Michele Bachmann responds to attacks after she calls for investigation into Muslim Brotherhood

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann joined The Glenn Beck Radio Program on GBTV (soon to be known as TheBlaze) this morning to discuss the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington, DC and the attacks on her in the wake of her calls for an investigation. The full interview is available in the clip above.

Transcript of the interview is below:

GLENN:  There are a few people in Washington D.C. that I trust and tell the truth.  There are a few people that call me every time they turn on a water faucet from Washington D.C. and they say, "I just want you to know I'm holding a press conference today because I turned on a water faucet."  You're like, oh.  And after a while, I don't take those people's phone calls and after a while I stop reading their e‑mails.  And there are a few people that are in it for the wrong reasons.  And then there are a few people ‑‑ Jim DeMint is one of them, Michele Bachmann is one of them, Mike Lee is one of them ‑‑ that do it for the right reasons and are clean.  I mean, we were talking about this with Jim DeMint the other day.  Look what Jim DeMint has done.  Jim DeMint just stopped the Law of the Sea Treaty.  I mean, that's ‑‑ that's a pretty amazing thing to do.  You can't take Jim DeMint out because he's clean.  Does he make mistakes from time to time?  Sure.  Everybody does.  But look at what this guy has done.  Michele Bachmann is the same way.  She's a good, decent person.  May not agree with her all the time, but she's a good, decent woman.  And she is standing and she's on the intelligence committee.  Rarely do I get calls from Michele Bachmann.  But when I do, they're always important.  And she has called me a few times and lately it's been about the Muslim Brotherhood because I've been ‑‑ I've been talking to people in Washington D.C. and saying, "Hey, what's the deal with the Muslim Brotherhood thing?  Are we looking into this?"  Michele called me this morning and she said, "Glenn, there are decent people up on the Hill that are trying to expose the Muslim Brotherhood and it is spreading.  This disease is spreading so rapidly, it is breathtaking."  This goes to a documentary that we did about, what, four months ago, three months ago where we exposed what this president is doing with the Muslim Brotherhood and how it is infiltrating all levels.  And we're at a place now that if we don't stop it, we're approaching a point of no return.  And they are purging everything from our military, from our FBI.  So we're not even teaching what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for.  We're not teaching what radical Islam even is.  So how are you ever going to find it?  How are you ever going to recognize it?  It's out of control.

The inspectors general were asked a few questions by a few members of congress.  Michele Bachmann is here to talk about it and this is important.  I beg you to listen because the elephant media and Drudge, Fox, have come out on the wrong side on this issue.  They are following John McCain's lead.  It's the wrong lead.  And if you're not there to back these people up, they're going to be eaten by CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Michele Bachmann, welcome to the program.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Glenn, thank you so much.  What an important topic, and I have to say that you and the people at The Blaze have been leading the pack on this.  And thank you for the wonderful documentary that you've done because the influence today of the Muslim Brotherhood at the highest levels, from the White House, to the Pentagon, to the FBI, even to our United States military truly is breathless and people have to know about it.

GLENN:  Okay.  So tell me what happened.  You and who else wrote a letter to the inspectors general's office and said, "There are some questions here that need to be addressed."

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.  It was three members of the intelligence committee:  Myself, Lynn Westmoreland from Georgia, Tom Rooney from Florida and two members of the judiciary committee, Trent Franks of Arizona and Louie Gohmert of Texas all signed onto a letter.  We asked numerous questions of the federal government because a letter was sent ‑‑ well, let me just back up.  After the Fort Hood tragedy, a report was issued that said the real problem in our government is that we are not teaching FBI agents or our military to recognize radical Islam.  So that's what we need to do.  We need to teach about it.

Well, in response to that, 50 ‑‑ over 50 Muslim organizations wrote a letter requesting that the White House start a task force to stop that from happening.  Five days after the White House got this letter, this October 19th letter ‑‑ and people can see it on my website, or maybe you have it on The Blaze ‑‑ five days after the White House got this letter from the 50 Muslim groups, they started the purge of the federal government.  Let me tell you, the federal government doesn't do anything in five days.  But they started the purge of the FBI.  So now the FBI, who are supposed to be trained in radical Islam, elements have been purged off their training materials so they are no longer being taught about what radical Islam is in order to be able to truly identify it ahead of time.  This is serious.  This is also happening throughout our United States military, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security.  And the word "purge" isn't my word.  That's the word used by the 50 Muslim organizations.  They demanded that the president purge the training materials and the trainers.  And so already people have been fired who formerly were teaching what radical Islam is.  They've been fired or they've been reassigned.  And they ask that the library be purged.  Americans don't purge libraries, but they demanded that the FBI's library be purged.  All of this was happening and so we wrote a letter to the inspectors general asking the question:  Don't you think you should look into the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and what it is they're seeking to do.

