The end of our empire approaches

Do you have the nagging sense that our empire is in decline?

If so, don't be embarrassed by it. Historically speaking, we're in very good company. Far larger and longer-lived empires than ours have come and gone over the millennia.

This was hit home for me on a recent trip. I scored a major "dad win" by taking my youngest daughter, Grace, to England for her 18th birthday (we live in Massachusetts, USA).

All on her own, Grace developed an abiding love of mythology at a very young age: Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, Aztec…you name it. She's read the Iliad four times, a different version each time, as each has the biases of the translator subtly woven throughout.

Naturally, her dream mini-vacation involved going to the British Museum where the Rosetta stone lies, along with Viking horde treasures and every possible Roman, Greek and Egyptian artifact one could hope to see.

The British empire came of age at the perfect time to muscle in and “retrieve" the cultural treasures of many different countries. Such are the spoils of empire.

Who knows, perhaps one day we'll see sliced off segments of the Palace of Westminster on display in Cairo's main square. History ebbs and it flows. Back and forth. Victors and losers swapping places over and over again.

If the British Museum reveals anything it's just that. The long sweep of human history shows us that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

The treasures on display at the British Museum also show us that every race and culture has revered beauty. The most intricate and delicate and objectively beautiful jewelry and adornments were worn by kings and queens, priestesses, nobles, and warlords alike.

Sutton Hoo

Consider the find of the Sutton Hoo burial mound. An eminently important and revered individual (possibly Raedwald) was buried sometime around the year 740, with an enormous ship 89 feet in length serving as his burial chamber.

Just imagine how many people it took to dig a hole in the ground that held the ship to its gunnels, and then bring forward enough earth to cover the whole affair in a gigantic mound of earth more than ten feet high in the middle. As a gardener, I can tell you that dirt is heavy stuff that really resists being moved by hand. Hundreds of people must have labored for a very long time to create this burial mound.

Whoever this person was, he was revered enough to be buried with an astonishing collection of wealth. And, perhaps more amazingly, none of it was looted.

Here's the sword belt, made of an intricate lattice of pure gold and polished garnet:

Isn't that a beautiful work of art?

Again, nobody came back and looted this afterwards. Maybe they killed the workers who built the gravesite, but surely folks still knew a very rich ruler had been buried in the area. And yet nobody looted the site. To me, it's hard not see that as a sign of how much the man buried there was respected by his kinsmen.

Here's a close up of the dragons head from that sword belt:

If you've ever worked with garnet, you know just how devilishly hard it is (a 7.5 on a scale of 10) and how much work it must have taken to polish up even one of those tiny panels, let alone all of them, and into such careful shapes.

Similarly, these shoulder clasps meant to secure an article of clothing (like a cape or cloak) are also magnificent:

Again, the detail and workmanship are impressive. But what struck me most was how these works of art are so … beautiful. And from a time of early medieval history referred to 'the dark ages' and popularly described as a period of bleak survival.

If they were, somebody still had the resources to churn out works of extraordinary precision and beauty. That much is clear.

The rest of the artifacts are similarly extraordinary -- especially the helmet, shields, and coinage. Just take a look at this purse lid:

Taken together, I see a culture where reverence mattered. Sutton Hoo's buried leader was revered enough that his tomb was not looted afterwards, promptly or otherwise. The items buried display a reverence for his authority as well as for beauty.

These burial artifacts were by no means trivial items. Each one could have supported a family for many generations at a time when resources were scarce, only obtainable through the hard labor of many.

And yet they were left untouched. Who among today's leaders would be honored enough as a leader that their tomb would not be looted for massive personal gain? Where can you see that our culture reveres beauty to the same degree, being willing to place so much collective effort into its creation?

The Taranto Scepter

Everywhere else in the British Museum were similar displays of honoring the feminine -- the women and the goddesses of the world. Many of the Egyptian displays caught my eye, as did the Greek, but one piece stood out so much that I came back to it three times, so amazed was I by the beauty of it and the message I took from it.

