The Biggest Swamp Has Been Drained: John Podesta and Hillary Clinton Are Out of a Job

December 06, 2016

WRITER

One of Glenn's favorite authors and conservative commentators joined The Glenn Beck Program on Tuesday. An intellectual giant, Michelle Malkin's latest endeavor is a new show titled Michelle Malkin Investigates which airs on CRTV. Her first four episodes go in-depth on topics she's covered her entire career.

Glenn talked with Michelle about a variety of issues, including who should be Time Magazine's Man of the Year, Trump's new pick for Secretary of Education and her relief that Hillary Clinton lost the election.

"There are many sub-swamps in Washington, DC, but the biggest one that has been irreversibly drained, has been the swamp that's been dominated by progressives who have been running the levers of power since at least the Clinton administration . . . John Podesta, Anita Tandon and Hillary Clinton and all of her minions are out of a job," Malkin said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Welcome to the program, Michelle Malkin. New York Times best-selling author and a good friend of the program.

Michelle, how are you?

MICHELLE: Good, how are you doing, Glenn? It's been quite a year.

GLENN: That is an understatement.

MICHELLE: Which I'm not usually prone too.

GLENN: Right. We were just talking about TIME Magazine is trying to decide who the man of the year could possibly be. I don't think there's really a choice here.

MICHELLE: No.

GLENN: I think one man has changed the world, or at least has found a way to capitalize on where the world was and is -- is being viewed all over the world as the catalyst of change. Which is it?

MICHELLE: Yeah. Well, things have changed. And there are many sub-swamps in Washington, DC. But the biggest one that has been irreversibly drained, has been the swamp that's been dominated by progressives who have been running the levers of power since at least the Clinton administration.

And for those who had had reservations about Trump on whether it was character or certain policy positions or whatever he's tweeting, whenever, in the middle of the night, there is one reality that cannot be denied: John Podesta, Anita Tandon, and Hillary Clinton and all of her minions are out of a job.

And it was enough for me, when I decided after the primary and even before the primary -- because I remember the last time I talked to you and TheBlaze, last year, I had said that I had no qualms if the choice had to be between Donald Trump or Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton. And that has given, you know, both the personal and political history that I had had with Donald Trump. Was it hard in some ways? Yes. But in many ways, it was probably one of the easiest political decisions I've ever made.

GLENN: Unbelievable. As you know, Michelle -- and I respect you and respect your opinion and everybody's right to disagree with things. But this was a hard year for me.

MICHELLE: Yes, I understand.

GLENN: Because I can't jump on the bandwagon of a $1.2 trillion stimulus package and say, "Oh, well, that's okay." Because it's not. That's crazy. That's crazy.

MICHELLE: Well, you know, I'm not a bandwagon jumper either. And I haven't been in the quarter century that I've been doing this. And so, you know, political reality is unfortunately about having to make cost-benefit calculations.

And when you look, even now, at some of the transition choices, it blows my mind, particularly because, you know, Glenn, that immigration and sovereignty issues have been something that have been near and dear to my heart for my entire career --

GLENN: Oh, yeah, I know.

MICHELLE: That we have a stalwart hero like Jeff Sessions who is now the attorney general nominee. I never in my lifetime thought that ever would be a possibility, let alone a near reality.

GLENN: So why is -- why are you so pro on this, and yet Ann Coulter, who was in my opinion, damn near unhinged on Donald Trump, is now saying we may have a traitor within our midst?

MICHELLE: You'd have to ask her. All I can do is tell you this. I was covering immigration issues back -- as far back as 1992 in Los Angeles. My first book was Invasion which came out in 2002. And there have been a lot of Johnny-come-latelies to the cause of immigration enforcement and the need to have systemic reform, that not only puts the rule of law and the immigration laws that are on the books first, but the interests of America, American workers, American citizens, and law-abiding people who lined up and did it the right way. And so I think it's up to each and every one of your listeners and your readers to make up their mind about how authentic people really are when it comes to practicing what they preach.

GLENN: Yeah. Preach.

Can I ask you a question? I've never talked to you about this before.

MICHELLE: Yeah.

STU: The one thing -- the one book that you have written, and I haven't read it in years.

MICHELLE: Uh-huh.

GLENN: That I was perplexed by and thought it was very brave, but I disagree with, is the case for internment. Because we have had that conversation.

MICHELLE: Yes.

GLENN: And I don't know how anyone can think internment, especially Asian descent, could possibly think internment was a good idea.

MICHELLE: Well, maybe you should reread the book.

