“You became the monster parents fear the most,” Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jack Sapunor told convicted serial child David Allen Funston when he sentenced him to consecutive life sentences in 1999 – but now, a California board has now paroled him, sparking outrage from victims, police and citizens alike. On February 18, the California Board of Parole dismissed objections and reaffirmed its 2025 decision to grant parole to the 64 year-old Funston using the state’s Elderly Parole Program for inmates age 50 and above who have served at least 20 years in prison. Funston is currently serving a sentence of 20 years and 8 months, plus three consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. He was found guilty of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation, including rape, of eight Sacramento-area children. Of the seven girls and one boy, the youngest victim was three years old. The oldest was seven. Some were beaten. “What the hell is going on in California?” Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper asked at a press conference Monday, condemning the state’s program that allows Funston’s parole. “The things he did to those children cannot be undone. Ever,” Sheriff Cooper said. “Victims come first, especially children,” Cooper said, declaring “I’m pissed.” “You don’t rehabilitate individuals like that. They have an appetite for it,” the sheriff said, adding that age does not erase predatory behavior. “We can’t have this. It’s got to change,” Sheriff Cooper said, explaining that California’s compassion is misplaced: “Where’s the compassion for the victim? There’s zero compassion for the victim. They don’t give a damn about the victim. The care about the suspect doing this.” One of Funston’s victim, identified as Amelia, also spoke at the press conference. “This man took innocence from myself and others,” she said. “He, he is a criminal child molester, dangerous and deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.” “I’m disgusted with the fact that (the parole board) would even believe anything that he happened to say,” Amelia said in an interview with The Ingraham Angle on Wednesday. “I don’t believe that people like that change,” she said, adding that some things “cannot be forgiven.” “We’re absolutely doing everything we possibly can. We just fired off another letter to the parole board asking them to rescind this. There is legal authority for them to do that,” former Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told The Angle: “We’re also asking for the law to be changed. “We’ve asked for him to be deemed a sexually-violent predator, so he can be civilly committed.” “Everything in our power we’re going to do. And, at a minimum, we’re going to do everything to change this law,” Schubert vowed. The Elderly Parole Program, which was initially codified by AB 1448 and signed into law by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown on Oct. 11, 2017, allowed for the parole of inmates at least 60 of age who had served at least 25 years. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom lowered the eligibility age to 50 and time-served minimum to 20 years on September 30, 2020 by signing AB 3234.   SENTENCED TO THREE LIFE TERMS: WHY WAS SERIAL CHILD MOLESTER DAVID FUNSTON GRANTED EARLY RELEASE? The people of Sacramento, and every parent across California, deserve answers. The California Parole Board has granted parole to David Allen Funston, a serial child molester who… pic.twitter.com/HzvOORZXw5 — Sacramento Sheriff (@sacsheriff) February 23, 2026   “[Funston] was hunting for young children. He lured them with toys and Barbie dolls. He’s the poster child for why sex offenders should be exempt from elderly parole,” Schubert told The Sacramento Bee on Monday. “The victims here, they got a life sentence. OK, a life sentence," retired Detective Rafael Rodriguez, who worked on the original investigation, said at Monday’s press conference, denouncing the decision to release Funston. “This monster. He was sentenced to almost or a little over 90 years. He’s done less than a third of that, and he’s going to be on the streets,” Undersheriff Mike Ziegler said at the event, warning that “A third of our current child abuse suspects will be eligible for parole as soon as they turn 50. “That’s the problem with the law,” Undersheriff Ziegler said.

