What the Hell Kind of Young Men Are We Raising in This Country?

The outspoken and fantastically fierce Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke filled in for Glenn on The Glenn Beck Program today, Tuesday, December 20.

Read below or listen to the full segment from Hour 2 for answers to these questions:

• What diplomatic situation will President-elect Trump inherit?

• What the hell kind of young men are we raising in this country?

• Is there a rape culture on college campuses?

• How did the Univ. of Minnesota football coach make a bad play?

• Should President-elect Trump trust the CIA?

• Why must the TSA treat every American like a terror suspect?

• When will Sheriff Clarke's new book Cop Under Fire be available?

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

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

DAVID: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. I am your host for today. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program. The call-in number is 888-727-BECK. That's 888-727-2325, if you want to opine or get in on any of these conversations.

I'm going to do a little self-promoting starting this block. You can follow me on Twitter. And that's @SheriffClarke. C-L-A-R-K-E. I think you'll find that interesting. My tweets.

The liberal mainstream media likes to keep up with them and try to contort some of the things I say into something and try to destroy me with it. They have not been successful thus far. I don't think they will be. I think about what I'm doing before I put out a tweet. I never do it on impulse. And I always ask myself if I know it's going to be one of those cutting-edge tweets, I always say, "What can the liberal mainstream media do to turn this thing inside-out or upside-down or contort it into something I didn't say?" And that's why they haven't been successful, although they'll keep trying.

Also, you can follow me at my blog, and it's ThePeoplesSheriff@Patheos.com. And it's P-A-T-H-E-O-S.com. Also, I have a book coming out in March.

Cop Under Fire: Beyond the Hashtags of Race, Crime, and Politics For a Better America. You can preorder that book at Amazon.com. And also, my understanding, it's available at Barnes & Noble for preorder. But it's due to come out in March of 2017.

You know, I was looking again at this -- I talked about it a little bit before, earlier, I should say this terror attack in Turkey.

This is something that we should keep an eye on. Because this is not the first incident involving Turkey and Russia. It was a Russian ambassador that was shot and killed at some art exhibit or whatever in Turkey. And apparently, the early reports, the Russian ambassador was shot because of Russia's involvement in Syria.

This one here might -- this is one that President-elect Donald Trump is going to inherit, this situation. And here's why I say this is one that we really need to pay close attention to. If you recall, sometime last year -- it might have been earlier this year, a Russian fighter jet was shot down by the Turkish army. And Turkey had accused this fighter jet of violating their airspace. Killed a Russian fighter pilot. And all eyes were on Russia as to how they were going to handle this thing. And, you know, nothing drastic happened. But I'll tell you why this one here is important. Because Putin has to look at it this way, you know, how many more times is a Russian citizen or a Russian soldier going to be shot and killed and not have Putin or Russia do anything about it?

I mean, that would be -- after a while, it's going to be viewed as a sign of weakness. And that's what Putin has to think about. That's why I said it will be interesting to see what their response might be. Will Russia go to the UN and try to, you know, put together a coalition of support for some sort of action against Turkey, or will they act unilaterally?

They have the right to defend their sovereignty and defend their citizens. I know if that happened here in the United States, yeah, I guess the -- the preferable route is to, you know, go to the UN and do all that stuff.

But, you know, when it comes to the commander-in-chief of the United States, you know, we don't need -- he does not need permission from the world to defend American sovereignty, American interests, and American citizens. So that will be interesting to watch.

Here's what we're going to get into now: Again, the call-in number, 888-727-BECK. (888)727-2325.

Going to talk about rape on college campuses. This is an issue that exploded recently over the last couple of years. It was a dirty little secret that there was a problem with sexual assault on college campuses.

And what I want to specifically point to an incident that happened very recently. It involves the University of Minnesota and their football program. And the things I want to talk about is, what is the proper course of action for the university to take? I mean, some of this -- you know, some of the course of action is a no-brainer. But some of it is not. And I'll get into why that is.

But here's what happened: Five or -- ten of University of Minnesota football players were suspended from the team recently in the fallout of a student sexual assault.

This comes from the Star Tribune out of Minneapolis.

From the team in a fallout of a student's sexual assault allegation. And these ten students now face expulsion from schools -- from the school. They've been suspended from the football program.

It says four other players face a one-year suspension, and another could get probation, stemming from this September 2nd incident. So that's within the last couple of months.

The school discipline comes weeks after a criminal investigation resulted in no arrests or charges. Now, that's key. Okay. No arrests of these players were made. And it does not look like, according to the prosecutor who reviewed this thing -- it doesn't look like criminal charges will result.

