TikTok can harm children's mental health

Happy Friday! Here's what we have today:

Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Catholics who help migrants are satanic

By Rex Huppke

Thanks to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Loonytoonia) and other Republican thought leaders, I’ve recently learned things that weren’t included in my Catholic upbringing.

For starters, being kind to migrants is bad, and those who help migrants are likely being controlled by Satan. 

In a recent interview, Greene spoke with Michael Voris of Church Militant, my go-to website for information about “spiritual warfare” and headlines like “Marjorie for Pope.” Voris brought up Catholic groups that help with refugee resettlement, complaining, in a tone that suggested someone was waving a liberal baby’s diaper under his nose, how they all say things like, “Oh, we have to love the family and all that.”

TikTok can harm children's mental health

By Alan D. Blotcky

A mother, greatly concerned about her 14-year-old son, called me recently. Her teen was showing symptoms of major depression, including sadness, irritability, argumentativeness, failing grades and withdrawal from his activities and interests.

In fact, he was spending most of his time at home in his bedroom on TikTok.

His mother was alarmed because his obsession with TikTok seemed to make his depression worse, and he was resistant to the idea of seeing a mental health practitioner. He told his mother that his "friends" on TikTok were helping him and that he didn't need counseling.

After weeks of pleading and prodding, the boy finally agreed to see me.

His mother was valid in her concerns about him. And her assessment that TikTok was making him worse was correct as well.

Musk could have been an altruistic hero. Instead he bought Twitter.

By Suzette Hackney

Elon Musk's pending purchase of Twitter has Americans either anxious or celebrating and filling timelines with millions of fraught tweets about the billionaire's $44 billion offer.  

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk tweeted Monday to his nearly 87 million followers. 

There are so many questions:

Other columns to read today

• What do Olivia Rodrigo and Bruno Mars have in common? Me.
• My journey from movie star to faceless refugee fleeing fall of Saigon
• Criminal justice broken: Progressive prosecutors trying to fix system
• Banning 'woke' Disney World? Can we just 'Let it Go'?

This newsletter was compiled by Jaden Amos.