GLENN:  Okay.  So you write this, which is your job.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's our duty.

GLENN:  Your duty to protect and defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.

GLENN:  There is no question in any sane person's mind that the Muslim Brotherhood ‑‑ I mean, look at this ‑‑ look at this guy who ran and won the presidency in Egypt.  He says, "Oh, I'm a moderate.  I'm a moderate."  As soon as he wins, it's Sharia law, we're going down, you know, death for Allah is our highest goal.  It's the all the same crap.  So ‑‑

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  And they call for Jerusalem to become Egypt's capital, not Israel's capital.  They call for the demise of Israel and the demise of the United States.  They believe in civilization, jihad, which is to come into the United States and subvert the United States from within.  I know it sounds like radical stuff, but all you have to do is look ‑‑ right, just look at the Muslim Brotherhood and who they say they are.

GLENN:  Okay.  So when you wrote this letter, then Keith Ellison comes out.  And Keith Ellison is ‑‑ he has a record of being the Mafia hitman.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Well, he has a long record of being associated with CAIR and with the Muslim Brotherhood.  CAIR is an unindicted co‑conspirator, as stated in the large terrorist financing case that we've had in the United States of America and so he came out and essentially wanted to shut down the inspectors general from even looking into any of the questions that we were asking.  So he wanted to shut it down.  In response I wrote another letter back to Keith Ellison, a 16‑page letter which I would encourage all of your listeners to go and read this letter.  It's what I call a bulletproof letter.  I have 59 footnotes with one example after another of the penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the federal government.  One of the most recent is so outrageous, it's hard to believe.  Two weeks ago the State Department broke its own law, like I said, and let a foreign terrorist come into the United States, into the White House, meet with the National Security Council ‑‑

GLENN:  Listen to this.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: ‑‑ and demand the release of the blind Sheik.  This is absolutely outrageous.

GLENN:  There's more to this story that I think is even more outrageous.  Not only did they break their own laws, give this guy a special waiver, bring him into the White House.  This is a guy who is a known ‑‑ part of a known terrorist organization.  He then campaigns to have the blind sheikh released, but who pays for his airline ticket?

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  We do.  The taxpayers.  What I want to know is did we upgrade him to first class.  I mean, this is ‑‑ this is outrageous what has happened.  And so then now what's happened is the attack machine has been turned on myself and the other members of congress who have been asking the questions, that somehow we're the Muslim haters, we're the witch‑hunters, we're the new Joe McCarthyites because we're asking these questions.  All the while two weeks ago the Obama administration breaks federal law to bring someone that we list on the State Department as a terrorist organization, a member of that terrorist organization, we bring him into the White House?  You don't get any higher when it comes to intelligence secrets, you don't get any higher than the National Security Council.  He sits down with the National Security Council in our White House and has the guts to demand that we release one of the worst, most violent terrorists that we have behind bars.  He wants us to let him out of prison, to let him go free, the guy who was the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the blind sheikh.

GLENN:  So let's ‑‑

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  And you don't hear a peep about this.

GLENN:  No, of course not.  Let me ‑‑ let me take you here because one of the more controversial things is you say Anthony Weiner's wife will is ‑‑ has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Now, this is important because she works for Hillary Clinton.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  She is the chief aid for the ‑‑ to the Secretary of State, and we quoted from a document, and this has been well reported all across Arab media, that her father ‑‑ her late father who's now deceased was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Her brother was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and her mother was a part of what's called the Muslim Sisterhood.  It would be, we have requirements to get a high level security clearance.  One thing that the government looks at are your associations, and in particular your family associations.  And this applies to everyone.  It would be the same that is true with me.  If my family members were associated with Hamas, a terrorist organization, that alone could be sufficient to disqualify me from getting a security clearance.  So all we did is ask, did the federal government look into her family associations before she got a high level security clearance.

GLENN:  And it's not an unreasonable thing to ask seeing that this president and this administration has ‑‑ didn't know ‑‑ apparently didn't know that Van Jones was the founding ‑‑ one of the founding members of a radical revolutionary, anti‑American, Communist organization, and he's in the White House.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.  That's right, and it's not ‑‑

GLENN:  So something is ‑‑ somebody's dropping the ball some place, or somebody knows.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.  And somebody has been dropping the ball since the beginning of the Obama administration.  And this isn't intent to be partisan or out to get the president.  I mean, quite honestly on the intelligence committee I'm happy to report we are the most bipartisan committee I've ever been a part of, and with all of these unprecedented leaks that have been coming out from our federal government, all of which, by the way, undermine Israel, and Israel's ability to defend herself against a nuclear Iran, we are with one voice, Democrat and Republican, outraged by these leaks that are coming out of the administration.  Never before in the history of the country have we seen this level of leaks coming out, but at the same time there's also a parallel track of influence from the Muslim Brotherhood in the highest levels of the federal government, and we think that we need to get answers to these questions.  And that's the purpose of our letters.  We're asking that the inspectors general answer these questions, and Keith Ellison is trying to shut this, these questions down from getting addressed.