But there's some twists here that you need to know about. This was a party, some football players had a party, and there was drinking. And there was a young lady there, and she claims that up to 12 of these players forced themselves -- sexually assaulted her in a bedroom, wherever this party was. I believe this party was off campus.

There was an underage recruit who was present. And he's one of the ones who is alleged to have had sex with this co-ed, this student.

So the university took this action and suspended these players. And some of them are going to be expelled from the school, or at least there's a process, and that has started, even though no criminal charges have been filed. Now, just because no criminal charges have been filed, it does not mean that the school shouldn't take action.

And oftentimes, you'll hear people say, "Well, you know, there was no crime committed, or nobody was arrested." It doesn't matter.

Here's the first thing I said to myself when I learned about this, "What the hell kind of young men are we raising in this country?"

Most men know what's right and what's not right as it relates to these sorts of things. This is not the first time this has happened. You know, let's be honest about this. You get a college campus environment, even if it's a dorm off campus, you get fraternities, you get these football players, you get alcohol, and they introduce women or a woman into this thing, and that is a recipe for disaster.

No good is going to come of that, ever. And these are just the ones that we hear about. How about the ones that we don't hear about? There was one that happened at Marquette University. It actually made the -- Marquette University in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But it did make the media sometime after where the campus security kind of dissuaded the woman from making an accusation against some basketball players of sexual assault. Something happened, and they talked her out of it. And later on, she had remorse and brought this up. And it hit the fan.

So you had a university who tried to squelch it. Here the university takes action. No criminal charges have been filed. No arrests have been made.

When we come back on the other side of the break, I want to get into some of the moving parts on this thing. We got to unpack this. Going to talk about some cases that have happened in the past and figure out, you know, what's the right course of action for the school to take?

I'm Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program. We'll see you on the other side of the break.

[break]

DAVID: Thanks for staying with us. I'm your host for today. This is the Glenn Beck Program. I'm Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. Before we went to the break, we were talking about this issue of rape or rape allegations on college campuses. And I'm talking about the ones where you have these frat parties or you have these parties in general, and you have either athletes or frat members. And you start mixing in alcohol and girls, and sometimes it's a recipe for disaster.

And one of the questions I ask was, you know, what kind of young men we're raising that don't know -- they know. I shouldn't say they don't know. You got 12 women -- 12 men, I should say, are accused of having sex with this one woman at this University of Minnesota situation, 12 football players.

You know, we're not talking about the stranger sexual assaults, where someone is abducted and brutally raped. We're talking about these things that involve a party, alcohol, there was consent, it was consensual, it wasn't consensual. And these are very difficult to prosecute. They're very difficult to investigate as well for law enforcement. You know, it's a "he said, she said". You collect evidence. There's evidence that some sort of sexual activity occurred. You can determine that. But the consent issue is one that is not clear. And then that's very tough for the prosecutor as well. And what does the school do?

In this case, the University of Minnesota acted very quickly and suspended these players. Some of them are facing expulsion.

The coach at the time -- not at the time -- the football coach issued a statement after it was learned that ten of the players were suspended. And then the rest of the football team got in on this and then also boycotted and said they weren't going to play in the upcoming bowl game, the Holiday Bowl, which I think is December 27th in San Diego, California. That's when this thing broke on the sports news networks because they were threatening to boycott the bowl game, as if that, you know, mattered in this situation. But, anyway, the coach said he was never more proud of his players because they stuck together.

You know, the players had said, "We're going to boycott the bowl unless this suspension is lifted." Wrong answer.

Very wrong answer. The coach's response should have been, "I'm disappointed that the young men who were part of this program that I lead didn't do the right thing in this situation, didn't exercise discipline." That's what he should have said. He said he was never more proud for his players because they stuck together in this boycott.

You know, it's this kind of attitude that doesn't help these situations. This is not the most famous case where this situation occurred. I think the iconic case is the Duke lacrosse case. You may remember that. It was about ten years ago.

This comes from ESPNNews.com: Exactly ten years and six days before Duke and Yale met -- this was in lacrosse -- a black woman reported to police that three white Duke lacrosse players had raped her during a house party at which she had stripped.

So they brought her in to strip. Again, you know, I ask -- I'm not a Puritan or anything like that. But these are college-aged kids. Okay. They're going to do dumb stuff. I'm not naive to think that college kids don't party and there isn't booze involved and that sort of thing. But they bring this woman in to strip.

It says here, latent and long-standing tension in the city on campus around race, class, and gender, boil quickly to the surface. The district attorney made inflammatory statements that fueled an intense media firestorm.