It came from “The Tomb of the Taranto Priestess" and dated from 350 – 340 BC. Since kings did not rule Taranto during that period, it is believed to have been the property of a priestess.

First, her scepter is truly extraordinary:

The entire scepter is perhaps 18 inches in length and capped in extraordinary gold adornment. But what really caught my eye is the gold mesh you see running down the shaft (lost to history, thought to have been bone?). It consists of extremely fine gold wire wrapped in even finer gold wire, and is woven into a meshwork of little diamond shapes with tiny circles at their corners. Each of these circles contained a tiny gem or enameled treasure of some sort (most, again, lost to history).

Here's a close up:

The gold wire used is finer than hair. This scepter speaks of power and delicacy in equal balance, one reinforcing the other. Only the lightest of touch could hold the scepter without breaking strands of gold that fine. That made me think of the woman who wielded it with such a delicate touch.

Again, this person was revered to such an extent that an object of such immense value and beauty was entombed with her, and not robbed at a later time by someone who knew what the tomb contained.

Power, honor, reverence, and beauty. All attributes that show up again and again all throughout history.

The entire British Museum is packed to the rafters with such expressions. I came away both elated to have gotten back in touch with these better expressions of humanity, but also saddened because I can't locate their equivalent in today's world.

One missing element from today? Reverence for the goddess, for the feminine. I cannot think of a single western homage paid to the feminine. No temples to the goddesses and no elevation of feminine attributes.

This is important to note, not because we wish to bash the masculine, but because anything out of balance requires rebalancing. In fact, re-elevating the feminine will actually bring honor and meaning back to the masculine.

Our world is caught up entirely in money, and power, and wars, and force. We revere power over rather than power within.

So the questions I'd like to leave you with are these.

  • Where do you have beauty in your life? Do you consciously manifest it?
  • What do you revere?
  • How honorable are you?
  • Do you instill a sense of loyalty in those around you? Who would rob your grave and how quickly after you passed?
  • Who do you honor, and how? Also, why?
  • How important is it for you to be surrounded by people you can trust, and whose opinions you trust?
  • Where and how do you respect, honor and encourage the feminine in yourself (whether you are male or female), in others, and especially in nature?

Finally, are you ready for the massive changes that are coming?

Our Empire Of Debt

The British museum is a testament to the fact that empires have been rising and falling for thousands of years. The common elements of every empire include its own appreciation for works of extreme beauty and human craftsmanship, along with strict hierarchy. They all expressed a strong connection to the divine, however they felt it, each with their own mythologies and attendant religions to make sense of it all…and help cement the rulers place(s) at the top, of course.

Each empire had a mythology by which it self-organized and people bought into that belief system. Looking back they seem like such obvious mental traps it's easy to scoff and wonder how people could have been so blinkered.

Here's the thing about hierarchical societies in every era…in every single one there were always a very few haves and a whole lot of have nots. How were the masses kept in line? Why did the vast bulk of humanity in every empire live in relative poverty and misery, never lifting a finger in revolt except under very rare circumstances?

The connection to yourself is this; each society has a set of reasons in place that explain to the people on the lower levels why they belong there. In some prior cultures the explanation was that authority was invested the royal blood line. You either had it or you didn't.

In other societies, the rulers were said to be closer to the gods, if not descended directly from them. To go against the rulers meant you were assaulting or dishonoring the very gods you prayed to and on which you utterly depended.

While the mythologies in place “explaining" the hierarchy differed, the results did not. They always resulted in a few at the top and an expanding pyramid of population and entitlement laid out below them.

The middle management in this story, those that had relative advantage were the necessary keepers of the systems in each culture and each system. They had more to lose than to gain through revolt and so they stayed true to the system through their entire lives.

The people on the very bottom, despite having a vast numerical advantage, had the limiting belief that they had no power. So revolts almost never happened. Systems of hierarchy persisted until the empire had run its course, almost always failing because it ran out of resources to maintain itself and its growing complexity.

