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Glenn's Show Prep

Texas = the opposite of Massachusetts

July 19, 2012
Wilson

Writer

Glenn talked about how thrilled he was to be in Texas - especially considering voters appear to be voting on principle not party politics. In Massachusetts, noted liar Elizabeth Warren is somehow still leading in polls despite being caught in the humiliating ‘Cherokee’ fib. It’s a different story in Texas, where voters are going after the GOP establishment. Glenn interviewed candidate Ted Cruz on radio today for an update on his race.

Transcript of the interview is below:

GLENN: 150 hours to go before the very first Restoring Love event and that is Freedom Works. Freedom Works is having their Free PAC event and one of the guys who is going to be there is Ted Cruz. He is running for Senate here in Dallas, Texas. And what is the latest poll, Stu?

STU: The last one I saw was Cruz up 5, I believe.

GLENN: Ted Cruz is on the phone with us now. Hi, Ted. Ted, are you there? Ted's not there.

STU: Now he's only up 4 after that.

GLENN: 3, 2 ‑‑

STU: Oh, gosh, it's slipping away.

GLENN: 1. Ted's gone.

STU: David Dewhurst has won. Wow, it happened that first.

GLENN: His internal poll says he's up by 9 points.

STU: Yeah, he had one that he released an internal poll was up 9. Then I think I saw another poll released after that that had him up 5, which was huge. I mean, people ‑‑ this will be one of the biggest upsets in all of this Tea Party stuff that's gone on over the past few years.

GLENN: This is the biggest, this is the biggest one.

PAT: My internal poll, the one in my head has him up by 47 points.

STU: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: Does it really?

PAT: 47 points.

GLENN: Yeah. Huh.

STU: Wow.

PAT: In fact, he just won. We've just declared Ted Cruz the winner of Texas.

GLENN: I'm so proud of Texas. You know, I feel the opposite of Texas that I do about Massachusetts. I think what's her face, you know, the Indian squaw, what's her name?

STU: Oh, yeah.

PAT: Elizabeth Warren.

STU: Elizabeth Warren.

GLENN: She's winning. She's up in all the polls in Massachusetts.

PAT: She is?

GLENN: Yeah. She's up?

PAT: She's up?

GLENN: Yeah. In Massachusetts.

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: Massachusetts, you get what you deserve.

PAT: That is unreal.

GLENN: You get what you deserve.

PAT: Yep.

GLENN: The difference here is in Texas they are not going to put Dewhurst in. Let me go to Ted Cruz now. Are you there, Ted?

CRUZ: Good morning, Glenn. Great to be with you.

GLENN: What is your ‑‑ what does the average poll say? We know your internal is up 9. We've seen 7 and 8. Do you know what the average is?

CRUZ: Yeah. Our internal poll has us up 9, 49‑40%. There have been two independent polls. One had us up 91/2, the other had us up 5.

GLENN: That would be sweet. What do you attribute this to? Because I saw the ‑‑ I saw the ad. I saw one of the ads against you on television. It's like ‑‑ it was like, "Ted Cruz is a lying liar that lies all the time."

PAT: And he's a lawyer who lies. That's even worse.

GLENN: He's a liar.

PAT: A lying lawyer who lies.

GLENN: I saw one ‑‑ I saw one of the worst attack ads I've ever seen. I didn't even hear it. It was just on and I look up and it was like, "Ted Cruz killed a bunch of people."

PAT: (Laughing.)

GLENN: I don't think that's true.

CRUZ: Look, I mean, it's ‑‑ at the Republican state convention I joked that by the end of this David Dewhurst was going to tell you that I want to eat your children.

PAT: Mmm‑hmmm.

CRUZ: What I didn't understand is that that wasn't a joke. That is, in fact, just how low they're going to stoop. I mean, they are pulling out all of ‑‑ all of the guns. They're flooding the airwaves.

GLENN: Big time.

