Three Things You Need to Know – March 5, 2018

And the Oscar for Best Hypocrite Goes to...

Ah, another awards show, another chance to display the fake morality of the elite and privileged.

Celebrities chose to wear orange label pins at the Oscars last night to support gun control on behalf of the organization “Everytown for Gun Safety.” The organization is an advocacy group that raises awareness about gun violence prevention.

They stated that the pins are “a reminder that there is more we all can and should do now to prevent future acts of gun violence.”

Here’s a thought, Hollywood. Instead of wearing pins…how about you lead by example and stop promoting gun violence in your movies?

Did the Academy not realize that the majority of last night’s winners ALL featured gun violence?

Here’s just a starting list for you.

Allison Janney won for best actress in a supporting role for the film “I, Tonya.”

That film features a husband and wife who frequently shoot at each other. One time, the husband succeeds.

Sam Rockwell won for best actor in a supporting role for the film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His character blows his head off with a gun.

Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” won for best original screenplay. That movie literally ends with a murder-suicide by rifle.

And director Guillermo Del Toro’s romantic fantasy, “The Shape of Water” took home the most awards including best picture.

There’s tons of gun violence in that movie. There’s even inter-species gun violence!

The hypocrisy of the Oscars is disgusting.

The Academy Awards need to take the huge plank out of their own eyes.

You can’t be against something if you promote it as “art.”

Gun Control Has a New Backer --- The Ayatollah of Iran

Gun control advocates have a new ally in their quest to upend the second amendment. You might expect this person’s zip code to come from Hollywood, New York or some liberal think tank in D.C., but you’d be just a little off. This person’s pulpit, and support for American gun grabbers, comes from... Tehran, Iran.

The Ayatollah of Iran went on a Twitter rant on Saturday - which is a platform banned by his people but not it’s proselytizing leaders, but I digress - but he echoed every major talking point you’re hearing now from today’s gun grabbers. He wrapped up his twitter sermon with, what he probably considered, the ultimate uppercut to America’s Second Amendment. Quote:

“No one dares apply the clear solution to the promotion of guns and homicide in America. What’s the solution? It’s to make guns illegal.”

If you’re anti-second amendment, you now have a friend in someone that calls himself “Supreme Leader.” And if anyone knows what this argument is REALLY about, it’s him. Guns helped the mullahs of Iran pull off their coup back in the 70’s, but one of the first things they did, AFTER obtaining power, was to take all those guns away from the people that put them in power. Guns are now banned in Iran, and the clerical regime rules with absolute control and unchecked power.

You see, that’s what this is really all about. Power and control. It enabled the Ayatollah in Iran to effectively turn his country into a slave state. They have the power to tell you how to dress when to eat, how to style your hair, and what you can or can’t say. Don’t like it? Well, that sucks to be you… you’ll have to deal with being thrown in a detention camp without due process, without the need of being formally charged, and with no formal date of release.

This is what the founders of our country feared, and this is why they built certain protections into the Constitution to protect us. The Second Amendment being one of the most important. Iran is a perfect example of what’s possible when the government no longer fears their own people.

So, to the Ayatollah standing at his Twitter pulpit in Tehran, thank you for weighing in on America’s gun debate. Thank you for taking a side. But most importantly, thank you for reminding us why we have the Second Amendment to begin with. To protect ourselves from people like YOU.

The Mueller Investigation Just Went Down Another Rabbit Hole

At this rate, Robert Muller’s special counsel investigation is going to take ten years.

Over the last several weeks, Muller’s team has been questioning George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to leaders of the United Arab Emirates. Investigators are trying to determine whether the U.A.E. tried to buy political influence during Trump’s presidential campaign and administration.

They’re also trying to determine how George Nader has influenced White House policy. During the first few months of 2017, Nader had several meetings at the White House with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner about American policy in the Persian Gulf.