The lessons of history are absolute; nothing lasts. Everything changes, especially who's in charge.

So what are our explanations today that keep us all in line? What keeps us from revolt? To what do we bow our daily collective heads in fealty to?

The answer is Money.

What we call “money" today was a wicked genius invention that popped up right around the same moment in history when humans were working out other keen, life-altering inventions such as clocks, and printing presses.

“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free."
~ Goethe

A person in debt is a person controlled. But they think it was their own decision. Hence the Goethe quote above. A nation in debt is a nation controlled. The debt trap is especially insidious, and it relies on the illusion of free will combined with the full weight of 'the law.'

By attaching a stated rate of interest to a loan, a person's future output was yours if you were the holder of that note. What a stroke of pure (evil) genius! Set the rate high enough and the term long enough and you can get all of your money paid back plus another 100% of that amount or more, every bit of which was actually the future productive output (i.e. time) of the borrower.

Conjure up a promissory note out of thin air and then you get to skim the true productive output of that person, regardless of outcome. Whether they succeeded or failed in the endeavor, you still won. If they paid you back, the win was obvious. If they failed you often had collateral on the back end protecting your “investment." No matter what, you won.

And even if that wasn't the case? Well, you lost the amount of effort on your end that it took to draft up the note. In other words, nothing really.

I've yet to find this laid out in any museum even though the introduction of debt-based money was arguably the most course-altering invention of the past thousand years. It transformed millions of human slaves kept in check by threat of power and physical coercion (if not death) into billions of humans perfectly willing to hand over their labor to a very few elites at the top who did little to no work themselves.

Before this transformative invention money was always a very concrete thing – you either had a stash of silver or gold or you didn't. Afterwards money became abstract. You could loan someone something you never had, written on a slip of paper, and the belief invested in that idea was sufficient to enslave that person until that debt was repaid. “Your" money might never be seen or handled by you at all, which is true for most people today. It exists as digits on a statement or computer screen. Yours, but utterly intangible. A powerful force, never actually seen or handled. In other words, a shared idea. A mythology imbued with tremendous power by a culture that served to enforce the current system of hierarchy.

There is a vast empire now spanning the globe but the mystery of it all is that it's not based on or in any one country. It is an empire of debt. Those issuing the debt are harvesting the output of entire nations, no different in final effect than the Romans enforcing the practice of tithing from extant countries in AD 100.

We now live in a world of, by and for bankers, and other financial elites. Where once it was your royal lineage, or direct connection to the sun god Ra that assured your place at the top, today it's your proximity to the temples of money.

But what happens when the economic pie is no longer expanding, yet the keepers of the system seem unable to turn off their own desires to grab more, more and yet more from that same pie?

That is where we find ourselves today. The economic oxygen is being sucked from the middle and lower classes and the social and political pressures are building.

Meanwhile more and more claims (currency and debts) are being piled on top of this stagnant economic pie thereby increasing the pressure on a creaking system. Someday that all gives way rather spectacularly and ends very badly. History says it ends with a lot of social anarchy and quite possibly another world war.

In Part 2: What History Tells Us Will Come Next, we provide a detailed analysis of how late-stage empires always collapse as the elites exhaust the resources of the masses. We are seeing clear signs of that today.

As we progress from here, the disparity between the haves and have-nots is only going to intensify, with debt (and our debt-based money system) being used as the primary weapon for controlling an increasingly dispossessed public.

Are you prepared?

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

Legal warfare strikes France's conservative hope

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An all-too-familiar story unfolded in France this week: the is law being weaponized against a "far-right" candidate. Does that ring a bell?

Glenn was taken aback earlier this week when he learned that Marine Le Pen, a popular French conservative, had been banned from the 2027 election following a controversial conviction. The ruling shocked French conservatives and foreign politicians alike, many of whom saw Le Pen as France’s best conservative hope. President Trump called it a "very big deal," a view shared by French commentators who fear this marks the end of Le Pen’s political career.

