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Glenn's Show Prep

Could the balance of power tip towards freedom and away from establishment GOP?

January 05, 2015
Wilson

Writer

Matt Kibbe joined Glenn on radio today to analyze the announcement that several Republicans would be challenging John Boehner for Speaker of the House, most notable Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

"I still think the odds are against us because nothing like this has ever been done before," Matt said. "But, remember, just two years ago in January, there was a failed attempt to replace John Boehner that was secretive. They had the votes, and it fell apart on the House floor. This strategy is different. You have a number of members that have publicly come out and said, I will not vote for John Boehner. Louie has come out and said he is willing to be an alternative. Which he didn't last time. No one did."

While Louie's chances for success are up in the air, Matt feels like he is changing the way Washington works simply by issuing the challenge.

"Well, this is a game changer because it shifts the balance of power away from this inside game. The way things used to work. You just didn't go after the leadership because the leadership controlled the money. They control whether or not you get the committees. They basically control whether or not you get to be reelected. These ten or so folks that have come out, they're making it safe for everybody else to be true blue. That's what's different," he said.

Disclaimer: We're sure that people will only think Glenn had Matt onto the show because FreedomWorks is a sponsor. They are. It's not.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

Glenn: Louie Gohmert is running for Speaker of the House. Even if it's not Louie, let's make sure John Boehner is not Speaker of the House. But Matt Kibbe is on from Freedom Works.

Matt, how real is this Louie Gohmert run for Speaker of the House tomorrow?

MATT: You know, it's very real. I still think the odds are against us because nothing like this has ever been done before. But, remember, just two years ago in January, there was a failed attempt to replace John Boehner that was secretive. They had the votes, and it fell apart on the House floor.

This strategy is different. You have a number of members that have publicly come out and said, I will not vote for John Boehner. Louie has come out and said he is willing to be an alternative. Which he didn't last time. No one did.

Ted Yoho said he's willing to run against Boehner. So this is a public campaign with a lot of very gutsy guys sticking their heads out knowing Boehner will come after them. But the point is: Grassroots America has an opportunity to weigh in this time.

GLENN: I'm looking at the list of just the people you rate, of the, you know, top 50 people in Congress. Steve Pearce. He voted against Boehner, but hasn't -- do you have any information on like Justin Amash or any of these guys?

MATT: All those guys are on our target list. Right now we have a target list from 40 to 70 guys. Remember, we only need 29 to do this. That is a doable number.

Right now I'm personally aware of nine people that have either come out already or will come out today against Boehner. But we haven't really started. We haven't started targeting the incoming freshmen, many of whom explicitly said they won't vote for John Boehner for Speaker. We haven't targeted these high percenter performers in very Republican districts, where doing the right thing is not only the right thing, but it's the safe thing to do.

GLENN: How many incoming people were there that said --

MATT: Well, there's 50-plus new incoming guys coming in. I think I can count about a dozen that actually ran against Boehner in order to win their seat.

STU: Brat and Palmer said they will vote against Boehner. So you have those two.

Stutzman may be a tenth after the initial nine that I saw come out.

So, you know, Matt, looking at this list, if you have just the people who have come out, the people who voted against Boehner last time, and the people you rate at 100 percent, Freedom Works rates at 100 percent, you're already at 21. And you go to your 95 percent people, you're at 35.

GLENN: Right. And you have 50 percent new people -- fifty new people coming in. You get ten of those --

STU: Yeah, you're in great shape.

GLENN: I mean, what does this mean if this happens, Matt?

MATT: Well, this is a game changer because it shifts the balance of power away from this inside game. The way things used to work. You just didn't go after the leadership because the leadership controlled the money. They control whether or not you get the committees. They basically control whether or not you get to be reelected. These ten or so folks that have come out, they're making it safe for everybody else to be true blue. That's what's different.

But I think it's really up to the listeners right now to make those calls to post on Facebook to make it abundantly clear that this is a must-do thing if we're going to shake Washington up.

