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Glenn's Show Prep

Medical Technology Analyst discusses the spooky implications of data mining in Common Core

April 10, 2013
Wilson

Writer

GLENN: Before we went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, Nic Anderson, he called us up and we were talking about the Common Core and what they were using. And I had mentioned something that was in Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance: Critical factors for success in the 21st century. And this is from the Department of Education. This is their handbook that they had posted. And I asked him, because he called up and he said ‑‑ he could define what an FCAT ‑‑ or an fMRI was. And it talks about fMRIs, it talks about, you know, digital wristbands around your kids' wrists and monitoring everything about your kids while they're in class. And he called in to say, "Hey, look, the definition of, you know, some of these things." And I said, well, would you look into this. Well, he did, and he's reporting back now. And he's a guy who uses this technology. He is actually a medical technology analyst and owner of North Carolina Anderson Consulting. Let's bring Nic in. Nic, is it NC Anderson or is it North Carolina Anderson Consulting?

ANDERSON: NC Anderson.

GLENN: NC Anderson Consulting.

ANDERSON: But I'm sure the people of North Carolina appreciate the shout‑out.

GLENN: Okay. So Nic, first of all, you are only working off of what you found in the Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance from the Department of Education's website, right?

ANDERSON: That's right. Either there or from the people that they cite as experts. I've gone to them and I've looked up what they are doing, what they are working on. But yes, it's all based off of this document from the Department of Education.

GLENN: I told you two weeks ago, I said anything that you find, make sure you burn it to a DVD because, are you aware of what the Department of Education has done with this handbook?

ANDERSON: Yeah. So I ‑‑ the day after, maybe the day of when you and I spoke on March 28th, I went and I logged on and tried to find the PDF and couldn't find it anywhere. And thank goodness Keith had ‑‑ one of your ‑‑

GLENN: Producers.

ANDERSON: Yeah. He called ‑‑ he sent me the link and I was able to go to it straight from there. But then I tried to look it up on my own and couldn't find it anywhere and I just found it again yesterday but it's ‑‑

GLENN: Buried.

ANDERSON: You have to dig for it. It's not right there.

GLENN: Yeah. It used to be right there.

ANDERSON: Right.

GLENN: They know we are onto them and they are trying to cover their tracks. If you are doing anything on Common Core, I'm telling you this is absolute evil. It is evil. Make no mistake. And you are going to come up against the big Republicans and the big Democrats on this one. Evil.

Nic, what did you find about the things that they are doing? I mean, they are making our kids into guinea pigs and they are monitoring them and they are collecting data points on them. What did you find?

ANDERSON: That's right. I mean, one of the interesting things is right at the top of this document, right in the beginning, let me read this little paragraph. I mean, this is just, it's comical if it wasn't scary. It says, "It may not always be productive to persevere in the face of challenge. For example, persevering to accomplish goals that are extrinsically motivated, unimportant to the student or in some way inappropriate for the student and potentially induce stress, anxiety and distraction and have detrimental impacts on students' long‑term retention, conceptual learning or psychological wellbeing. Careful research is still necessary to help educators learn how to protect students, engage them, and fine‑tune practices..."

GLENN: So wait a minute. They are saying that it might be inappropriate, it might be uncomfortable but they still have to do it?

ANDERSON: That's right. And the funny thing is this whole document's about grit and perseverance and they are saying, you know what? It might not be a good thing to always try hard. There are times when, you know, we don't want to overstress these kids because, you know, heaven, heaven forbid they actually have to work for something.

GLENN: Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the fMRI.

ANDERSON: Sure.

GLENN: Skin conductance and pupil monitoring that they are planning on doing.

ANDERSON: So the document, let's see. Page 32 says, for example, data mining techniques can track students' trajectories or persistence and learning over time, thereby providing actionable feedback to students and teachers. In additional, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and psychological indicators offer insight into the biology and neuroscience underlying observed students' behaviors.