The DEA at the time, the prosecutor, he was a grad of North Carolina. So you know he had no love for Duke, if you know anything about the rivalry.

Duke University, North Carolina University, the Tar Heels. About 8 miles separate the two schools. Very intense rivalries in their sports programs.

So it says here, with Duke lacrosse: The coach of the team was forced to resign. Their season was cancelled.

Over a year later, when the attorney general of North Carolina dropped the charges against the three players, he said, "We have no credible evidence that an attack occurred."

The DEA was later disbarred after he was found to have committed ethics violations in the case.

Remember I said he was a UNC grad. So he had no love lost for Duke.

It says here, ESPN's recent 30 for 30 documentary, Fantastic Lies, dissects how the media coverage and the prosecutorial misconduct had a profound effect on the families of the men accused.

So these men -- Duke lacrosse, they had to cancel their season.

Remember, there were some players who were not a part of this party. So the season was cancelled. The coach was fired. And then they find out later, no sexual assault occurred.

So you get this situation. You say, "How fast is too fast?"

And then you get the case of Penn State. A little different because you had underage men. The Coach Sandusky had young boys in the locker room when he was taking sexual liberties. It was brought to the attention -- or at least reported, brought to the attention of the late Joe Paterno who kind of said, "I don't really want anything to do -- I don't want to hear about that." So I ask the question -- and there's no straight answer: How fast is too fast? How slow is too slow to act?

And then you have the Baylor University situation, where the coach apologized for his role in a scandal that led to his firing. The coach, Art Briles, was removed as Baylor's head coach on May 26th after a university commission investigation found he was slow to act when confronted over the course of several years with accusations that multiple Bears players -- Baylor Bears, that's their nickname -- had sexually assaulted fellow students. Two of his former players have been convicted of sexual assault, while a third, a former star defensive end was indicted on a similar charge.

So he was slow to act. Duke may have been too fast to act. You have to suspend the season. Fire the coach. Instead of letting the investigation play itself out.

But the PR disaster for the school is, if you wait for the investigation, which is the prudent thing to do -- but it's also prudent to suspend the players pending the investigation. I think that's the sweet spot here. We'll get to the bottom of it. We won't get to the bottom of it right away. We won't get to the bottom of this before the Holiday Bowl. But who cares about the Holiday Bowl?

Don't release the names. The names are probably going to get out in public anyway, but the university shouldn't release the names. Don't expel them just yet. Suspend them and wait for the investigation and see what happens. It doesn't look like any criminal charges are going to result, but that doesn't mean that the school shouldn't take some sort of disciplinary action. It doesn't have to mean that a crime occurred, that anybody was arrested and charged.

It's not innocent until proven guilty. Not for the school, it's not. They have the right -- they have the need to take some sort of action, if for no other reason, to tell their alumni and their donors, here's how we deal with this sort of unwanted behavior at this university. We have values here that we're going to uphold. And you also send a message to your current students and future recruitees -- remember, there was an underage recruit at this party who had sex with this woman.

But you got to send a message, this sort of behavior is not going to go on -- this abhorrent behavior is not going to go on at this university. So there is a sweet spot. And these schools need to work hard to find it. You don't always land on the sweet spot, but if you get close, you're going to be okay. But this stuff -- and it's going to happen again. We will be sitting here at some point in time with another situation like this. But I think the message needs to be sent, you know, about proper behavior for young men everywhere. Not just on college campuses. I'm Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. This is the Glenn Beck Program. We have to take a break. And we'll talk to you on the other side of the break.

[break]

DAVID: Welcome back to the Glenn Beck Program. Let's see. Let's take a twist here -- turn into something else. I want to talk about this deal with the CIA and the president, the president-elect, that's been reported that there's some differences of opinion between the President-elect Donald Trump and the intelligence agencies within the United States federal government.

I think Donald Trump is right not to trust these intelligence agencies. They -- he's going to have to make that determination as time goes by. But I wouldn't trust what they're giving him, if I were him.

You know, I've studied the intelligence process, these intelligence agencies in my graduate decree program. I'm familiar with how they work. And I'll tell you what the CIA does not have: a stellar record. They miss a lot. They've missed a lot of -- for instance, the fall of the Berlin wall, they missed it. The breakup of the Soviet Union, they missed it.

This is an agency that came into being after the 1947 National Security Act, after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. And they were designed to do just what the name says: to develop intelligence and give recommendations to the president, keep him appraised of what's going on in world events. Who are the threats? What are their capabilities, and are they planning an attack? That's what they're supposed to do.