CRUZ: With false negative attack ads. You know what, I think those, though, are actually rebounding on them and hurting them. People are tired of the lies and the false character attack ads. You know, we've kept our focus on policy, not on ‑‑

GLENN: Can I tell you something? I think that's the secret with Mitt Romney right now, too. Mitt Romney is running a very positive campaign. He's holding his feet to the fire but he's like, "You know..." it's almost like you're dismissing these guys because they really are. It's time for them to be dismissed. Go away. Go away. It doesn't matter what you say. Oh, really? "Yeah, I eat children at night, you know, for dinner as well as snacks. And my wife yells about it all the time." So anyway, thank you for that cute little argument but here's what we're going to do. And it seems to be working.

Let me ask you a tough question. You have described Chief Justice John Roberts as a mentor and a friend.

CRUZ: Right. I have. And which of many tough questions is coming next?

STU: (Laughing.)

GLENN: How are you feeling about his ruling there?

CRUZ: Look, it is heartbreaking. I was shocked. I was incredibly disappointed. You know, in the debate Tuesday, the moderator asked, knowing what you know now, would you, would you vote to confirm Chief Justice Roberts. And I tell you it was painful that I had to answer, no, I would not. Because I think the Supreme Court's decision, I think the Court abdicated its responsibility.

GLENN: So what led ‑‑ in your opinion you know, you describe him as a friend. There is a story out that he changed it at the last minute and it's well documented. I mean, the whole thing is written as if he is on the other side.

CRUZ: Right.

GLENN: So he changed it at the last minute. They said he came with red eyes, he really looked distraught while this was going on. Kennedy was pissed at him.

CRUZ: Yeah.

GLENN: What do you ‑‑ you know, in your uninformed, or maybe you have information. In your uninformed opinion, speculate a little bit: What do you think happened?

CRUZ: I have no reason to doubt those reports, and unfortunately what I think happened is I think President Obama's threats to the Court worked. And I think what happened was I think he got nervous about the Court striking down ObamaCare and made effectively a political decision ‑‑

PAT: Wow.

CRUZ: ‑‑ not to do so because he thought it would save the credibility of the Court. I think ironically it did exactly the opposite. I think this decision is going to go down in history as a Cravenly political decision and I think it is undermining the credibility of the court.

GLENN: Oh, big time.

CRUZ: Their job is to enforce the Constitution, not to be political players.

PAT: And if that's your opinion of why he did what he did, then you're doing the right thing in saying that you wouldn't vote to confirm him. Based on what you know now. That's what it's all B. It's about upholding the Constitution, not whether or not this Court has, you know, a legacy.

CRUZ: Well, and that's why they're given life tenure is to make decisions that might be politically unpopular. They might be criticized for. That's the entire purpose of life tenure and I think when they worry about the political consequences of the immediate moment and they don't stand up and do their job, it undermines the entire reason we have the Court in the first place.

GLENN: So what part ‑‑ and I'm asking this because I want to know about your character. What part of John Roberts' character would lead you to that conclusion that he made a political decision? What part of his character or what did you see that would make you say, "Yeah, that's probably, that's probably what he did"? Because that's quite a charge to make that a guy who was in the Supreme Court, is a Supreme Court justice, chief justice, would do that.

CRUZ: Look, I mean, I'm not claiming to have had any inkling of this beforehand. I mean, I was shocked at the outcome. It was not something that had entered my mind as remotely a possibility. But, you know, I base that on reading the opinion. The opinion to me reads like a political opinion. The reasoning trying to contort the statutes and turn it into a tax. Listen, I've read a lot of judicial opinions and it's an opinion that's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and the only reasoning that makes sense is it is he was nervous about the outcome if he actually ruled on what was obvious, that it wasn't a tax because they said it wasn't a tax because they weren't willing to pay the political consequences of calling it a tax. And I think, you know, the gymnastics to turn it into something it wasn't, the only explanation I can come up with because a political outcome.