GLENN:  I'm really tight on time and I want to hit a couple of other things.  Stu's got ‑‑ Stu's been going over all of this information, and he's got one question for you.

STU:  Well, I see here that you did like, too, the actual military document that talks about what is a potentially disqualifying condition for security clearance.  It says, quote:  Contact with a foreign family member, if that contact creates a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure or coercion.  Then goes on to say the subject's closest and most frequent contacts are the ones most likely to present a security risk.  And you're talking about both her father, who's now deceased, her mother and her brother.  So I think the media seems to be holding you to this standard that you have to have this case completely proven when it seems like what you're saying is, is there a legitimate process question:  Are they actually asking these questions before handing out these clearances.

GLENN:  Right.  This has been ‑‑ I mean, your links and your footnotes ‑‑ and they're down, by the way.  I don't know if you know that, Michele.  But the Al‑Jazeera links that you put in and you said, here, go link ‑‑ go find the story on Al‑Jazeera.  We can't get to them this morning.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Oh, really?

GLENN:  Oh, yeah.  We're going to need ‑‑

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Gosh.  Maybe we can go ‑‑ maybe we can go in the past and dig them up so that we can resurrect them.

GLENN:  Yeah, we're going to have to get them because they've either been scrubbed or they're being hammered, you know, by so much traffic which I highly doubt.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Heavens.

GLENN:  So that's ‑‑ I mean, you have links showing that in Al‑Jazeera's own coverage.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Well, these links were up as of last Friday.

GLENN:  Yeah, well, they're not ‑‑

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  I wrote the letter and we got it out by midnight last Friday night and the links were up last Friday.  So they've taken them down.  Gee.

GLENN:  I will tell you that that's not unusual.  As we've followed these stories like this, that's really not unusual anymore.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's even more reason why we should be looking into this.

GLENN:  Yeah.  Let me just say this to you and then one more quick question.  I just wrote a letter to the president of my company for The Blaze and he's in charge of all content.  He's kind of our news, you know, our uber news director, if you will, he's the president of content.  And I just said we know the truth on this story.  We've had this for a while.  I do not want this company to sit down on this.  So we are going to cover this and continue to cover this to make sure that people hear this story because, Michele, you guys are absolutely right and it is a matter of national survival.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.

GLENN:  Let me ask you ‑‑

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  National security.

GLENN:  Let me ask you one quick question.  John McCain and all of the elephant media are falling right in line with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Bullcrap.  What did John McCain do yesterday?

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  He went on the Senate floor and he gave a spirited defense of Huma Abedin, who is a friend of his.  And so that's what he did and I think ‑‑

GLENN:  But you're not saying that she is compromised?  You're saying have we looked into this, right?

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  That's right.  That's all we're saying because we did not infer that she is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or that she's working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

GLENN:  Right.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Our point was regarding the security clearance.

GLENN:  Right.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  And did she have to go through the same sort of process that anyone else has to go to.  Did they check the boxes.  Because if the State Department breaks American law to bring a terrorist into the White House, a member of a terrorist organization, it certainly is conceivable that maybe they looked the other way on issuing the security clearance.  That's all we're doing is asking a question.

GLENN:  I have to tell you, we're at war.  We're at war with people in the Middle East, and her ‑‑ she's compromised ‑‑ forget about the Muslim thing.  She's compromised or could have been compromised.  Her husband was sending dirty photos of himself.  I mean, you know, in a wartime, you would never put that person in a delicate situation because the family has already been compromised.  But I digress.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  Well, and ‑‑

GLENN:  Thank you very much.  Go ahead.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN:  I was just going to say the Muslim Brotherhood elements have declared war against the United States.

GLENN:  All right.

CONGRESSWOMAN BACHMANN: ‑‑ and Israel.  And we need to recognize that they are at war, even if we don't fully, are onto this.  And we've got to, but I thank you and everyone at The Blaze for taking this on because the media has a completely different view of it.  So thank you.

GLENN:  Well, they're always ‑‑ they're almost always wrong, especially when it comes to these things.  Michele, thank you very much and keep up the fight.  Never sit down.  We've got your back.

EXPOSED: Why Eisenhower warned us about endless wars

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Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

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Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Unveiling the Deep State: From surveillance to censorship

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From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

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Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

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Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.