On Tuesday afternoon, MS NOW made the latest comparison of President Donald Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as afternoon host Katy Tur made an analogy between Jews who support Trump and wealthy Jews in Vienna who did not take Hitler seriously in the 1930s. The comments came during a segment in which The Atlantic's Tom Nichols appeared as a guest to complain that Republican leaders like Trump and Vice President JD Vance do not do enough to condemn Nazi sympathizers, which he recently wrote about. He insisted "The GOP has a Nazi problem," and said he was "aggrieved by how quickly 21st-century Nazism has found a home in the party of Lincoln." Democrats really enjoy smearing the Other Party this way. At one point, Tur brought up Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller and other Jews who support Trump: TUR: Stephen Miller's a Jew, though, you know, and Donald Trump's daughter has converted to Judaism. His son-in-law is a Jew. So I guess this is what always has been so confusing and and weird about this -- because even in 2015 and 2016, when Donald Trump was refusing to push away David Duke, or when he, you know, there were all sorts of examples, but there was a very famous one where he put Hillary Clinton's face over a pile of cash and a star of David calling her corrupt. Did Trump "refuse to push away David Duke" during his first presidential campaign? He disavowed Duke in 2015 and in 2016, but the press pounded away at it, and Trump did try to claim he didn't know anything about Duke...but he ultimately would disavow him. The stars at MS NOW would think it was garbage if you started talking about Democrats who were soft on Louis Farrakhan. Speaking to Nichols, she added: TUR: I mean, the dog whistles were barely dog whistles. They were bullhorns at that point, and now it's only gotten more extreme. So I guess -- what is the -- if we're going to keep going with this down this line, Tom, from what it started as to to what we're seeing today, what is the end? And how do you, I guess, how do you rectify the fact that Donald Trump's got Jewish grandkids with this? After Nichols theorized that Trump's supporters believe Nazi sympathizers are a part of their base that they do not want to risk losing the votes of, Tur responded: "Maybe they think they're rich enough, but ask the Jewish families in Vienna if they thought -- if they were rich enough to steer clear of any problems as the Nazis came in." Transcript follows: MS NOW's Katy Tur Reports February 24, 2026 3:49 p.m. Eastern KATY TUR: Stephen Miller's a Jew, though, you know, and Donald Trump's daughter has converted to Judaism. His son-in-law is a Jew. So I guess this is what always has been so confusing and and weird about this -- because even in 2015 and 2016, when Donald Trump was refusing to push away David Duke, or when he, you know, there were all sorts of examples, but there was a very famous one where he put Hillary Clinton's face over a pile of cash and a star of David calling her corrupt. I mean, the dog whistles were barely dog whistles. They were bullhorns at that point, and now it's only gotten more extreme. So I guess -- what is the -- if we're going to keep going with this down this line, Tom, from what it started as to to what we're seeing today, what is the end? And how do you, I guess, how do you rectify the fact that Donald Trump's got Jewish grandkids with this? TOM NICHOLLS, THE ATLANTIC: I don't think Donald Trump thinks in those terms. I think he thinks, "What's good for me and my family and what isn't." And right now, I think Tim (Miller) absolutely nailed it. And I talk about this in the piece. These people, you know -- you ask, "What do they get out of this?" They get votes, they get support, they get, you know, when JD Vance was asked to condemn these people, he said, "Well, I didn't come here with a list of people to condemn," you know, because they -- that's part of their base, and they think of themselves as a beleaguered minority. Even though they control the government, they think they need every single vote they can get. And they're not going to be Bob Dole. They're not going to be George H.W. Bush, who who in '91 basically says about David Duke, "Everybody, he's not a Republican. Everybody needs to vote for the other guy." You know, they're just not going to do that. And I think they think, and, "We're rich and powerful enough that none of this is going to touch us," you know, "Our families doesn't matter." And I think, you know, asking what Miller or Trump see in this, they don't think in those terms. They think in terms of themselves, and then they think in terms of everybody else. One of the names Tim mentioned, talking about how peaceful America would be after 100 million deportations, how is, you know, "What -- what kind of message is that? And where do you suppose they got that from when you're talking about deporting a third of the United States? So I just don't think they think in those terms. They think this is good politics, it's good rhetoric, it's votes. TUR: Maybe they think they're rich enough, but ask the Jewish families in Vienna if they thought -- if they were rich enough to steer clear of any problems as the Nazis came in. NICHOLS: I'm not saying it's smart, Katy. TUR: Yeah, no, I know, I know you're not.

After Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s rebuttal speech to President Trump’s State of the Union address, PBS News Hour’s foreign affairs correspondent  Nick Schifrin nitpicked President Trump’s claim about the carnage in Iran. Nick Schifrin: ….the president accused Iran of working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States. That's from a defense intelligence assessment. And also the death toll, 32,000 killed in those protests, much higher than most activists believe, or at least have said publicly. Combined, clearly, Amna, trying to paint the regime in Iran as something that he could target if he decides, and, of course, that big military buildup will give him that opportunity in the days and weeks to come. There’s an ideological point to casting doubt on the estimated number of peaceful protesters killed by the Iranian regime, given that Trump may be building up U.S. forces in the region to strike against Iran. While PBS quibbles over the American president’s numbers, there’s one national body whose death toll figures Schifrin and his colleagues seem to trust intimately: PBS has been all too eager to validate anti-Israel propaganda fatality figures, often originating from the Gaza Health Ministry -- numbers approved by the terrorist group Hamas that runs Gaza. Schifrin on August 15, 2024, under the online headline “Gazan families shattered as war's death toll crosses 40,000”: "on average, every day, for 314 days, more than 100 Gazans have died, often before they had the chance to live." Schifrin on October 4, 2024 came close to full disclosure but didn’t make it: “Gaza's Health Ministry, which answers to Hamas, says 140,000, or more than 5 percent of the Gaza Strip, have been killed or wounded, 900 families wiped off entirely from the civil registry, and in more than 1,300 cases, only one family member survived….But all the numbers may yet prove an undercount.” On August 22, 2025 he took dictation from a report by the anti-Israel United Nations: “Since the war began, the U.N. says more than 17,000 Gazan children have been killed, 33,000 wounded.” Seemingly every PBS reporter or anchor took Hamas’s propaganda at face value. Co-anchor Amna Nawaz introduced an October 8, 2025 Schifrin report this way: “Today, we examine the toll on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health authorities say more than 67,000 people have been killed. More than 40,000 children have lost one or both parents.” But when President Trump gives a plausible figure for the murder count of the hostile Iranian regime, estimates are suddenly dubious?

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host-of-the-week Desi Lydic tried to rebuke President Trump on Wednesday for condemning Democrats for not standing and applauding certain moments during his Tuesday State of the Union Address. According to Lydic, the reason they refused to stand was because of Trump’s “tyranny and lawless behavior,” but the specific situations that Lydic highlighted did not make Democrats look good, so naturally she declined to elaborate. Lydic introduced a chopped-up clip of Trump by declaring, “But the Democrats stayed seated almost the entire night, and you could tell it started to get under Trump's skin.” The clip featured three distinct portions of the speech but one underlying theme, “How do you not stand? How do you not stand?... You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself… Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy.”   The Daily Show's Desi Lydic says Democrats didn't stand up during Trump's State of the Union because "because they are outraged by your tyranny and lawless behavior!" In reality, Lydic played a chopped up clip of Trump lamenting, "How do you not stand? How do you not… pic.twitter.com/4YqbH6b5EN — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) February 26, 2026   In the first “How do you not stand?" portion, Trump was talking about crime and gave a shout-out to Anna Zarutska, the mother of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee who was murdered on a Charlotte subway by a man “who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail.” As for the second, “You should be ashamed of yourself” snippet, Trump had just finished asking Congress whether it agreed with the statement, “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Finally, the “these people are crazy” bit was when Trump called for a ban on gender transitions for children. Lydic kept all this from her viewers and instead chose to respond by exclaiming, “Mr. President, I will have you know that the Democrats are not ending because they are outraged by your tyranny and lawless behavior.” Putting up pictures of Democrats who slept, or, perhaps, pretended to sleep, through the speech, Lydic added, “And also, they are asleep right now! Shh! Shh!” Lydic wasn’t the only comedy show host to attack Trump for criticizing Democrats’ lack of applause while not providing crucial context of what Trump was speaking about at that moment. Seth Meyers did the same thing. By leaving out that context, Lydic and Meyers unintentionally helped prove the point Trump was trying to make about Democrats being crazy. Here is a transcript for the February 25 show: Comedy Central The Daily Show 2/25/2026 11:03 PM ET DESI LYDIC: But the Democrats stayed seated almost the entire night, and you could tell it started to get under Trump's skin. DONALD TRUMP: How do you not stand? How do you not stand? [jump cut] You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. [jump cut] Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. LYDIC: Mr. President, I will have you know that the Democrats are not ending because they are outraged by your tyranny and lawless behavior. And also, they are asleep right now! Shh! Shh!