STU: And, of course, it never would have passed if it was called a tax, which makes it that much more frustrating. Let me ‑‑ go ahead.

CRUZ: And that's where the Constitution where the framers knew what they were doing. There's a reason taxes are treated differently. When politicians vote for taxes, they tend to get thrown out of office. And the framers understood passing taxes aren't popular and if congress can pass something, not call it a tax and let the Court magically turn it into a tax, that removes one of the most significant constraints on government power there is.

GLENN: Wow, I never thought of it that way.

STU: And that, you want to talk about judicial activism.

GLENN: Yeah, that is.

STU: That is the ultimate. I mean, he changed the actual bill. It's like he changed the text of it retroactively to make it constitutional. I mean, it's just ‑‑

CRUZ: Right, right.

STU: I could whine about that all day. Let me ask you, Ted, about illegal immigration for a second. You ‑‑ there's a story in the, I believe it was the Houston Chronicle that cited a speech from David Dewhurst in which he seemed to back amnesty. What happened the next day on David Dewhurst's website.

CRUZ: No, that's exactly right. So to back up a little bit, in the first televised debate we had in the runoff, Dewhurst looked in the cameras and told everyone he did not support amnesty, he has never backed amnesty, never backed the guest worker program. The next day the Chronicle broke the story that in 2007 he had given a speech where he called for amnesty for every single illegal alien currently in the United States today. And what was astonishing is the Dewhurst amnesty program was broader than Barack Obama's amnesty program. Obama's amnesty just extends to kids who came here illegally. Dewhurst wanted to give a guest worker program to every single person illegally in this country today. And the source of this was the written text of a speech he had given that was on his official lieutenant governor website. So when this broke, obviously a lot of reporters began calling, began looking at the story. And several days later Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst ordered the stay employees who maintain the website to take his speech down, to delete it and, in fact, to delete every speech he had ever given as lieutenant governor. And, you know, it strikes me as remarkable that he is literally trying to whitewash his record and delete his record.

PAT: Wow.

CRUZ: Because he wants to hide from the fact that he advanced an amnesty program broader than Barack Obama's.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: The election is next week. I know you're going to be at Free PAC.

CRUZ: Yes.

GLENN: This, a week from Thursday ‑‑ I'm sorry. It's not next week. It's a week from, is it Tuesday?

PAT: Yeah.

CRUZ: Well, it's actually both.

PAT: The 31st.

CRUZ: So early voting in Texas starts on Monday of next week, and all next week Monday through Friday is early voting. So any Texan can vote any day next week and then election day itself is the next Tuesday, July 31st. And I'll tell you, to win we've got to do two things: One, we need conservatives to show up. I would ask every one of your listeners in Texas please, please, please come out and early vote next week or vote on the and Ist. But number two, Dewhurst is running millions of dollars of false character attack. We desperately need to raise the money to stay on TV. I'll tell you every time you've had me on the radio, hundreds of your listeners have gone to TedCruz.org, have contributed, hundreds of Texans and hundreds of conservatives nationally because every penny we raise goes to being up on television and radio to respond to these attacks. And we're leading statewide but if he's able to dump millions in attacks and we can't respond, what he wants to do is buy this race and I think that would be very, very dangerous and we desperately need the funding to respond.

GLENN: Well, I will tell you this: This race is probably the biggest sign of the Tea Party's power and the freedom movement. And if Texas can't do it, nobody can do it. Ted, best of luck and we'll see you next week at Free PAC.

CRUZ: I look forward to it. And thank you for your incredible support, Glenn. And you know what? You're right. If we win, the national headlines will be the Tea Party is transforming the country. And if we lose, every reporter will point to it as proof that the Tea Party is dead and it will hurt lovers of liberty across the country.

GLENN: Big time.

CRUZ: So I am pleased to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and lovers of liberty across Texas and across the country.

GLENN: All right.

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

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

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.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

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

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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.