In defense of internment, the case for racial profiling in World War II and the War on Terror makes a very sophisticated and history-based argument that in a post-9/11 era, the kind of national security scrutiny measures that, for example, Kris Kobach, who is the secretary state of Kansas, a hero when it comes to fighting corruption, left-wing activism that has seeped into the federal government and, of course, immigration enforcement, helped design in the Bush administration.

Of course, it is now a very relevant issue with the national security entry/exit registration system, which has been falsely characterized as, quote, unquote, a Muslim registry and has been likened to, yes, the Japanese internment.

The entire thesis of the book took a look at what happened in, yeah, a very far left, liberal FDR administration and asked a question that -- that very few people asked, the people who actually had knowledge of national security issues at the time: What was the evidence for taking these extreme measures? And what actually occurred is far different than what is taught in history books.

The magic message is from the State Department, at the time, which were later decrypted, indicated that there were real serious security threats, particularly on the west coast. I also delve into the actual history of the relocations that took place and the measures that were taken not just against people of Japanese descent, but also Italians and Germans who were interned by the thousands.

The point of the book, Glenn, for those who read it -- and I'm very grateful over the years that I heard from so many high school history teachers who now teach the book in their classrooms to give a full picture to their students so they're not just getting what left-wing Alinsky and Howard Zinn historians tell them. They actually look at the original source documents that I include in the book.

The point of it is that we want to avoid the -- the absolute extremes of that kind of policy by taking sensible national security profiling measures. And that is why I'm so vocal about the need for someone like Kris Kobach to head the Department of Homeland Security. Because he's done the hard work. He's faced the slings and arrows of being called a racist and a xenophobe and a fascist because these people are actually very serious about protecting national security in an unapologetic way, as I was when I wrote this book.

GLENN: So let's go to education. Because you just talked about how education -- you know, you're getting Howard Zinn.

Tell me about Betsy DeVos.

MICHELLE: Yes. So my grassroots friends and fellow warriors against Common Core and fed Ed, know full well that Betsy DeVos has not been a friend to those who want to limit and eliminate the overreach of the federal government in our children's lives and their classrooms.

PAT: Hmm.

MICHELLE: In Michigan, Betsy DeVos was involved in a consortium called GLEP. I believe it's the Great Lakes Educational Project -- Great Lakes Education Project, which was pushing the Common Core standards adoption in Michigan.

She now says that she's against Common Core. She now says that she has adopted Donald Trump's stance, which was very clear. And not just clear, but also much more 50 than simply saying, as everyone else has now, that they oppose Common Core. And, of course, you and I were -- were -- teamed up to illuminate the dangers in the classroom with regard student data mining, the overencroachment of the testing regime, and, of course, the ways in which these so-called federal high standards were undermining local control and local classrooms in states where the standards were already much higher than what the federal government had set.

And, of course, it's the Gates Foundation and Jeb Bush which are largely behind it. So grassroots Michigan activists and parents are very worried, and rightly so, about how committed Betsy DeVos will be.

There's -- there's -- I have mixed feelings about it. And I think that leading up to the confirmation, there are many questions that she needs to answer and that informed senators in both parties need to ask.

You cannot just preach about school choice and charter schools. And expect to have people bow down to you on the right, just because school choice has long been one of those sacred cows for us.

The more sophisticated and informed parents -- many of them in your audience, Glenn, understand that choice and fed ed and Common Core are completely incompatible. And there is an explicit cognitive dissonance involved there because espousing choice doesn't mean anything if Common Core-lined textbooks and tech and testing are being forced down the throats of independent charter schools and, yeah, school choice beneficiaries. If you still have to submit to the Common Core regime that has not been dismantled yesterday, choice is illusory.

GLENN: So -- because this is kind of what -- you know, in a nutshell, this is kind of where we have been, that I think some of Trump's picks have been confusing at best. Because his policy will say one thing, and then he'll pick somebody like this. And you're like, "Wait. No, wait." Jeb Bush celebrated her appointment. That can't be a good thing.

MICHELLE: Yes. And I did point that out.

Now, having supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton does not obligate me to jump up and down like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader at everything he does and every choice he makes.

And just as I did with every other president, whether they were Republican or Democrat, when they deserved to be praised, I will be out there praising very loudly with my big brown mouth. And when they deserve to be criticized --

GLENN: Wow. What a racist.

MICHELLE: -- I will do the same.

(laughter)

PAT: But the problem has been -- hasn't it, Michelle -- have you noticed that so many on the right are doing just that?

