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Susan Rice Scandal: Proof the Media Is in on the Game

April 06, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor under the Obama administration who denied leaking the names of Trump officials, proved one thing on her recent media tour: The media is utterly biased and void of intellectual integrity.

Rice's statements on the unmasking scandal made it clear that in the normal process of the national security business, she asked the National Security Association for the names of certain Americans involved with President Trump's team. However, her claim that she didn't "leak" names was merely a game of semantics --- and the media knew it.

"Her claim is she didn't leak those names. Well, you don't have to when you unmask them. It goes out to the mass. Everybody who is on the list, everyone in government who got that gets the update with the unmasked names," Glenn said Wednesday on radio.

RELATED: A Chalkboard Lesson in Grammar: ‘I Leaked Nothing to Nobody’

Rice also said she didn't seek the names for "political purposes." Again, a game of semantics the media let slide.

"Media, you wonder why Donald Trump became president of the United States? This is your example," Glenn said. "You're doing it again. For anybody who thought possibly that you would have a backbone, that you have learned something, that you have become enlightened, you're doing it again! You are taking a story and you are picking the winner. You are picking the one you choose to believe."

Rice's previous lies to the American public should have left her with zero credibility, and yet the media gave her a platform to lie more without being challenged.

"It's your job to dissect this story and to show where the truth is and how it's all being lumped together to make it appear as though she's telling the truth," Glenn said. "This is the problem."

He continued.

"With so much dishonesty in the government, the credibility of those we've elected to serve us is completely shot. And so what do we do? We elect somebody like Donald Trump --- not because of the credibility of the people in the government, but because he told us the truth. And this is the truth: You can't believe the media. They are in on the game, and this Susan Rice story is proof positive," Glenn said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Hello, America. Welcome to The Glenn Beck Program. I want to start with Susan Rice. Here's what Susan said.

SUSAN: I leaked nothing to nobody.

(laughter)

GLENN: Now, aside from the double negative, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice employs they're leaking nothing to nobody. Obviously, that means that you leaked something to everybody.

(chuckling)

But I digress.

Susan Rice who once claimed that the deserter Bowe Bergdahl served with honor and distinction is now vehemently denying any wrongdoing in the scandal of unmasking and leaking the names of Trump officials, which we will get back to here in a second. There is the unmasking, and then there is the, quote, what the media is calling leaking the names. It is a red herring because the media is lazy again.

Respected columnist Eli Lake citing anonymous US officials familiar with the matter, end quote, reported Monday that the national security adviser requested the identities of US persons in the raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign.

Now, she went on a media tour yesterday, to where she could be surrounded by friends who would let her go on the record without pushing her on any tough questions. Here she is with Andrea Mitchell.

SUSAN: First of all, Andrea, to talk about the contents of a classified report, to talk about the individuals on the foreign side who were the targets of the -- the report itself or any Americans who may have been collected upon incidentally, is to disclose classified information. I'm not going to do that. And those people who are putting these stories out are doing just that.

GLENN: Okay. So let's boil this down. It's pretty clear the implication from her various statements on this scandal that she has given is that in the normal process of the national security business, she indeed did ask the NSA for the names of certain Americans that were involved with President Trump.

But her claim is, she didn't leak those names. Well, you don't have to, when you unmask them.

It goes out to the mass. Everybody who is on the list -- everyone in government who got that gets the update with the unmasked names. She also says she didn't seek them for political purposes. Listen carefully.

VOICE: Within that process and within the context of the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, did you seek the names of people involved in -- to unmask the names of people involved in the Trump transition, the Trump campaign, people surrounding the president-elect, in order to spy on them?

SUSAN: Let me begin -- absolutely --

VOICE: In order to expose them?

SUSAN: Absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, expose, anything. But let me --

VOICE: Did you leak the name of Mike Flynn?

SUSAN: I leaked nothing to nobody.

GLENN: I leaked nothing to nobody.

Again, we'll come back to that with Grammar Pat.

Now, maybe -- maybe some can be forgiven for doubting the veracity of a woman who looked us in the eye and flatout lied to us as the ambassador to the UN in 2012.

SUSAN: But based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is of the present is, in fact, it began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo, where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy, sparked by this hateful video.

GLENN: Okay. So here's the problem: She knew she was lying then. Obama knew she was lying then. Hillary Clinton knew she was lying then. I contend the president knew she was lying then.

