Rand Paul says GOP is united against Obamacare… for the most part

Senator Rand Paul made headlines last week when the Associated Press quoted him saying Obamacare probably couldn’t be defeated. He later clarified his remarks and reiterated that he would vote against a resolution funding the President’s healthcare legislation. Last night, Sen. Paul brought a good dose of experience to the Senate floor when he took part in fellow Sen. Ted Cruz’s marathon anti-Obamacare speech. This morning, Sen. Paul joined Glenn to talk about what the next steps are for the Republican Party.

Glenn, who introduced Sen. Paul as “the guy who began to give me some hope that there was a way out," asked him to elaborate on what this moment means for the future of Obamacare and, more generally, the future of the Republican Party.

“No. I mean, whether we win or lose on this, and I don't think we have the votes ultimately to win on this, but whether we win or lose on this, we will continue to stand on principle against ObamaCare,” Sen. Paul said. “Many state legislatures are going to have the same fight. The same fervor and the same excitement we've had in Washington this week will be in state capitals when they get the bill for the expansion of Medicaid. And all the states that are expanding Medicaid are going to have to either raise taxes or go further in debt, and this is going to be a problem. But it comes about over the next year or two.”

“The other thing that's going to happen is people who had good insurance, this could be wealthy executives or it could be union workers who had good insurance, are going to be paying taxes on it,” he continued. “People are going to find out that their prices for their insurance is higher, part‑time workers are going to lose hours, and full‑time workers may well lose their job. There's going to be a lot of bad things that come out of this. And so I think the fight goes on. But this is a milestone in that fight.”

There has a good deal of highly publicized in fighting within the Republican Party. But Sen. Paul explained that while Republicans in Washington might not agree on how to defeat Obamacare, they are united against the legislation.

“I think the caucus is unified against ObamaCare. I mean, I truly do. I think there are some differences on how we best should do it, and I think they are honest differences, to tell you the truth,” he explained. “I think it is a little bit unfair on some of the criticism. For example, you know, Senator Barrasso, the M.D., has fought ObamaCare like nobody else, puts out information every week on it, has always voted to defund it. It's a little unfair really to say that if he's unwilling to filibuster a bill that he actually agrees with that he's opposed to ObamaCare. And so I think that really some of the tactics aren't necessarily fair, and I think that our caucus is unified, our caucus is not unified on exactly how to do it.”

Read a full transcript of the interview below:

GLENN: Let's go to Senator Rand Paul, a guy who I will never forget as the guy who began to give me some hope that there was a way out. When he stood and he filibustered, must have been six months ago now, and now we're seeing Ted Cruz and the rest of the good guys come up and stand. Not technically the same kind of filibuster as Rand did, and I don't know how this is going to play with the American people, but I hope well.

Rand Paul is joining us from Washington, D.C. Senator, how are you, sir?

RAND PAUL: Very good, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

GLENN: So is ‑‑ what do you think is coming out of this? What do you think's going to happen here

RAND PAUL: Everywhere I go people want us to stand on principle, they want us to oppose ObamaCare because they think it's a disaster for the country. You know, I think it's going to help precisely the people that it was intended to help, I think it's going to actually hurt those people. And, you know, I've been saying if it's such a great thing, why didn't President Obama take it? If it's such a great thing, why didn't justice Roberts get it? You know, so I have one amendment, if they let us vote on amendments that will say all federal workers get it. If we've got to be stuck with this darn thing, they should all get it too.

GLENN: Is there any way to get that in afterwards? I mean, that has to be done.

RAND PAUL: In all likelihood there will be no amendments ‑‑ well, there will be one amendment. This is the way it works up here: It's Harry Reid's way or the highway. It's President Obama's way or the highway. They get 100% of ObamaCare or they are either going to shut down the government or ‑‑ they are not going to allow amendments. There's going to be one amendment and that's going to strip the language that defunds ObamaCare. So it is really, it's funny and it amazes me that some of the mainstream media say, "Oh, Republicans are just being obstructionist trying to get their way." Republicans are trying to get ‑‑ to be even part of the process is what we're trying to do. Democrats are getting 100% of what they want, a bill written by them with no votes by Republicans.

GLENN: Is this the last ‑‑ is this the last stop?

RAND PAUL: No. I mean, whether we win or lose on this, and I don't think we have the votes ultimately to win on this, but whether we win or lose on this, we will continue to stand on principle against ObamaCare. Many state legislatures are going to have the same fight. The same fervor and the same excitement we've had in Washington this week will be in state capitals when they get the bill for the expansion of Medicaid. And all the states that are expanding Medicaid are going to have to either raise taxes or go further in debt, and this is going to be a problem. But it comes about over the next year or two.

The other thing that's going to happen is people who had good insurance, this could be wealthy executives or it could be union workers who had good insurance are going to be paying taxes on it. People are going to find out that their prices for their insurance is higher, part‑time workers are going to lose hours, and full‑time workers may well lose their job. There's going to be a lot of bad things that come out of this and so I think the fight goes on. But this is a milestone in that fight.