JEFFY: They sure are.

PAT: I mean, it's been amazing to me that nobody has said anything about Ivanka and Donald both meeting with Al Gore yesterday. Nobody is saying anything about a trillion dollar stimulus package.

GLENN: Unless it's good.

PAT: Unless it's good.

MICHELLE: Yeah. Well, I understand what you're saying. And I understand why you feel that way. But there's plenty of unhappiness about a number of things.

PAT: I'd love to hear it.

MICHELLE: You know, for me -- okay. I will tell you how I came about these decisions. Because, I mean, we've -- we've been -- I -- I appreciate that I have friends in the Never Trump camp. I have friends who are on the Trump train since day one. And there are more people who are like me, who initially struggled with this decision, but sort of stepped back and saw the bigger picture.

I was definitely -- at a certain point in this election, I was just Never Hillary, that doesn't mean I'm going to be happy that Ivanka and Donald are meeting with Al Gore.

GLENN: Right. I think you're the majority.

MICHELLE: But somehow they will defeat that machine, and that means a lot to me. It does.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Right. Does that mean -- do you think there's a chance -- because I said this yesterday.

And this is a little bit of the, "Hey, John Roberts must have a plan to really defeat Obamacare." So it's a little wishful thinking. But, I mean, do you think that he actually is buying into the global warming thing here, and Ivanka is going to run with this, or is this a way to kind of bring it into the fold and defeat it?

MICHELLE: Oh, I have no idea what they talked about. And so it might be worth asking about that.

And, you know, there were a lot of past Republican presidents who met with really shady people. You can go back and look at all the pictures of George W. Bush palling around with Al Sharpton, and Newt Gingrich palling around with Al Sharpton. And many other execrable left-wing figures. Does it mean that he's going to throw in with the climate change crowd? Well, the fact that he picked Myron Ebell from the free market environmental hard-core competitive Enterprise Institute to be the EPA nominee who is an adamant --

GLENN: You're right.

MICHELLE: -- has been an adamant opponent of the left-wing global warming crowd.

STU: We praised him for that.

GLENN: Yeah, we did.

MICHELLE: -- tells me that he means business.

Yes, I know he met with Al Gore. So it gives people a lot to fret about for a day --

PAT: Well, I will say, if it was Ted Cruz meeting with Al Gore, it would have been a nightmare. It would have been a nightmare.

GLENN: Well, but I think that's a mistake. I stand by what I said yesterday. This president -- the current president never reached out to anybody on our side. And when you shut yourself off, then you got nothing.

PAT: That's true. That's true.

GLENN: I mean, at least he is reaching out. The proof will be in the pudding on what he actually does.

I got to go. We're up against a break. Her new gig is on Mark Levin's CRTV. Does it begin tonight, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Yes. My episodes are now all available. I have four episodes that go in-depth in topics that I have covered my entire career.

GLENN: Right.

MICHELLE: And I do want to say that one of the most important stories I've ever, ever, ever covered is the subject of a first two-part series of CRTV's Michelle Malkin Investigates on a former Oklahoma City police officer who was convicted a year ago this weekend of a series of alleged sexual assaults. I dig deep into this case.

GLENN: Right.

MICHELLE: And this is the most massive miscarriage of justice I have ever experienced.

GLENN: That is saying something. And it's available now. Michelle Malkin Investigates on CRTV. Michelle, thank you so much. And we'll talk again.

Featured Image: Conservative author and commentator Michelle Malkin (Photo Credit: Jensen Sutta)

When 'Abolish America' stops being symbolic

Al Drago / Stringer | Getty Images

Prosecutors stopped a New Year’s Eve bombing plot rooted in ideology that treats the US as an enemy to be destroyed.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.

According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.

When ideology turns operational

For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.

Bombs are not metaphors, however.

Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.

The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.

Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.

The red-green alliance

For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.

History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.

Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.

ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This moment is different

What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.

The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.

Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.

The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.

This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.

Glenn's Show Prep

The Biggest Swamp Has Been Drained: John Podesta and Hillary Clinton Are Out of a Job

When 'Abolish America' stops being symbolic

Prosecutors stopped a New Year’s Eve bombing plot rooted in ideology that treats the US as an enemy to be destroyed.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

When ideology turns operational

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

The red-green alliance

This moment is different

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

Not-so-expert advice

A republic no more?

The path forward

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

Choosing death over care

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

The logical end of a broken system

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

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.

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.

How Sharia arrives

The warning from those who have lived under it

America is vulnerable

Wake up before it is too late