But this isn’t just about France—it’s a symptom of a larger threat looming over the West.

A double standard?

Fmr. President Sarkozy (left) and Fmr. Prime Minister Fillon (right)

BERTRAND GUAY / Contributor, Chesnot / Contributor | Getty Images

As of Sunday, March 30, 2025, Marine Le Pen led the polls with a commanding edge over her rivals, offering French conservatives their strongest shot at the presidency in years. Hours later, that hope crumbled. Found guilty of embezzling EU funds, Le Pen was sentenced to two years of house arrest, fined €100,000 ($108,200), and banned from public office for five years, effective immediately.

Glenn quickly highlighted an apparent double standard. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister François Fillon faced similar—or worse—corruption charges, yet neither was barred from office during their political runs. So why Le Pen, and why now? Similar to Trump’s "hush money" trial, legal troubles this late in the election cycle reek of interference. The decision should belong to voters—France’s largest jury—not a courtroom. This appears to be a grave injustice to the French electorate and another crack in democracy’s foundation.

This is NOT about France

Andrei Pungovschi / Stringer | Getty Images

This pattern stretches far beyond France; it’s a tactic we’ve seen before.

In early 2025, Bucharest’s streets erupted in protest after Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first round of its presidential election. Călin Georgescu, a rising conservative, had clinched an unexpected victory, only to have it stripped away amid baseless claims of Russian interference. His supporters raged against the decision, seeing it as a theft of their voice.

Both Georgescu and Le Pen echo the legal barrage President Trump endured before his 2024 win. The Left hurled every weapon imaginable at him, unleashing unprecedented lawfare. In America, the Constitution held, and the people’s will prevailed.

Now, with Tesla vandalism targeting Elon Musk’s free-speech stance, a coordinated pushback against freedom is clear—spanning France, Romania, the U.S., and beyond.

The war on free will

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Trump’s 2024 victory doesn’t mean lawfare is dead; Europe shows it’s thriving.

France and Romania prove its effectiveness, sidelining candidates through courts rather than ballots. Glenn warned us about this years ago—when the powerful can’t win at the polls, they turn to the gavel. It’s a chilling trend of stripping voters of their choice and silencing dissent, all the while pawning it off as justice. The playbook is polished and ready, and America’s turn could come sooner than we think.

How Melania Trump is inspiring the next generation of fashion

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First Lady Melania Trump’s impeccable style has long captivated admirers across the globe, but for one young woman, it sparked a creative revolution.

Lorelai, a young Glenn Beck fan who requested a degree of anonymity, first met Glenn while attending America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona with her grandmother. An aspiring fashion designer and illustrator, Lorelai shared with Glenn some of her sketches of characters from Glenn’s latest book, Chasing Embers. She also explained how Melania Trump became the cornerstone of her artistic journey, inspiring her to craft modest yet beautiful clothing that redefines modern fashion.

Melania Trump’s elegance—stunning, powerful, and undeniably feminine—first captured Lorelai’s attention during the First Lady’s time in the White House. Unlike the casual, often immodest trends dominating her peers’ wardrobes, Melania’s wardrobe exuded grace and sophistication. From tailored coats to flowing gowns, her choices were a masterclass in balancing boldness with dignity, a philosophy that resonated deeply with Lorelai. This admiration grew into inspiration as Lorelai began designing apparel specifically with Melania in mind, aspiring to design pieces that could match the First Lady’s grace. She strove to reflect Melania’s breathtaking style in her sketches in an effort to demonstrate how modesty can be beautiful.

The First Lady’s poised and graceful presence has redefined modesty for the modern era. To Lorelai, the First Lady’s style proves that more fabric offers boundless room for imagination, allowing personality to shine without sacrificing dignity. Melania embodies this perfectly—her fashion commands attention with stunning, memorable elegance. Inspired by this, Lorelai’s mission is to craft clothing for her generation that mirrors Melania’s influence, blending contemporary flair with classic beauty.

