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Mercury Confidential: Which Beck staffer found their job while searching Craig's List?

June 21, 2012
Wilson

Writer

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at Mercury Radio Arts? Just how do all of Glenn’s crazy ideas get done? Does anyone ever get a chance to sleep? Well, over the next few months we are going to take you inside MRA, giving you the inside scoop on everything from publishing to special events, the Marketplace to 1791 and GBTV. We will be interviewing members of our New York, Columbus, and Dallas staff, bringing you all the info, so you can know what it’s really like to work for Glenn. Other installments: Kevin Balfe

 

Liz Julis, Vice President/Special Events for GBTV, remembers the first time she met Glenn Beck like it was yesterday.

“He might kill me for telling this story,” Julis said with a laugh. “I don’t have a lot of Glenn stories, but there is one that has always stuck with me that happened during my interview.”

Julis, who joined Mercury in February 2006 as an editor of Fusion magazine, was among the company’s first dozen employees. After happening upon a posting on Craig’s List for what was ultimately a job at Mercury, Julis traveled to New York City for her first interview.

“The write up for the job was nondescript. It was really vague and it was something like ‘If you are interested in getting into the magazine industry blah, blah, blah.’ I don’t even remember. I thought I was going to be working in a mail room or something – maybe not that extreme, but I had no idea,” she recalled.

(To this day there is an ongoing joke around the office as to why anyone would apply for a job they found on Craig’s List – but that’s another story.)

After getting through her first interview with Chris Balfe, Mercury’s Chief Operating Officer, and Kevin Balfe, Senior Vice President/Publishing, she was called back for a second interview, which involved sitting down with Glenn himself. “I came up and interviewed – there were two interviews – one was in a really nice conference room with Chris and Kevin Balfe, and the second one was in this really makeshift office that was kind of sleazy and a little scary with Chris and Kevin and then eventually Glenn.”

“When I first met Glenn, we were sitting in the interview and he was asking me some typical interview questions,” she recalled. “I had no idea what I was in for or anything really about him other than what was on his website.”

The office, which Julis described as “grungy and gross,” had a Dutch door at its entrance. “Both parts of the door were open, but something happened and the bottom door, as Glenn was walking out, began to shut,” Julis explained.

“As Glenn was trying to exit the room, he walked into the bottom door and almost falls over the top of the door. And then somehow the door latched. He was trying to make this very nice, professional exit, and he can’t get out of the office!”

“I was trying not to laugh. I was so buttoned up and nervous, but in my head I am like ‘Oh my God, this guy can’t get out of office. What is going on?’”

As usual, Glenn laughed off the mishap and went on his way. Julis, obviously, got the job and all was well. “But to this day,” she laughed, “I still think about that experience all the time.”

Julis said she is grateful for the experience because it reminds her that at the end of the day Glenn is human. “When I see fans so enamored by Glenn who is this big star, and he is, and he has worked so hard to get there, all I can think about nine times out of ten is that this is the man who got stuck in the office after my interview. He is a real person.”

It is this realness that makes Glenn so easy to work for and has pushed Julis to take advantage of every opportunity that has come her way. Like most people at Mercury, her jobs over the years have been remarkably different than what she ever thought she would be doing.

“When I got out of college I freelanced doing some accessory design for different groups just off and on, and then I was a nanny. I went to school for fashion design, and midway through I realized that it wasn’t for me. But I wanted to just finish up school and get out because I was already in my sophomore or junior year, and I didn’t want to have to start all over again.”

For Julis, who also logged a brief stint as a goat farmer in the Italian countryside, taking a job as an editor of a fledgling magazine at a start-up company in New York City was unfamiliar territory.

“I don’t think managing editor was my title right away, but I don’t really remember. I mean the duties of the job didn’t really change much. In the beginning, Kevin [Balfe] was really great about letting me explore on my own, but also training me. So for the first few months I worked side by side with him, and then probably after about a year I was on my own, checking in with him on a pretty regular basis.”

After a few years, as Mercury continued to grow, Julis took over as managing editor of Fusion. She remained managing editor until August 2011 at which point Fusion transitioned to The Blaze magazine.

While her memories of the magazine are predominantly fond, there was at least one instance she remembers feeling unwanted pressure. “The only time I ever cursed the magazine was during Restoring Honor,” she said laughing. “I am sitting there editing the September, July, August, whatever it was the week of the event or right before, and I was like ‘Are you serious? I don’t care. I don’t care about if this period is in the wrong spot.’ I was so sleep deprived.”

Few people outside of Mercury realize just how big a role Julis played in orchestrating the 2010 Restoring Honor Rally in Washington D.C. and the 2011 Restoring Courage events in Israel. She oversaw the production and logistics of both events. In other words, the events probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without her, though Julis is far too modest to admit it.