It's not a perfect world. I understand, for the CIA. But there's some things that they should not miss. They missed 9/11. There were red flags, but they missed it.

And so, you know, we'll see how that relationship works out in the end, between Donald Trump and the CIA and the National Security Agency and some of those other entities.

But came I came across a story that I found disturbing. And there are some parallels with what went on in this recent election between the Democrat candidate, Mrs. Bill Clinton, and the local media. I shouldn't say local media, the national media, where she was given, in some instances, questions to some of the debates. They were clearing stories with the campaign: Hey, we're putting this out -- a particular writer -- we're putting this story out. Is this okay? Are there any changes you want to make?

That stuff should not go on. You know, we can't trust the media anymore. But also, some of our institutions of government are corrupt as well.

So this article, it's from the Intercept, and it says the CIA's mop-up man, LA Times reporter cleared stories with the agency before publication.

A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers, prior to publication, according to documents obtained by the Intercept.

Email exchanges between the CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, showed that Dilanian enjoyed a close collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts to review prior to publication.

In at least one instance, the CIA reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story, that was eventually published in the Times.

Quote, I'm working on a story about congressional oversight of drone strikes that could present a good opportunity for you guys, Dilanian wrote in one email exchange to a CIA press officer, explaining that he intended to report what would be reassuring to the public, about CIA drone strikes. In another after a series of back-and-forth emails about a pending story on CIA operations in Yemen, he sent a full draft of an unpublished report along with the subject line, does this look better?

It goes on to say that Dilanian's emails were included in hundreds of pages of documents that the CIA turned over in response to two FOIA -- and that's information -- when you want to obtain information on records within the federal government.

A request seeking records on the agency's interaction with reporters. The email exchanges with reporters for the AP, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets were included. This guy left the Times to join the AP in May.

So it goes on to say, when he's clearing these stories with the CIA, does this look okay? So on and so forth.

Quote, it's one thing for you guys to say you killed three instead of 15, it's another for congressional aides from both parties to back you up.

Part of what the story could do, if you could help me bring it to fruition, is to quote congressional officials saying that great care is taken to avoid collateral damage and that the reports of widespread civilian casualties are simply wrong.

It goes on to say that on June 25th, the Times published this guy's story, which described thorough congressional review of the drone program and said legislative aides were allowed to watch high-quality video attacks and review intelligence used to justify each strike. Needless to say, the agency hadn't quibbled with Dilanian's description about one of these terrorist's deaths in a drone stroke.

It says here: Video provided by the CIA to congressional overseers show that he alone was killed. That claim was subsequently debunked. Some of those killed were very likely members of al-Qaeda. But six were local tribesmen, who Amnesty -- Amnesty International believed were only there as rescuers.

Another field report published around the same time -- this one by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism -- also reported follow-up drone strikes on civilians and rescue workers, attacks that constitute war crimes.

The emails also show that Dilanian shared his work with the CIA before it was published and invited the agency to request changes. It goes on to say, on another case, he sent the press office a draft story on May 4th, reporting that the US intelligence believed the Taliban was growing stronger in Afghanistan.

Guys, I'm about to file this, if anyone wants to weigh in.

So after they confront this guy on this, it says, reached by the Intercept for comment, Dilanian said the AP does not permit him to send stories to the CIA prior to publication. He acknowledged that it was a bad idea. I shouldn't have done it. And I wouldn't do it now, he says.

He was not sure if the Los Angeles Times -- that's who he was working for at the time -- rules allow reporters to send stories to sources prior to publication. But the Times' ethic guidelines state they clearly forbid the practice. We do not circulate printed or electronic copies of stories outside the newsroom before publication. In the event you would like to read back quotations or selected passages to a source to ensure accuracy, consult an editor before doing so.

So the Times' bureau chief, the national security editor said he had been unaware that Dilanian had sent drafts -- story drafts to the CIA and would not have allowed him to do it.

So this is why there's no trust in government. This is why Donald Trump shouldn't trust the CIA at this point. At the very least, I'd have what Reagan would say, trust, but verify.

The CIA press corps was colluding with this newspaper writer for positive coverage. So, in other words, we don't know what the CIA, which is steeped in secrecy, anyway, but we don't know what they're up to.

Now, I realize a lot of the things they're involved with involve secrets. But when they're fabricating stories, when they're getting it cleared -- when the writer is saying, "Hey, I'm trying to get you guys to look good," this is problematic. It is to me anyway.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. I'm your host for today. This is the Glenn Beck Program. We got to take a break.

(OUT AT 9:46AM)

DAVID: Welcome back. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, your host today on the Glenn Beck Program.