Nader is something of a Middle East mystery man. During the Clinton presidency, he was a back-channel negotiator with Syria. With Clinton’s permission, he tried to secretly work out a peace deal between Syria and Israel. During the 1990s, he also ran a magazine called Middle East Insight, which sometimes ran editorials by Middle Eastern leaders, like President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Rabin of Israel, and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

Nader fell off the radar for a while, but by 2016 he had somehow become an adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. Just after Trump’s inauguration, Nader met Elliot Broidy, a major Republican fund-raiser who also owns a private security firm. With Nader’s help, Broidy’s security firm landed several hundred million dollars’ worth of contracts with the U.A.E.

Last fall, Broidy had a private meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. Afterward, Broidy sent a memo of the meeting to Nader at an encrypted email address. In the memo, Broidy said he advised President Trump to have a private meeting outside the White House with the U.A.E.’s crown prince. Broidy also encouraged Trump to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson because of Tillerson’s support of Qatar.

A copy of this meeting memo was sent to The New York Times by, “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.” A spokesman for Elliot Broidy didn’t deny the memo’s contents, but says Qatari agents hacked Broidy’s computer and stole the memo.

What any of this has to do with Muller’s Russia investigation is anyone’s guess at this point. Regardless, it’s yet another rabbit hole in an investigation that has dragged on for almost a year. Sooner than later, Americans want some real answers. For the sake of the country, and our sanity, we need this resolved.

MORE 3 THINGS

PHOTOS: Inside Glenn's private White House tour

Image courtesy of the White House

In honor of Trump's 100th day in office, Glenn was invited to the White House for an exclusive interview with the President.

Naturally, Glenn's visit wasn't solely confined to the interview, and before long, Glenn and Trump were strolling through the majestic halls of the White House, trading interesting historical anecdotes while touring the iconic home. Glenn was blown away by the renovations that Trump and his team have made to the presidential residence and enthralled by the history that practically oozed out of the gleaming walls.

Want to join Glenn on this magical tour? Fortunately, Trump's gracious White House staff was kind enough to provide Glenn with photos of his journey through the historic residence so that he might share the experience with you.

So join Glenn for a stroll through 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the photo gallery below:

The Oval Office

Image courtesy of the White House

The Roosevelt Room

Image courtesy of the White House

The White House

Image courtesy of the White House

Media cover-up: Why Clinton deported six times more than Trump

Genaro Molina / Contributor | Getty Images

MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Can Trump stop the blackouts that threaten America's future?

Allan Tannenbaum / Contributor | Getty Images

If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / Stringer | Getty Images

Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.

POLL: Is K2-18b proof of alien LIFE in the cosmos?

Print Collector / Contributor | Getty Images

Are we alone in the universe?

It's no secret that Glenn keeps one eye on the cosmos, searching for any signs of ET. Late last week, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge made an exciting discovery that could change how we view the universe. The astronomers were monitoring a distant planet, K2-18b, when the James Webb Space Telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, two atmospheric gases believed only to be generated by living organisms. The planet, which is just over two and a half times larger than Earth, orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star, meaning the presence of liquid water on its surface is possible, further supporting the possibility that life exists on this distant world.

Unfortunately, humans won't be able to visit K2-18b to see for ourselves anytime soon, as the planet is about 124 light-years from Earth. This means that even if we had rockets that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 124 years to reach the potentially verdant planet. Even if humans made the long trek to K2-18b, they would be faced with an even more intense challenge upon arrival: Gravity. Assuming K2-18b has a similar density to Earth, its increased size would also mean it would have increased gravity, two and a half times as much gravity, to be exact. This would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for humans to live or explore the surface without serious technological support. But who knows, give Elon Musk and SpaceX a few years, and we might be ready to seek out new life (and maybe even new civilizations).

But Glenn wants to know what you think. Could K2-18b harbor life on its distant surface? Could alien astronomers be peering back at us from across the cosmos? Would you be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before? Let us know in the poll below:

Could there be life on K2-18b?

Could there be an alien civilization thriving on K2-18b?

Will humans develop the technology to one day explore distant worlds?

Would you sign up for a trip to an alien world?

Is K2-18b just another cold rock in space?