James Carville, longtime Democrat strategist, wrote a New York Times opinion piece on Jan. 2, 2025, days before Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the White House. Carville said: “We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.” But the day before President Trump’s State of the Union address, Carville sounded distracted. He offered Trump this “personal message”: “You sit still, you son of a b---h ... you fat sorry sack of s--t! ... You are the most unpopular president at this point in your term that we’ve ever had. They don’t like you, they don’t like the way you smell, they don’t like the way you look, they don’t like your fat stomach, they don’t like your stupid comb-over! “There are no silent people out there for you. The only thing you got is a silent but deadly fart! It’s about all you’re good for. “So, I wish you good health. I hope that you’re cognizant ... because I want you to know that you’re experiencing the misery that you’re going through right now, the public humiliation that is happening to you.” By many measures, the Trump 2.0 economy is doing well. Therefore, as a homicide detective says at a bloody crime scene, “This looks personal.” Does Carville really want to go there? The crafty Carville served as then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s top strategist in the 1992 election. In his 2001 book about standing by Clinton in the face of scandals, Carville described his former boss: “He’s a good man and he has a good heart. He’s not a perfect man, but he is a good man and a great president.” Clearly, the man Carville worked for and still worships has lived a life a few notches below sainthood: An alleged ex-lover and a member of Clinton’s security detail, among others, claimed Clinton routinely described blacks like Jesse Jackson as “n-----s.” During the 1992 campaign, Clinton weathered so-called bimbo eruptions, as several accusations of affairs came to light. As president, he denied and later admitted to an affair with an intern that led to his impeachment. Clinton will soon testify before the House Oversight Committee about his lengthy relationship with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Vernon Jordan, a civil rights leader turned wealthy lawyer and businessman, was a close friend of Clinton. Asked what he and the president discussed while playing golf, Jordan said, “We talk p***y.” Christopher Hitchens, a liberal British author turned Clinton critic, wrote a 1999 book called “No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton.” In an appearance on Bill Maher’s TV show, Hitchens said: “Mr. Clinton is a rapist. OK. Been plausibly, believably accused three times of rape.” That same year, in the left-wing magazine Nation, Hitchens wrote: “It is one thing to say, with reasonable confidence, that the Oval Office is currently occupied by a war criminal, a rapist and a pathological liar. “I don’t have any male friends who hump the help and then (with the assistance of paid slanderers) call them liars, golddiggers, sluts and blackmailers. I don’t have any male friends who have been plausibly accused of rape, either, though I do know several women who have been sexually assaulted and decided not to go public. I also know of three other women who could, if they chose, lay a charge of assault against Clinton.” Is Hitchens’ assessment of Clinton the ravings of a right-wing lunatic? After Hitchens’ death from cancer in 2011 at the age of 62, former Labor Party U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a statement, said: “Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist and unique character. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colourful human being whom it was a privilege to know.” Timothy Noah, Hitchens’ fellow columnist and longtime collaborator at the liberal New Republic, wrote: “He was brilliant and often exasperating ... even after he started writing for the Weekly Standard (a conservative publication), he remained in many ways a man of the left.” As for Noah’s liberal bona fides, he quit Twitter, now X, calling the platform “Elon Musk’s propaganda machine.” So, Mr. Carville, how about we keep this to “It’s the economy, stupid”? Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on X @larryelder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.