After her meeting with Glenn at America Fest, Lorelai’s passion and resolve have only deepened. Through fashion and art, Lorelai hopes to inspire others with the same grace that Melania Trump exemplifies. Below are some of Lorelai's sketches she was eager to share with Glenn.

Melania Trump: First Lady

I really adore First Lady Melania Trump’s grace and timeless beauty. She is extremely intelligent and brave but also strong and poised. Her fashion style displays these traits. I was inspired to create these outfits for our First Lady in hopes that she would see these drawings. -Lorelai

Melania Trump: Lady Liberty

We, as a country, will be celebrating next year our 250th anniversary of independence. The designs that inspired this patriotic gown came from Lady Liberty and Lady Columbia art. I also love our American flag, and this design is a combination of all three. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Character Art (Ember)

I chose to draw the characters Sky, Azaz and Ember from Glenn Beck and Mikayla G. Hedrick’s Chasing Embers series. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Concept Art (Ember)

I was inspired to draw a younger and teen version for Sky and Ember. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Character Art (Sky)

Chasing Embers Concept Art (Azaz)

I also gave multiple outfits designs for Sky and Azaz. I loved that their personalities and character development meant in my mind a wardrobe development too. -Lorelai

Glenn: Government workers bought luxury cars with YOUR tax dollars

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The deep state isn’t a conspiracy theory — it’s a reality. And the corrupt, free-spending Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is just one example of how Washington insiders enrich themselves.

A little-known agency in Washington perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with our bloated, corrupt government: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. It should be the poster child of everything that Elon Musk is exposing.

The agency was established in 1947 under the Labor Management Relations Act to serve as an independent agency mediating disputes between unions and businesses — a noble mission, perhaps. But like so many government institutions, it has rotted into something far removed from its original purpose.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft.

What was once a mechanism for labor stability has morphed into an unchecked slush fund — an exclusive playground for bureaucrats living high on taxpayer dollars.

The FMCS is a textbook case of government waste, an agency that no one was watching, where employees didn’t even bother showing up for work — some hadn’t for years. And yet they still collected paychecks and spent government money — our money — on their personal luxuries.

Luxury cars and cell phone bills

The Department of Government Efficiency discovered how FMCS employees used government credit cards — intended for official business — to lease luxury cars, cover personal cell phone bills, and even subscribe to USA Today. The agency’s information technology director, James Donnan, apparently billed taxpayers his wife’s cell phone bill, cable TV subscriptions in multiple homes, and personal subscriptions.

FMCS officials commissioned portraits of themselves and hung them in their offices, and you footed the bill. They took exotic vacations and hired their friends and relatives to keep the gravy train rolling.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft — and it went on for decades, unnoticed and unchallenged.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to abolish the FMCS — a necessary and long-overdue move. But the FMCS is just one of many agencies within the federal government burning through billions of taxpayer dollars. How many more slush funds exist in the shadows, funneling money into the pockets of bureaucrats who produce nothing? How many government-funded NGOs operate in direct opposition to American interests?

Perhaps the most disturbing question is why Americans tolerate such corruption. Why do so many Americans tolerate this? Why is the left — supposedly the party of the people — defending the very institutions that rob working-class Americans blind?

Corruption beyond bureaucracy

The recent rallies led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and their socialist acolytes claim to be a grassroots uprising against corruption and greed. But GPS data from these rallies tells a different story. The majority of attendees aren’t ordinary citizens fed up with the status quo. They’re professional activists — serial agitators who bounce from protest to protest.

Roughly 84% of devices tracked at these rallies were present at multiple Kamala Harris events. A staggering 31% appeared at over 20 separate demonstrations, tied to Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and pro-Palestinian causes.

Many of these organizations receive federal grant money — our tax dollars — and they’re using those funds to protest the very policies that threaten to cut off their financial lifeline.

This isn’t democracy in action. This is political theater — astroturfing perfected. And the American taxpayer is funding it.