I want to share with you a letter I received. I was cc'd on it from an individual. You know, we were talking about terror for a lot of this program. It's rearing its ugly head again. But this is relative to how we treat American citizens at airports. The TSA. And I realize these people are just following policy, but the policies don't make sense.

And the way they do this is they don't allow people to use discretion. And when you don't allow people to use discretion, you get what happened with this guy here. And I'll just read the letter.

He sent it to Congressman Cuellar. But he cc'd me on it and Representative Mike T. McCaul. He's from Texas.

It says: Dear congressman, in August 2016, my son and I underwent complete body searches at the Tweed Airport in Connecticut. When I inquired why we were both required to undergo such thorough searches, we were informed it was because my son had prescription allergy medicine in his carry-on luggage.

When I appealed this procedure, in the enclosed August 2016th letter to the TSA, I received a letter dated September 22nd, in which I was told that additional screening of the passenger and his or her property after screening medically necessary items may be required and may include a patdown.

The nonsensical and ineffective security procedure that I question while in the Navy, that I describe in my enclosed letter, appeared to be duplicated by the TSA. If the United States is to be protected, particularly from terrorist attacks, it needs to implement intelligent and effective security measures.

Here, here. I would second that. Back to the letter.

While TSA officials were patting down a war veteran and his son at a small airport in Connecticut, which made my son ask, "Dad, why were we searched like terrorists," the Department of Homeland Security was shutting down Operation Failax (phonetic) that was effective in apprehending scores of illegal immigrants and some 13,000 pounds of narcotics.

It is my hope that whoever President-elect Trump chooses to head the DHS and TSA will have the experience and common sense to stop harassing veterans, the elderly, and children, instead of taking steps to effectively deter terrorist threats, illegal immigration, and drug smuggling.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in critiquing the rationale and effectiveness of our country's security procedures.

And then not too long after that, I came across a story -- this is from Pix11.com. This woman -- I'll just read a part of it here.

A breast cancer patient said she felt violated and humiliated in a public TSA search at LA International Airport after two security agents put her through what she called an aggressive patdown.

It says here, she recently underwent some cancer procedure. And she's pulled to the side as she's going through the screening. And she said she brought some cream on that was part of her -- her prescription there. And she said she was wearing a wig because she lost her hair because of the cancer treatment.

And it said she told the agents what she's going through. She could not remove her shoes since she was not wearing socks and had an infection on her feet, a side effect of her treatment and chemotherapy. So they let her sit down and remove her shoes.

After 20 minutes of sitting there, because they were debating on how to proceed, I told them my feet were freezing. Also, a side effect from chemo. They refused to help me, she said.

Now, this is her rendition. I realize there's two sides of every story. But here's her experience.

And I'm sharing this with you because you probably have, if you are engaged in a lot of air travel, you probably have some other nightmarish experiences that you could share as well.

So it says here, after the TSA agent forcibly and aggressively put her hands down the back of her jeans, the agent explained that they'd have to apply pressure from head to toe, which presented another set of problems for this woman. She wears a wig and did not want them to remove it and had a lumpectomy medical port in her chest, which she did not want the agents to trust. I started crying, she said. It was overwhelming and horrific. I could not believe this was happening, she said.

So after the agent conducted the search, the supervisor arrived, and her bags were emptied. She was made to feel humiliated again after another agent joked about fake eyelashes. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is how we treat American citizens. This does not thwart airplane hijacking. This does not thwart terror. I'm not going to sit here and necessarily pin this on the agents who are just -- and they'll tell you this all the time. I've had my own experience. We're just doing our job. We're just following the rules.

See, what they need at TSA is a risk-based model instead of a follow-the-rules model. Suspecting every American traveler of being a terrorist is not a risk-based model. It's to follow the rules so that they can check the box and say, "Well, we checked everybody." That's not how you identify terrorists, by checking everybody. It slows down the process. It's very expensive.

I think TSA has a budget of about $5.9 billion. This is how we treat people? I'd be willing to bet that if somebody came through of Arab descent and had their headdress on and everything else, they would not be treated like this out of political correctness.

We got to take a break. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in for Glenn Beck. This is the Glenn Beck Program.

Featured Image: Head coach Tracy Claeys of the Minnesota Golden Gophers yells at an official against Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the fourth quarter at TCF Bank Stadium on October 22, 2016 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minnesota defeated Rutgers 34-32.(Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

Faith, family, and freedom—The forgotten core of conservatism

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

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What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

  • for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
  • for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
  • for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
  • for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
  • and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

From Pharaoh to Hamas: The same spirit of evil, new disguise

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.