STU: Can you explain the process a little bit? Obviously if Louie Gohmert gets 29 votes, he doesn't become Speaker of the House. Why is 29 votes so important? And what happens afterwards?

MATT: The next Speaker will have to get a majority of all of the members voting, and that's likely to be the entire Congress. We're missing one because -- because the Republican that just resigned. But that really doesn't change the numbers.

One of the big misinformation pieces out there is that if you vote against Boehner, you're helping Nancy Pelosi. The only way you help Nancy Pelosi is if you vote for her or if you vote present. She cannot get a majority if Republicans split their vote between Louie Gohmert and John Boehner.

Now, if we get that 29 --

GLENN: So if you're spineless and you don't want to take a stand, you are helping Nancy Pelosi.

MATT: Yes.

GLENN: But even if you vote for Boehner, have the balls to do it, man. Stand up.

MATT: Yeah. You have to put your -- and this is a public vote. And the voters will get to see where you are. But if Boehner doesn't get the majority, it goes back to the Republican conference. And there will be a fight for who the next Speaker will be because Boehner will be done at that point, and it will not just be Gohmert, but you'll see guys like Jim Jordan likely or some other conservatives throw their hat in the ring.

And I just think -- I think you got to shake things up. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you'll get the same result.

GLENN: The people who caused the problem won't be the people who fix the problem. And John Boehner is part of the problem. And I'm increasingly concerned about this progressive movement in the Republican party. I mean, I saw the that Mike Huckabee is throwing his hat in the ring or he's at least leaving Fox to, you know, decide -- to study. Of course, he's going to run. And I think he will run, quite honestly, to hurt Ted Cruz. I don't think that's his feeling.

But I'll bet you some of the advice he's getting is motivated by that. If you take in, you put Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, they start to split that Christian vote. And that allows -- that allows somebody like maybe Rand Paul to be the stronger one. And then the media takes Rand Paul out by doing two things.

By one, saying that he's too radical. And then two, by being passive-aggressive and saying, you know, Rand Paul, we don't really know who he is. He's certainly not in lockstep with those religious people. And we don't even know where he stands on Israel. And that will just kill him. And I think that's what they're doing. They're just chopping us up into little bitty pieces. We have to start standing together and say, enough is enough with this progressive Republican party. Enough is enough.

Call your -- call the congressmen now. I want you to pick up the phone, and I want you to call your congressmen, and you tell them. If you vote for John Boehner, not another dime, not another sticker, not another campaign, not another vote, nothing. Don't you -- you lose my email address. You lose my phone number. I'm done with the G.O.P. if you put John Boehner in one more time. I'm done.

Here's the switchboard number. (202)224-3121. Go on Facebook. Go on Twitter. Call the local office. But you have about 24 -- when does this vote come down?

MATT: Sometime Tuesday. Probably in the late morning.

GLENN: Is this --

STU: Not a lot of time to try to put this together.

GLENN: Give me a percentage of change this is. How big of a deal is this?

MATT: Oh, if we get -- if we get this done, this is -- this is radical change because what it does is it makes the next Speaker, no matter who it is start to pay attention to the American people. John Boehner's biggest problem is his only audience is the lobbyists and the Republican conference that votes for him. He doesn't care about anything else. And this goes back to that see change you're talking about. The new politics goes directly to the American people. It's more democratized. The only way -- the guys that you elect are going to keep their principles, is if we step up and defend them and force them to be as good as they can be.

GLENN: Okay. This is it. (202)224-3121. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. Matt Kibbe from Freedom Works.

Front page image courtesy of the AP.

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.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parallel societies do not end well

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

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

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

A crisis of confidence

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

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

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

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

A new world of artificial experience

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

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

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

What machines can never do

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

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

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

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

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

Questions that define us

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

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

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

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

The appeal of a broken dream

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

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

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

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

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

The bridge that never ends

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

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

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

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

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

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

What young America deserves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.