Rooting out corruption

Trump was a battering ram against this corrupt system. Elon Musk is a surgeon, meticulously exposing the infection that has festered for decades — and that’s why the leftists hate him even more than they hate Trump. Musk threatens to dismantle the financial web that sustains their entire operation.

When we allow the government to grow unchecked and our leaders to prioritize their own wealth and power over the good of the nation, figures like Trump and Musk are necessary. Rome didn’t fall because of an external invasion but rather due to internal decay that looked an awful lot like what we see today.

We must demand better. We must refuse to tolerate this corruption any longer. The FMCS may be gone, but the fight to root out this deep-seated corruption is far from over.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Did the CIA hide the real truth behind JFK's assassination?

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Many were disappointed by the recent release of the JFK files, frustrated by the apparent lack of answers to decades-old questions. The problem? They’re asking the wrong question.

Everyone wants a "who"—a smoking gun, someone to blame. It’s understandable; Americans crave justice for a slain president, to hold the culprits of one of the 20th century’s greatest crimes accountable. But the real answer isn’t a "who"—it’s a "what." That "what" is the CIA and proof of their nefarious dealings since the 1960s.

In his most recent TV special, Glenn delves into the JFK files, where he found the crucial information that everyone else seemed to miss. Be sure to watch the TV special here.

The CIA's Dirty Fingerprints

While the recent JFK files don’t explicitly pin the assassination on the CIA, the evidence between the lines is compelling.

If you follow Glenn on X, you’ve seen his newest artifact: an exact replica of Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle. Glenn tested it at the range, attempting to replicate the notoriously difficult shot Oswald allegedly made that fateful day in Dallas. While Glenn shares more takeaways in his TV special, one thing stood out immediately: the rifle’s abysmal quality, its shoddy scope, and the odd caliber of ammunition it uses.

Oswald’s rifle, a Mannlicher-Carcano, is chambered in 6.5mm—an unusual caliber. Much like today, the average gun store in the ‘60s didn’t stock 6.5mm rounds. The largest known supply was owned by the CIA, who had shipped the ammo from Greece after World War II. Suspiciously, there’s no record of where Oswald got his ammunition, but the JFK files confirm that the gun store where he bought the Mannlicher-Carcano had CIA connections.

It’s well-known that Oswald defected to the USSR and lived there before returning to the U.S. The JFK files reveal that from the moment he touched down stateside, the CIA tracked him like a hawk. They followed him across the country and even to Mexico City—but, conveniently, seemed to lose him in Dallas just as President Kennedy arrived. What a coincidence.

Whether by design or gross incompetence, the CIA greased Oswald’s path, letting him slip unhindered into that sixth-floor Book Depository window.

The Cover-Up

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If the JFK files aren’t the smoking gun many hoped for, why did the CIA fight so hard to keep them buried?

The answer is trust. Hard as it may be to imagine today, Americans in the ‘60s trusted their government—at least more than they do now. This cover-up preserved that trust longer than it might have lasted, allowing the CIA to pull off more scandals before the public caught on. From Benghaziand 9/11 to COVID-19 and January 6, the same dirty marks found in the JFK files stain these events. It’s about saving face. The files make the CIA look incompetent at best, complicit at worst.

This might feel like common knowledge today—especially to Glenn’s audience—but 40 or 50 years ago, saying such things could land you in the loony bin. It’s taken 60 years of growing suspicion to reach this point. Imagine if the JFK files had been available back then. Could we have stopped six decades of CIA shenanigans in their tracks?

The thought is chilling.

What Now?

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The files don’t name a mastermind or explicitly confirm the darkest JFK assassination conspiracies that have swirled for decades—but they’re far from empty. They expose a disturbing truth: the CIA’s unchecked power in the ‘60s echoes into today.

In one of his most exciting TV specials yet, Glenn delves deep into the files, proving why we can’t ignore these revelations. Stop chasing a "who" and start demanding accountability for the "what." Only by confronting this can we hope to rein in the agency that’s dodged scrutiny for too long.