Well, fMRI is based on the premise that as your brain thinks, it consumes oxygen and increases the magnetization of certain regions of your brain. So in theory I could take a kid and put him in the scanner and ask him a series of questions, things he should have learned in class and if his brain isn't consuming oxygen as I would expect it to be, well, then in theory I could hold the kid back at the end of the year, I could advance him if he answers really well and so on. The fusion tensor imaging is not mentioned in the article but it is a major research point right now by a couple of the authors. The fusion tensor imaging is able to track how two areas of the brain are connected. So if I said the color "brown" and you think of dirt, those are two separate things. Dirt is brown and brown is brown. Those are two separate parts of the brain thinking of something, but they're connected. And if I did an fMRI on you, I could see that, wait a minute, why when I said the word "brown" did this part of your brain light up. Well, diffusion tenser imaging will allow me to draw a connection between where the color brown is located in your brain and where the word "dirt" or the concept of dirt is located in your brain, and I can connect those two things.

GLENN: So what does that do?

ANDERSON: Well ‑‑

GLENN: Why do I need that or what is the good part of that and bad part of that?

ANDERSON: The good, some of the good parts, it's used in stroke. You know, like in detecting a stroke patient, you know, so on, certain things. But where it's being proposed in education is that if I could do diffusion tenser imaging, if kids aren't making these connections like I would expect them to be, something's wrong. And once again I could hold the kid back. So if I said, you know, 4 times 4 and then the part of your brain that is able to analyze that is not connected to the 4 times 4 part of your brain, then I suspect that something's wrong with you.

GLENN: Can I tell you something? I just had ‑‑ because I'm trying some holistic things and everything else and ‑‑ because I have really severe neuropathy and so I was on vacation. I went and I had a brain scan and I think it was probably kind of like an fMRI. But they did this whole scan on me and the doctor, when he got to the brain scan, he was sitting behind the deal and he went, whoa, never seen that before. And that's really something you don't want your doctor to say. And I said, what is that? And he said, you've got to look at this. And the creative side of my brain was just on fire. He's like, I've not ever seen the creative side. And he said, he started showing me. He said, look at how this all connects all the way down. Well, I would be spat out as abnormal, but you in a good way. Now ‑‑

ANDERSON: Yeah.

GLENN: Now, if I am ‑‑ the things that make me unique, for instance my ADHD, that has made me unique and has made me, because I can adapt to it, it gives me a different set of skills than everybody else. If they start saying, well, you're not functioning like everybody else, you're going to destroy the people like Steve Jobs because I can guarantee you Steve Jobs doesn't think like everybody else. The guy who runs Virgin Airways.

ANDERSON: Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, or anybody.

GLENN: Einstein, yeah, didn't they ‑‑ I think they pickled his brain to be able to see it later because he operated differently. So isn't this doing extraordinary damage to people?

ANDERSON: That's right ‑‑ ‑ that to the overseers of this. So if we did skin conductance testing which is, you know, if I say something and it makes you panic, your skin gets clammy, that's part of your sympathetic nervous system and I can detect the clamminess of your skin and I go, wait, you shouldn't be freaking out like that. That was a simple question I asked you about, you know, some mathematical problem or whatever. And I can detect that data point. This whole article, by the way, this whole draft is all based on data mining. They mention it a hundred times. And that's ‑‑

GLENN: Explain what data mining means. Explain why that's bad.

ANDERSON: So let me see if I can find. They mention data mining right in the very top of it. New technologies using educational data mining and affective computing ‑‑ "affective computing" is fMRIs, skin conductants, pupil dilation monitoring ‑‑ are being ‑‑ are beginning to focus on microlevel moment‑by‑moment data within digital and blended learning environments to provide feedback to adapt learning tasks to personalized needs.

So what they will do is I could take a group of 100 kids, and they're all let's say in twelfth grade and I'm able to ask them all a series of questions while I'm monitoring them with skin conduct ants or pressure monitors or whatever it is. And then I'd be able in theory, this is all in theory, to collect that data over fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade and so on and stratify those children maybe by the time they get to high school and say, "okay, over the last 10 years every time I ask Tommy and Billy and Sally a mathematical question, they clam up, they freak out and they get the answer wrong" and now I can use that data to steer them or whatever it may be. But this data mining, if I can collect data ‑‑ and don't get me wrong. I'm not against data. That's all I do all day long is analyze data. I love data, but I love data in the free market. I don't love data in the government. And if parents could opt out, if parents could choose to have nothing to do with this, then that's one thing. But ‑‑

GLENN: No, but it won't work that way. You create too ‑‑

ANDERSON: ‑‑ opt out of Social Security taxes if I could.

