Who is really dividing the U.S. based on race in the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict?

The President of the United States rarely if ever now delivers remarks without the assistance of his teleprompter, and when his teleprompter malfunctions, as it did in Germany, things get ugly, and he starts to sweat, and it’s just…well, it’s lackluster at best.

You might remember this awkward encounter from last month when his teleprompters went down.

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President Obama: I want to thank everybody who’s here. I think there’s only one problem, and that is that my remarks are not sitting here. People?

He turns to thank the people that are standing there, and he looks at the teleprompter and –

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President Obama: I’m going to answer a question at the end of the remarks, but I want to make sure that we get the remarks up. People?

So smooth, nobody would’ve noticed that there was a problem. He’s slick, isn’t he? Now, that’s the way the president is without a teleprompter. We have talked to people who have met with him actually in the Cabinet Room where he had to have a teleprompter with eight people in the room.

But on the flipside of that, just hours last week after the Zimmerman not guilty verdict, the president made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room and gave a controversial yet well-polished speech on race, and this time, he did it without the aid of his trusted teleprompter.

Now, why does this matter? Well, because out of all of the issues that you would want the President of the United States to be fluent in – economics, jobs, foreign policy, individual liberty, the Constitution, any of that, this president cannot speak off the cuff without any kind of teleprompter or notes in front of him. But when it comes to the police acting stupidly or anything to do with identity politics, this man is ready to roll for hours. It’s his lifelong passion.

The man who was supposed to unite the United States of America is an expert on the most divisive form of politics in existence today that pits people against other people, placing them in little boxes and then convincing those people that you’re only in that box because of those people over there. They’re the cause of all of your problems.

Now, the press, many even on the right, are calling this speech that he gave one of the most important in his presidency. They’re singing his praises. What’s new? Even though the Zimmerman trial had nothing to do with race, and that’s not me saying that; that’s both the prosecution and the defense. Both sides said this has nothing to do with race. Still, the president is using this opportunity to further divide us.

He said the outcome of the case could have been different if Martin were white.

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President Obama: If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario that from top to bottom both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Okay, so is he saying that Zimmerman was guilty, and somehow or another the system broke down? Because I haven’t heard that. I haven’t heard that the system broke down with any kind of specifics. And once again, he places himself square in the middle of the story.

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President Obama: You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me.

I just want you to know, that’s not another way of saying that could have been my son by saying it could have been me. Listen to this.

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President Obama: There’s a lot of pain around what happened here. I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

Okay, got it. He said a couple of important things here. The African-American community is looking at this situation through the lens of history and experiences and pain. Okay, well that’s why justice is blind. That’s why we don’t have people involved making the decisions, because you might look at it differently, either with rose-colored glasses or a tainted view from something that went on with your own personal life. That’s why you’re not involved, to keep the verdict pure.

But then you also say that that pain just doesn’t go away. Mr. President, may I humbly suggest that you need the atoning power of Jesus Christ if that’s not going away. What’s happening in your life, Mr. President, where pain does not go away? And why is that pain not going away? Who’s perpetrating this myth that there is still the same amount of experiences for African-Americans today as there was in the 1960s?

And by the way, if the word “myth” sounds harsh, in the same speech, here’s the president:

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President Obama: As difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better.

I don’t think he believes that, but he’s right. The reality is there are still problems, but believe it or not, even with all of the stuff that’s going on, race relations in America, they are getting better. But Al Sharpton doesn’t let you know that. Jesse Jackson doesn’t let you know that. Anybody on MSNBC or Harry Reid, they don’t let you know that, otherwise, they’d be out of a job.

They’d be out of a few more voters, you know, if they weren’t told to vote for a Republican, I mean, if you voted for a Republican, it’d be like returning to the Jim Crow days. That would put these people out of power. Jackson, Sharpton, and the president have all used their pulpits to make the Zimmerman trial about race.

Again, both sides say that it’s not about race. And they feign outrage. I know this guy. He feigns outrage. But where is the outrage at the dropout factories that are inner-city public schools? How about the churning out of generation after generation of doomed children, slaves? If you can’t read, you’re a slave.

Where is the outrage at the failure of massive government programs, progressive governments, like Detroit, that have left citizens begging for politicians just to give ’em a few more crumbs or begging for the police to show up? Where is the outrage at the Planned Parenthood abortion mills whose founder wanted to eliminate the undesirables of society which were the blacks?

Where is the outrage at the other American war zone, Chicago, where four more were gunned down just this weekend and nine others injured in yet another shootout? Where is the outrage? Where’s the outrage at the mind-boggling and tragic black-on-black crime rates? You don’t hear about it.