Media, you wonder why Donald Trump became president of the United States, this is your example. You're doing it again. For anybody who thought possibly that you would have a backbone, that you have learned something, that you have become enlightened, you're doing it again! You are taking a story and you are picking the winner. You are picking the one you choose to believe.

She has no credibility. Was she following orders last time? Perhaps. Is she following orders this time? Perhaps.

It's your job to dissect this story and to show where the truth is and how it's all being lumped together to make it appear as though she's telling the truth. This is the problem. With so much dishonesty in the government, the credibility of those we've elected to serve us is completely shot.

And so what do we do? We elect somebody like Donald Trump -- not because of the credibility of the people in the government, but because he told us the truth. And this is the truth: You can't believe the media. They are in on the game. And this Susan Rice story is proof positive.

Now, let's go to -- let's go to Pat, who is going to take us to the chalkboard.

PAT: And diagram this a little bit.

GLENN: Yeah. I leaked nothing to nobody. Just show me how I leaked nothing to nobody works here, Pat.

PAT: All right. Well, first of all, this is obviously a negation, right?

GLENN: Pat at the chalkboard teaching.

PAT: Negation. Although, she used a double negative.

(chuckling)

GLENN: Okay.

PAT: Which, of course, leads to a positive statement. As you know, two negative numbers multiplied together makes it a positive. So if you leak nothing to nobody, that does mean that you leaked something to everybody. Now --

STU: You're saying it was a true statement?

PAT: It was a true statement. She obviously leaked something to everybody.

Now, if she was trying to say she didn't leak anything, then you have to use the negative auxillary, I didn't leak anything. The pronoun "anything." Or you could perhaps use the negative article, I have not leaked anything.

(chuckling)

GLENN: To nobody?

PAT: To anyone. To the --

STU: Can you say "I have not leaked nothing to nobody?" If it was a triple negative, she would be okay, right?

GLENN: If you say, I have not leaked anything to anyone, why isn't that a double positive, which would lead it to a double negative?

PAT: Because you've used the negative particle "not," which obviously means you haven't.

STU: And also, if you multiply two positives together, you don't get a negative. You get a positive.

PAT: Right. Correct.

GLENN: How do we know math is right? Have you checked with Common Core lately?

STU: Well, fake math, fake news. It's all real.

GLENN: Thank you, Pat. We appreciate that, for clearing that up.

PAT: Thank you.

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: Happy to do that.

GLENN: For anybody who wanted to know exactly -- by the way, anybody who is making fun of Donald Trump in the media and how he speaks --

PAT: Right.

GLENN: -- is anybody going over this? Is anybody saying, "Hey, Susan Rice, I didn't leak nothing to nobody is probably not something at a cabinet level."

STU: I didn't leak nothing to nobody would have been okay because it's a triple negative. However, she said I leaked nothing to nobody, making it a double negative and making it incorrect.

GLENN: You're right. You're right. I'm sorry --

STU: Or actually correct. Because she actually did leak it.

GLENN: Yes. Yes. But she didn't leak it. And here's how they're getting away with it: May I erase your work on the chalkboard here?

PAT: Yes, you may.

GLENN: Okay. So can anybody tell me what FISA means?

STU: Foreign Intelligence Security Act?

GLENN: Foreign Intelligence Security -- it's not act, is it? Is it act?

STU: Yes.

GLENN: And so what does it do?

STU: Yeah, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance. Sorry. Surveillance.

GLENN: Surveillance. Anybody know what it does?

STU: Well, there's foreign intelligence that has surveilled with this act.

GLENN: That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. They are surveilling foreign intelligence.

Now, why are names masked in FISA? So everything we're talking about here goes to a FISA court.

PAT: They're masked because if Americans are caught up in it, they don't want to suck Americans into something that they're --

GLENN: Great.

PAT: -- not guilty of.

GLENN: So let's go back a bit.

How does the FISA court work? What is the FISA court? How is it supposed to work?

FISA court was developed because we found out in the '70s that the CIA was starting to spy on things. And we wanted to make sure that the CIA and the FBI and everybody was in their proper roles.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: But we -- we saw that the CIA was starting to use surveillance in foreign countries. And we were afraid we were going to use them here in America.

And so they put this wall up. And this is the point of the FISA court. We built a wall so no one -- no CIA, no NSA could ever cross back into the United States.

And so what the CIA said --

PAT: And it's illegal for the CIA to spy on Americans.

GLENN: Correct. This all comes from the Nixon era, and all this stuff was -- and you were starting to spy on Americans. So the FISA court was designed. And the FISA court, you as the CIA, you have to come to a FISA court and say, "Hey, we have a foreign intelligence that needs to be surveilled. We need to listen to their phone calls." Great. Listen to their phone calls.