GLENN: So there was a tweet yesterday from NBC News, and I want to read it to you and get your comment. NBC News has learned while Senator Rand Paul does not expect to speak publicly about his opposition to Cruz's tactic, Paul sided with Mitch McConnell.

Is that true?

RAND PAUL: What I've said is what I'll continue to say all along, that I won't spend a penny on and I won't vote for a penny for ObamaCare, and I'll do anything I can to stop it.

I have also said that I don't want to shut down the government, and I think shutting down the government is just a deadline that if we go through, even though it will be the president's fault, it will be him wanting everything he wants if it happens, it's probably not good for our cause overall to go through a shutdown and so I have some mixed feelings as to how this all turns out. I don't want to fund ObamaCare, but I also think that for us to win and take over the Senate or the White House, it doesn't ‑‑ it isn't in our best interest to be perceived or accused of shutting down government.

GLENN: But you're going to be accused ‑‑ I mean, look what you're accused of.

RAND PAUL: I've been accused of my fair share of things.

GLENN: That's right. If you're going to be accused, we can't live in a world where we're afraid of what the accusations are going to be because it doesn't matter. That's, you know, that's Mitch McConnell and John McCain kind of thinking that gets ‑‑ John McCain's worse, but ‑‑

RAND PAUL: I guess my point is that if we're willing to do it, what we have to do is be willing to go through the deadline. And the only way to leverage or our poker hand holds any value or power is if people will ‑‑ do believe we'll go through the deadline. With the debt ceiling I've always been willing to go through the deadline. I'm willing to go a month, two months, three months, as long as it takes. And I think we could use that leverage to bring the Democrats to the negotiating table. With the actual disruption of spending, there is a way we could have done this but it would have required assistance from leadership and that would have been in January we should have started passing appropriations bill. See, if the defense appropriations bill were passed, we couldn't have anybody up here saying, "Oh, you're going to not pay the soldiers." Right now soldiers wouldn't get paid.

GLENN: See, this is the problem, Rand, and you know this. I mean, you know, you just know this: The leadership that we have as the GOP with Boehner and McConnell and everybody else, they are way ‑‑ they are a waste of a seat. They are not ‑‑ I don't understand how they think they're going to win. The reason why the Republicans have a 34% approval rating is not because of you guys but because America now says ‑‑ 68% of Americans say we're on the wrong track. And what Mitch McConnell is giving them is the same track, different speed. They don't want to be on this track anymore.

RAND PAUL: Well, I think the vast majority of people are with us on, you know, defunding ObamaCare, getting rid of stopping ObamaCare, and the fight is worth having. This is the time to have the fight and so I'm going to keep doing what I can to stoke the flame, stoke the fire and to say, you know, this is bad, that coercion is bad, that mandates are bad, that the hundreds of mandates that run throughout ObamaCare are not consistent with our American ideals, not consistent with the American concept of freedom of choice, of volunteerism. And I think we should have that debate and put it in stark terms because the bottom line is there will be one or two choices on these exchanges, and right now you have hundreds of choices. If I want to choose a high deductible plan and a health savings account, I can do it. That will not be offered to me under these exchanges.

GLENN: Anything you're comfortable about sharing about the whip process going on behind closed doors? Yesterday there was a Breitbart report out that Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn were looking for votes against Cruz? I mean, in effect is the GOP trying to make sure that the funding goes through?

RAND PAUL: No, I think the caucus is unified against ObamaCare. I mean, I truly do. I think there are some differences on how we best should do it, and I think they are honest differences, to tell you the truth. But I think the caucus ‑‑ and while I think it is a little bit unfair on some of the criticism. For example, you know, Senator Barrasso, the MD, has fought ObamaCare like nobody else, puts out information every week on it, has always voted to defund it. It's a little unfair really to say that if he's unwilling to filibuster a bill that he actually agrees with that he's opposed to ObamaCare and so I think that really some of the tactics aren't necessarily fair, and I think that our caucus is unified, our caucus is not unified on exactly how to do it.

GLENN: Chris Wallace said on Fox News Sunday that the Republicans were taking Cruz out and then they went to Karl Rove, of all people, to explain why. You know, I saw Cruz talk about this, and I thought like a statesman last night, saying, you know, the older guys, they don't know the young freshmen. They just don't know, they don't really care ‑‑ and I'm making it worse than what he did. But they don't know us and, you know, the freshmen have not turned on each other. It is the older guys turning on the new guys. Who's turning on ‑‑ what is this? What's going on? Because Rove said yesterday, "Well, it's just ‑‑ on Sunday. He said, "Well, that's just because Cruz didn't go to the older guys, didn't go in to the caucus and tell them what he was going to do and so we had to find out on our own." Is that kind of pettiness true?