GLENN: You will create two class systems. If you opt out of the government collecting 20 years of data on your kid, they will make it so no one will want to hire you because I know exactly what I'm going to get from Nic. If I hire Nic, I know who he is because I've got this 20‑year research study done by the government. But I don't know who you are.

ANDERSON: Correct.

GLENN: And why is it that you are so freaky that you didn't want in this system in the first place, right?

ANDERSON: This is funny because you mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, where are we going? I mean, this is sci‑fi stuff that if I mentioned this to you 10 years ago, you would have called me a conspiracy theorist, and here I am. I'm holding the document in my hand.

GLENN: And let me tell you something. And Nic, they are still saying ‑‑ I mean, you have Republicans coming out and saying this is conspiracy theorist stuff.

ANDERSON: Right.

GLENN: They are saying that today. We're not talking about making this up and drawing conclusions. It is in the Department of Education's own textbook.

ANDERSON: That's right.

GLENN: It is in their plan.

ANDERSON: You know, in 1840 a man named Frederick Bastiat. You can read his book, it's 100 pages long called The Law. And he said if you suggest the doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is directly said, quote, you're a dangerous experimenter, a utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws. You would shake the basis upon which society rests.

GLENN: Explain that.

ANDERSON: If any one of us stands up, Mia Love did this year in Utah saying, no, we've got to get rid of the Department of Education. She was lambasted, you know. This is a fascinating thing to me that if I stand up ‑‑ and I do this all the time in arguments against the FDA. We do not need the Food and Drug Administration. If you think the Department of Education's bad, the FDA's ab horn. And I know this because I study medical devices all day long. But if you stand up and you say, "We just don't need the FDA, they need to go away, or the United States Department of Education," it is said of you you're a dangerous experimenter, Nic, you're a utopian, you're a theorist, in the modern day terms you're a conspiracy theorist. But no, I need to get rid of the Department of Education, they need to get out, it needs to be privatized. And I mean, this is the stuff that makes heads at MSNBC explode is that, well, what are the poor kids going to do? Incidentally I call MSNBC an intellectual coloring book for adults. You know, I don't really want to think; I just want to doodle. But I mean, MSNBC, this is what makes those brains explode is that they can't fathom a world where the government stays out in the free market, takes care of education. You would get a better education for cheaper, and kids could ‑‑ you could collect data on those kids and it would be private amongst the parents and the children. And then the child, when he does graduate in high ‑‑ high school in twelfth grade, could have his own data that he could present to a university and say, "You know what? I have real data. I don't have the government‑collected data garbage that all my peers have."

GLENN: They have some pictures ‑‑

ANDERSON: They could have that and the free market could do it.

GLENN: They have some pictures in this. They have chairs that monitor the kids, they have these wristbands that they put on. It's really disturbing‑looking stuff.

ANDERSON: Right.

GLENN: Is it just the pictures look bad? Are these like assault pictures because the wristband is black? I mean, you know ‑‑

ANDERSON: Right, exactly. It's black. So it's ‑‑ does it have a pistol grip?

GLENN: I mean, the facial expression cameras that will be on each of our kids, the pupil cameras, those ‑‑ that's disturbing, isn't it?

ANDERSON: Yeah. Yeah, the pupil dilation and the skin conduct ants are based off the same principle that there is the sympathetic nervous system, which we all know as the "fight or flight" you know. So if I asked your kid, like the picture in the documents, one of those web cams and it would be able to detect your kid's pupils dilating meaning, "I'm shocked and I don't know the answer to the question."

GLENN: Right. But it also could be –

ANDERSON: like point out America on a map of North America, which most kids can't do.

GLENN: It could be also like your parents have guns, you'll see the pupil dilate and you'll see, why are you nervous about that, right?

ANDERSON: That's right. That's right.

GLENN: Nic, thank you very much. We'll have you on again, Nic Anderson, medical technology analyst and owner of NC Anderson Consulting. Again if you do anything on Common Core, make sure you burn it to disc because they are erasing it all and it is extraordinarily dangerous.

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

  Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

  

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

Tasos Katopodis / Stringer | Getty Images

The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

   USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

   Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

 

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.