And we're listening to their phone calls, as they're coming into the United States. They are here in the United States. And we need to listen to them.

Well, wait a minute. If they're here in the United States, they're going to be talking to Americans.

Yes, but what we'll do is when we issue the report, we will black out their name, and we will put US citizen number one.

And so when the FISA -- when the FISA report came to Susan Rice's desk, it said, "Here's the -- you know, the Russian operative Igor Mullowski (phonetic) -- whatever his name is, spoke to US citizen number one." Now, how do you unmask that?

PAT: You go to the NSA or the CIA and you say, "I need -- can I know -- I need to know who this US citizen is."

GLENN: So how do you know who to go to? CIA, NSA, how do you know who to go to?

PAT: I don't know.

STU: Are you teaching us or asking us?

GLENN: I'm asking -- I'm teaching you too. Do you know?

PAT: No. Whoever filed the report I would --

GLENN: So you go to whoever issued this report.

STU: Okay.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: The only people that have the key to unmask are the people that issued the report. So you go to the -- let's say the NSA. And you say, "Guys, I see US citizen number one. I think I know who this is, and there is something else going on that you're not privy to." Because everything is compartmentalized. I need to see US number one. And unmask US citizen number one so I know their name. Because I think they're connected in this other thing that we have going on over here. We have to make sure it's the same person.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Now, when they unmask it, who gets the unmasked report?

PAT: Person who asked for it.

GLENN: That's what I would think. Nope.

So when they're saying, did you leak anything? She didn't have to. Those reports go out to all of -- like 20 people. Those reports go out every day. And they have unmask.

If they are -- if they are unmasked -- they go out masked. Then if somebody asks for them to be unmasked, they're reissued, and they go out to everyone with the unmasking. So she didn't to have leak it. She gave it to 20, to 100 different people.

STU: And someone there leaked it.

GLENN: Someone there leaked it.

STU: She started the process.

GLENN: Right. So the questions they should be asking --

PAT: She puts the blame though, on the NSA, because they're the ones who decide whether they'll unmask or not.

GLENN: Right. Right. So let's play this out, Pat. She's exactly right. They do. You play Susan Rice, I play the NSA. Hello, NSA.

PAT: I'd like to know who citizen number one is.

STU: Why is your voice so low?

PAT: She's got a cold.

STU: Oh, okay.

GLENN: Wow, I hope you feel better, Susan. You sound really bad. You sound like that guy on the radio. What's his name? Oh, man.

PAT: Yeah, I don't feel good right now. So -- nobody knows. Nobody knows his name. It hasn't been unmasked yet.

GLENN: So, Susan, I can't just give you the name of the person.

PAT: No, I've got another investigation going on.

GLENN: You have another investigation going on? Can you tell me a little bit about -- I don't need to know about the investigation, but can you give me a reason why you think this name is important?

PAT: Well, it involves a Trump campaign.

GLENN: And are you doing something on the Trump campaign and the Russians?

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Okay. So you have something else going on?

PAT: Yes.

GLENN: Okay. So you do need it?

PAT: I do it need.

GLENN: Good. You don't just call them and say, "Hey, I need a name unmasked." Those are masked as a wall. It is incumbent upon the -- the agency that issued the report --

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: -- to then say, "Why do you need it?"

Now, as national security adviser, as the head of the president's national security, she has more clout than anyone else. But it is her case. She cannot blame anyone else for saying, "Well, they just released it." No.

They released it to you because you are the president's national security adviser. You are the top of the pyramid.

PAT: And you made the case.

GLENN: If you say, I have another case that you're not aware of, they will unmask it. Because you're the top of the pyramid. The only one higher is the president.

PAT: And based on her interviews, she -- she kind of walks this line --

JEFFY: Yes, she does.

GLENN: Yes, she does.

PAT: -- that, yeah, I did unmask something, but it wasn't for political purposes and I wasn't going after the Trump campaign.

GLENN: So the question should be, then what were you working on to ask for it to be unmasked?

PAT: Which she would say national security. Classified.

JEFFY: Classified.

GLENN: Correct. Correct, she will.

So then the next question is: So was that name the name connected with something else? National security. Well, you have an American -- you have an American's life at stake here.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Their whole --

PAT: Yeah, it's bad.

GLENN: The reason for the FISA wall, you've just destroyed their life. I think you have a responsibility to repair it and speak frankly.

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.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

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If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.