RAND PAUL: I would say that there are always growing pains and, you know, we're in the minority. So we have to figure out how to grow. And in growing pains, there's always a struggle on the best way forward, the best way to grow the movement. Some of it is standing on principle. It's standing and not giving up and saying "We are opposed to ObamaCare and we'll do anything we can to stop it." But some of it's also on some things that I think that trying ‑‑ that I'm trying to do which is beyond our party base. ObamaCare unites our party base but doesn't make our party necessarily bigger.

I'm also talking about some liberty issues, some issues of fairness and justice within criminal justice system, within, you know, how we approach our foreign policy that I think will broaden our base and get us to a bigger party. So I think it's a combination of all those things.

But there's always going to be internal disagreement on the tactics of exactly how you do it. But other than that, I would say that really there's more unity than disunity in the sense of what our position is on ObamaCare. And it's probably unfair really to characterize anybody in our caucus as not being absolutely 100% committed to defunding ObamaCare.

GLENN: The story out today about John Kerry signing the ‑‑ he says he's going to sign the UN arms treaty that's being negotiated now. Fox is telling us nothing to worry about. I couldn't disagree with that more strongly.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, I'm not a big fan of signing a UN treaty that gives up on the Second Amendment or allows them to infringe on the Second Amendment. There should be no international treaties that ever infringe on our constitutional rights or our sovereignty.

GLENN: But they are saying that this one is just going to be for international, it won't infringe on that at all.

RAND PAUL: Yeah, that's ‑‑ you know, they can talk a good line and say it's not going to do this, it's not going to do that. I can tell you that that's one of these other things that we will stand on principle and I will be right there at the forefront saying I will get 34 senators, and I can stop that because Senate treaties take 67 votes. So 34 votes to defeat them. So far we've defeated every one of these treaties that have come forward from the United Nations because Americans don't want us to give up our sovereignty to an international body full of two‑bit tin‑horn dictators who often, and for the most part, hate America.

GLENN: How could we possibly sign a UN arms treaty that stops people from giving arms to the, you know, to the bad guys when the president has to waive himself our own laws to stop us from giving weapons to Al‑Qaeda?

RAND PAUL: Yeah, it's kind of interesting that, yeah, we're going to sign a treaty banning weapons transfers while exempting ourselves to send weapons to Syrian Islamic radical elements that may well hate America as much as they hate Assad.

GLENN: I don't know if you saw the picture we released yesterday on TheBlaze, but in a USA Aid tent or U.S. Aid tent, we have a known Al‑Qaeda terrorist standing next to a guy with a rocket launcher, in our tent in Syria.

RAND PAUL: The only thing that could be better is if you had an American senator over there having their picture taken with them. Yeah.

STU: Wow.

RAND PAUL: You know, the thing is this is the ridiculous nature of people saying, "Oh, we're giving the weapons only to the vetted moderate resistance." It's like, if you don't speak Arabic, you can't even pretend to think you're even talking to the moderate vetted rebels. But the thing is even if you do speak Arabic, how are you going to know who's lying to you and who's not lying to ya? They're all going to have made‑up names. Do you think they're carrying around, you know, a birth certificate that you can prove who they are?

GLENN: I've got news for ya: I don't even know who the good guys are in the United States of America and they speak English. I mean, I don't even know ‑‑ I don't know if you saw the school board meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, where the dad was escorted out for standing up and asking a question, and he was charged with second degree assault on a police officer. It's all on tape. There was no assault. The officer was completely in the wrong. They charged him. They decided to drop the charges. Even though they say that they were totally justified but it wouldn't help justice if they pressed it.

RAND PAUL: You know what, Glenn? You know what this reminds me of? When I was detained by the TSA, they put out a report saying I was resisting arrest or whatever. So then somebody must have been my friend at the airport and they put out the surveillance footage of me when I was in the detention cubicle. I'm sitting there for, like, hours on end just kind of bored to death looking at my phone. I never had words with anybody. But they put out a press release saying that I was irate and that I was yelling and screaming. I never did any of that. I sat quietly and bored to death on my phone trying to tell people I was in captivity. But I wasn't talking to anybody. So, you know, it ‑‑

But with regard to, you know, the Islamic rebels, we really have to say to ourselves, are we not completely insane to be giving surface‑to‑air missiles to guys who are using machetes to cut people's heads off?

GLENN: Yeah, we are completely insane unfortunately. Thank you so much, Senator. I appreciate it, and thanks for your tough stand and keep standing, and we wish you all the best of luck today. The vote coming today? Do you know?

RAND PAUL: Yes. Well, there will be at least one vote today around noon, but it probably is going to be the motion to proceed. Then there may be another filibuster. This may be the beginning. There may be another 30 hours. I don't know if anybody's got the same stamina as Ted Cruz. So we'll see if anybody else can stand for 30 hours. But we've got another 30 hours after this maybe.

GLENN: You've got time to get a nap in.

RAND PAUL: That's right. I've got ‑‑ my voice is already a little raspy and I wasn't up all night.

GLENN: Thanks so much, Senator. I appreciate it.

RAND PAUL: Thanks, Glenn.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

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We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

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The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

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In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

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We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

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We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

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Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.