According to the Bureau of Justice, approximately 8,000 blacks are murdered annually, every single year, 8,000 killed. That accounts for 49% of all of the murders in America – 49%. Twelve percent of the population is 49% of all of the murders? About 93% of black homicide victims were murdered by someone in their own race, so 93%, black on black.

Now, here’s the most shocking statistic. The murder rate among blacks in America is an astonishing 19.5 per 100,000 people. So you have an idea of how astonishing that number is, that’s a tick under Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo. That’s a nation mired in constant civil war – again, a city so mired in murder that the murder rates among blacks is 19.5 per 100,000 people. That number is nearly 5 times higher than the murder rate in the Palestinian territories. That’s a real problem.

Now, why isn’t any politician standing up and saying that? Why isn’t anybody saying that? Well, because those are real problems. Those are real problems. They’re undisputed facts. And real problems are going to have to be solved, but to solve them, you need some answers and answers that empower people.

If you want to empower yourself, you’re going to have to manufacture some problems like the Zimmerman trial. It’s not about race, yet half of America thinks it is. Why? Because of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and the President of the United States just told them so. And then he has the gall to blame the racial tension in the aftermath of the verdict on that racist jury.

I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen a leader behave this way, ever. Leaders do not blame people. Leaders don’t lie for their own personal gain. Crooks, crooks do. Leaders tell you the truth, the hard truth, and then, just when you think you’re at your lowest, a leader doesn’t lean down to you and say “and you know what, you’ll never, ever make it without me.” They never do that.

They inspire you to reach higher than you ever thought you could. That’s what a leader does but not socialist leaders. Che is a big hero. Che is the leader, of course, you know, with the communist revolution, but who was Che really? Che championed that blacks weren’t doing enough for the revolution. He referred to them as lazy and unwilling to do anything to help.

He said about blacks, “The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; The European has a tradition of work and saving…” Well, that sounds racist to me, but you’ve never heard anybody on the left called Che a racist, have you? Every town in America now has a Cesar Chavez Boulevard. Well, what’s his story? Well, he was standing up for the little people. He was standing up for the workers. Was he? Was he?

Do you know that Cesar Chavez blamed the labor woes on immigrants? He was so upset that he said that there had to be a wet line on the border. The UFW, the United Farm Workers Union, they sent their thugs out, and they physically beat any illegal immigrant trying to cross the line. Now, that’s not a story that you hear today, is it? No, but these are the truths about the leftist icons, and they have a lot in common with the leftist icons of today.

Leftist icons generally inspire people to do what, to stand up on their own two feet, pull themselves up, or to riot, to fight, to burn, destroy, to hate, eventually kill people? Che didn’t free people; Che killed people. Martin Luther King, he freed people. He led people towards the promised land, and he did it without playing the blame game.

Quote, Martin Luther King, “A group of ten thousand marching in anger against a police station and cussing out the police chief will do very little to bring respect, dignity, and unbiased law enforcement.” He also said, “We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.”

If Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and yes, Barack Obama, lifted people up instead of pointing fingers, perhaps we’d be closer to that promised land that MLK talked about and that we all know exists. It’s hard not to believe that the Sharptons of the world really don’t want to get to any kind of promised land. They’d rather remain in power, or in the president’s case, want to be your parent, because see, that’s what Progressives do.

They are your parent. They know better. That’s the whole theory behind Progressivism, somebody else knows better for the collective. Now, let’s just assume for a second that that is the right thing for them to do. So who do we have now as our parent in the Oval Office? Who do we have? Are they a good parent? Well, yes, he cares about – okay.

May I ask you, did your parent or any – if you had a good parent – or any good parent that you ever witnessed or you know, Bill Cosby, anybody, any good parent, any mom or dad, did they ever tell you to focus on the past? Did they ever encourage you to take from others because you didn’t get your fair share? Did your mom or dad ever tell you you’re not going to make it? Did they ever continually pick at old wounds and tell you that they’ll never heal?

Now, maybe I’m the only kid that wasn’t raised by Frank Marshall Davis or Bill Ayers, but my parents always told me that it doesn’t matter what others do; it’s what you do that counts. My parents always told me that life wasn’t fair and never would be fair and to get over it. But see, if you have a parent that does that, then they have to follow it with you stay focused on what you know to be true, who you are, where you came from, and that requires you to look at facts.

So let’s look at some more facts. There are racists in America, both black and white. Yep, that’s it, both left and right. Our job, I guess, is to figure out who’s who. Everybody calls each other racist now. Oh, you’re a racist because you – really? Okay, great. But there are racists. How do we tell? Well, somebody who’s trying to use race to gain power, I think, and will only tell the stories that are good for them.

