fact, I’m starting to wonder whether Pelley’s glasses are even real. *** Brandi Kruse is the host of the “unDivided with Brandi Kruse” podcast.

Almost 24 hours after the polls closed in California, the results of the gubernatorial primary and the Los Angeles mayor’s race remain unresolved. With just 55% of the vote reported on Wednesday evening, Republican Steve Hilton still leads the field of more than 60 candidates with 27.6% support, ahead of Democrat Xavier Becerra, who had 25.5%. Both were solidly ahead of billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer, who was at 19.7%. Despite Hilton’s lead, millions of ballots remain uncounted, making it too early to determine the final order of finish. Under California’s top-two primary system, candidates from the same party can advance to a runoff in November’s general election if they finish in the top two. In the Los Angeles mayoral race, 62% of the vote has been counted. Incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass leads with 35% support, while Republican Spencer Pratt has received 29.9%. Far-left Councilmember Nithya Raman trailed with 22.8%. The top two votegetters in the mayoral primary, regardless of party, secure a place in the November 3 runoff if neither receives more than 50% of the vote. If Bass fails to secure a majority, she will be the first incumbent L.A. mayor to advance to a runoff since 2005. Bass would normally have a major advantage over other candidates, but discontent with her handling of the Palisades fire and the homeless crisis led Pratt to join the race, and he then resonated with many of the same sentiments felt by other Angelenos. Delayed results are routine in California because of the state’s extensive vote-by-mail system, signature verification, and procedures for resolving ballot errors. The final tally of California’s races could take as long as three weeks. Unlike many states that require mail ballots to arrive by Election Day, California accepts ballots that arrive up to 7 days later if postmarked on time. Then, those ballots have up to 7 days to reach a processing center. Counties must verify signatures, count provisional ballots, and allow voters to cure certain ballot defects before results are certified. On Wednesday evening, CNN broadcast live shots from the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office, which handles 25% of the state’s votes. The large room appeared sparsely staffed at the time of the broadcast. A CNN reporter on the scene said they were on break.