“It really had to do with Joe Kerry (former Mercury chief of staff and current president of Mercury One),” Julis said in regards to how she got involved with the Restoring Honor Rally. Kerry, who oversaw the fundraising aspect of the event, approached Julis in late 2009 to see if she was interested in being involved.

“I could tell that Joe had a lot on his plate, and I told him to let me know if he ever needed any help, not knowing that would mean I would handle the logistics and production and he would handle the fundraising, which is eventually how we divided it up,” she said. “It was a slow development. I think from November to December or January we didn’t really talk about it that much. And then in January, he comes in my office, and says something like, ‘Ok we are going to announce the event. What is the marketing strategy?’”

“And that was how I got roped in,” Julis said sarcastically. “No one else really wanted the job because it was so unknown and everyone was really busy. I was excited to try it, not knowing that it was going to be this mammoth event and not knowing that Glenn was going to get so excited and talk about it all the time. I thought it was just going to be this smaller thing. Whoops!”

When Julis stepped in, a production company had already been hired and the event’s vision was pretty well developed. “That made the startup process relatively quick,” she said. Outside of the production, Julis coordinated the logistics of the event. “Logistics had to deal with security, marketing, volunteer coordination, working with the interns to make sure they were on top of their jobs, and then staff housing and travel.”

“I was kind of the liaison between all the different crews because we had a lot of different crews. It was interesting working with all the different groups, and it was fun because it was different personalities. It was interesting to see a team come together because a lot of people had not met each other until the week of or two weeks before the event.”

Part of what made Restoring Honor so incredible was the history it made. “No one had really done an event like that on the mall,” Julis said. “It was nice to see people getting excited. I got to work on things that I had never done before. It was fun taking something from nothing and turning it into an event. Regardless of the size, it’s just nice birthing something like that. I definitely learned about myself.”

Because of Restoring Honor’s success, Julis became the go-to person for “special events.” She oversaw the planning and logistics of Glenn’s America’s First Christmas events in Wilmington, Ohio in December 2010, before being called on yet again to work on Restoring Courage.

“It started with Glenn,” she said. “He had an idea and he called us all in and said, ‘I want to go to Israel.’ And he automatically turned to me and said, ‘You’re going to do it.’”

Julis wasn’t so sure. “I mean I was excited for the challenge, but I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen. Not from a production standpoint, but I honestly didn’t think Glenn would get approved to go over there. I mean I remember the first few months everyone was on the fence over whether or not we should do this.”

Finally, with just three months to go, Julis got her answer – the events were a go.

“The end of May comes, still no decision. And then finally, I forget who made the decision, but we decided to move forward. At that point you have three months to do something in another country,” she recalled.

“So I quickly gathered the team, and I was fortunate to have a really great executive producer, Tzvi Small. He was amazing – couldn’t have done it without him. And it came together very fast. That project was very last minute in terms of concept. I mean even day of still adding and changing the show. So that was very last minute.”

As with most things at Mercury, Restoring Courage happened fast – really fast. Fortunately, Restoring Honor, though very different, provided a good foundation upon which to build. “It happened fast, but the interesting thing was that I had learned so much from Restoring Honor,” Julis said.

“I had an odd sense of calm, and I don’t know why,” she said. “I don’t know why because I shouldn’t have. But I did. I think I just really trusted the people I was working with. We just had a really good rapport. And I felt like everything was going to be okay. There was a lot of goodness surrounding that project.”

Her new role, as special events coordinator for GBTV, seems to strike the right balance – playing to Julis’s organizational and managerial strengths, while still providing a new challenge.

“I guess it was October/November (2011) that Chris [Balfe] and I started talking about a new role, and it was to start doing special events for GBTV, specifically to help market the network and get awareness out.”

For Julis, this new role meant the return of some stability and normalcy to her life. “I was excited because I was looking forward to having my life back. These projects are a lot of fun, but they are very draining and time consuming. And I wanted to work on projects like that, but also work towards other goals. I thought the special events and promotions would lend itself well to the next phase of this special events job. Its similar concepts and skill sets being utilized, but on smaller scales and in different ways.”

Up next for Julis is the planning and creating of a GBTV fan experience at the Restoring Love event at Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium on Saturday, July 28, which she promises will be a lot of fun. “I don’t want to give anything away, but it will be outside the stadium. GBTV will be doing a pre-show and have a broadcast presence. Everything will be available on GBTV. You can watch the entire show there.”

It looks like Julis is continuing to make the most of what comes her way, which is probably for the best seeing as history shows Glenn’s ideas just keep getting bigger and you never know what his next idea might entail - a rally on the moon perhaps? I wouldn’t rule it out.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.