For instance, why isn’t Al Sharpton talking about this story? Why isn’t the president talking about this 76-year-old man in Milwaukee? He shot and killed this little kid here, 13-year-old black kid. He comes out, and he’s got a gun. Now, look at the kid backing up. This is clearly, this is clearly not self defense.

Eventually, the mom comes out and says hey, hey, hey, what’s going on? And he says, you want to know what’s going on? You want me to stop your kid from stealing? I’ll teach your kid. Any points a gun right to the kid’s chest, shoots him. The kid starts running down the street. He shoots him again. He misses, but it’s already too late. The kid collapses and dies in the hospital a couple of hours later. Why is nobody talking about this?

This is a racist guy, right? How about the 29-year-old mentally disabled Hispanic in Arizona that was walking the dog in the parking lot at a Taco Bell? He was shot dead by a black man. Where were the calls for the justice for Daniel? Or in Chicago, Leslie Freeman, her 22-month-old son, Demonte, gunned down as she was sitting with her child in the lap in a van. She was sitting there with a van, a car full of people.

The child was shot. Just last year, Leslie lost her son, Deon, shot by a gang member. Where’s Sharpton on that one? Or the white baby that was shot in a stroller in Atlanta by two black teens? Why aren’t they talking about that one? I’ll tell you why. Nobody wants to talk about any of those because they know that both black and white agree, and whether it’s for power or for ratings, when everybody agrees, there’s just really nothing there.

They choose carefully the stories that they know divide America. It gives you ratings. It gives you power. That’s what it is. It makes you honestly into a bully. No one in the media is talking about the black guy that shot the white kid or the white guy who shot the black kid or the black teens that shot the baby, but that’s where we need to focus as Americans. We need to find the big issues that bring us together, because there’s a lot more of those stories than of Zimmerman stories.

But we’re just focusing on the Zimmerman story when the real story of all the murder and all the death is going by us at a high speed, and we just ignore that one. We can’t as a people – look, we’re not going to be able to convince everybody, and it doesn’t really matter, but here’s what we have to do. We have to find out the real facts, know what’s going on, and then without anger – and that’s the hard part, without anger – stand up to bullies.

We need to identify first who the bullies are and then stop giving them so much power over us. The Zimmerman trial should have never ever happened. The only reason why it did is because the President of the United States and his Justice Department and the wound pickers like Al Sharpton applied mob justice. I’ve never met a black man yet who actually thinks that Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson actually speaks for them.

The Reverend Jackson is out there producing love children, and Reverend Al has literally made things up. I don’t know how he sleeps at night, but he does. He makes things up to promote his own career. Jackson rushed to defend the black stripper who made the rape allegations against the members of the Duke lacrosse team which was completely false. He said his Rainbow PUSH Coalition would pay for her college tuition. It turned out to be false, and he was wrong, but there was no outcry there.

Al Sharpton, he lied about Tawana Brawley. He didn’t care about the truth. He cares about himself. I can’t think of anything more damning than proclaiming to be a reverend, a preacher, and then to use that power and that platform for personal gain. I’ll never forget when I sat down at CNN, and I did an interview with Al Sharpton. And I said “nice watch, Al,” right before we went on the air – nice watch. It was a Rolex. He suddenly became very self conscious. I don’t even…somebody gave that to me as a gift, and he covered it.

Judgment Day…Judgment Day is already scary enough, but I think anybody who claims to speak with the power of the Lord’s words are going to receive kind of a stricter punishment. There are a lot of people that think I fall into this category, and maybe I do. I try, but maybe I do in the end.

I know there are many things that I have done and I’ve said over the years that I regret now, and I think there’s a lot of people out in America that think I shouldn’t be successful. Whatever, I mean, okay, I get it. I understand. Life isn’t fair. I get that, but rest assured, if you’re right about me, justice for me will be swift and severe in the afterlife. It will be; however, if I’m right, the same will be said for Sharpton and Jackson and Wallis and President Obama.

The president is going way out of his way to comment on a single trial, and in doing so, he is – what is that commandment – oh, bearing false witness, and he’s doing it by using race. This isn’t about race. It’s not my job or your job to judge a man’s heart, but it is our job to look at the tree and then look at the fruit of that tree. What is that tree producing? Is it producing good fruit or bad fruit?

This tree is producing lies and anger, division, unrest, violence, poverty, and suffering. When will Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or the president rise up at the injustice to blacks and women that has happened in progressive cities like Detroit or currently happening in Philadelphia? Or are they just going to continue to turn a blind eye to the truth in favor of their own political and personal agendas?

And if we continue to be quiet, if we continue just to take it because what am I going to do about it anyway, where do those personal agendas take us as a nation?

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

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If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.