Glenn: Here's the truth on Benghazi

Tonight I want to cover two scandals and in these two scandals – Benghazi and the IRS – remember that timing is everything. Just last week, it was a week ago Saturday, the president was speaking to graduating students and of all of the messages that he could deliver to people, here’s the one he thought was the important message.

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President Obama Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.

This is one of the most incredible things. Okay, I can’t take his voice anymore. To actually hear this guy, this is exactly the opposite of George Washington, this is the opposite of Kennedy, for the love of Pete. No president ever says Don’t worry about government tyranny. Are you kidding me? That’s what has made us America and it is something really bizarre for the most powerful man on the planet to say. It kind of wreaks of Hey, here’s my license and registration, Officer. And by the way, there’s nothing absolutely of interest in the trunk, so you shouldn’t look.

The definition of Tyranny: “Cruel or oppressive government rule.” Oppressive Rule: “The unjust exercise of authority.” Now, what would that mean, “the unjust exercise of authority”? Well, you’re looking for tyranny, I don’t have to explain it. Let me have the guys this morning on MSNBC explain it.

VIDEO – Morning Joe Show MSNBC

Man: One other point to make, there’s been many overblown claims of tyranny and abuse of power from the government over the last few years. We’ve had those, “we’re coming for your guns,” that kind of thing. This is tyranny.

Man: This is.

Man: If this is a government, a non-partisan agency coming after specific groups, this time it’s real.

This time, this time it’s real. I hope “this time” it’s not too late. We’re going to get to the IRS scandal here in a minute, but we need to lead with the thing that I think, I hope, or I think the people in the administration are hoping will just go away, because I hope all of the people in Washington are terrified of the news media actually on this story – Benghazi.

Why would they be terrified? Well, because of the one thing that no one really is reporting on yet and it is the truth, what’s really going on with Benghazi. The government is running guns and aid to our enemies: the Muslim Brotherhood, they go into the hands of al Qaeda, other Islamic radical groups and what they’re doing is fomenting revolutionary democracy. They’re running guns.

Ambassador Stevens was the point man for the exchange of guns. When it comes to what happened on September 11, they had forewarning. It came under attack by terrorists. The administration knew it, they watched it happen in real-time, they stopped the military from intervening and they are covering up and have done so by validating the radical Islamist excuse of Islamophobia in an attempt for sympathy and leniency on their murderous attacks. The Pentagon, the CIA, the White House and the State Department, they’re all involved.

And the scariest part is, it continues today. No one will speak out about this yet, but it’s coming. I believe this to be the worst scandal and worst cover up in our nation’s history and we’ve had some bad, bad scandals. The president wants you to look away from this, but we mustn’t as a country. If we don’t solve this problem this time around, God help us, because the administration will be completely out of control.

On September 11, 2012, the president was informed of an ongoing attack in Benghazi. He then decided, strangely, to announce to the world two days later that he just turned in for the night and he said You just tell me what happens in the morning. That should have been the media’s first red flag. Wait a minute, the guy is running for reelection, in the middle of a campaign, there’s an ambassador that’s killed, why would he come out and say Yeah, I was a little sleepy. I went to sleep. They were protecting him. They’re saying, Mr. President, if this ever gets out, you couldn’t be in the room. That was the first red flag, but let’s review on what they said.

First of all, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and the president said that the best intelligence suggested that Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous protest gone bad.

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Hillary Clinton: We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.

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Susan Rice: What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous, uh, reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, uh, which were prompted, of course, by the video.

VIDEO – Face the Nation

Susan Rice: It began spontaneously in Benghazi uh 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.

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Jay Carney: We saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack. That it was, we saw evidence that it was sparked by uh the reaction to this video.

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President Obama: This was a crude and disgusting video that sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.

This is a really important time. This September 25, really important time, because the president said today, he said he released somebody to go up to Capitol Hill and say it was an attack. Yet two or three days later, he said this, so which is it, Mr. President? It’s only getting worse for them. Every day that goes by, the more they’re on the record, the worse it gets.

They said there was no indication that what happened in Libya was terrorism.

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Jay Carney: I’m simply saying that based on the information of what we initially had available and have available, we do not have any indication at this point of premeditation or preplanned attacks.

Okay, here’s the truth – No protest ever took place.

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Congressman Trey Gowdy: When Ambassador Stevens talked to you, perhaps minutes before he died, as a dying declaration, what precisely did he say to you?

Greg Hicks: He said, “Greg, we’re under attack.”

Congressman Trey Gowdy: Would a highly decorated, career diplomat have told you or Washington had there been a demonstration outside his facility that day?

Greg Hicks: Yes, sir, he would have.

Congressman Trey Gowdy: Did he mention one word about a protest or a demonstration?

Greg Hicks: No, sir. He did not.

No intelligence report, phone call, evidence or anything ever suggested otherwise. In fact, every report from the ground indicated this was clearly a coordinated terror attack planned by a group – not an act of terror by angry protestors. When caught in that lie, the White House tried to shuffle the blame on to the CIA saying the Benghazi talking points that blamed the video were put together by the Intelligence community.

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Jay Carney: Those talking points originated from the Intelligence community. They reflected the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened.

Right. Here’s the truth. There was an extensive amount of input from the State Department, specifically Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson concerning the edits.

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Reporter: I have obtained 12 different versions of those talking points that shows that they were dramatically edited by the administration.

Dramatically. Jay Carney said the administration made one change to the talking points – one.

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Jay Carney: And the only edit made by the White House or the State Department to those talking points generated by the CIA was a change from uh, referring to the, the facility that was attacked in Benghazi from “consulate,” because it was not a consulate, to “diplomatic post.” I think I had referred to it as a diplomatic facility, I think it may have been diplomatic post.

That is incredibly specific. But here’s the truth, there were 12 major revisions that went beyond stylistic. Jay Carney said the edits didn’t change the substance of the talking points.

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Jay Carney: But the point being, it was a matter of uh, uh, non-substantive, factual correction.

Right. Anybody watch, anybody watch last week? Buck Sexton was on and he had it all on the chalkboard, all of the changes. The truth is, the State Department edits deleted all reference to the al-Qaeda affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia as well as references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack. The edits prove the administration knew from day one that this was a planned terror attack and specifically went out of their way to provide cover for the terror groups involved in the attack.

Why? And then why would you instead direct the blame on America and American freedom and a filmmaker? It proves that Hillary Clinton lied in the face of families of the fallen Americans while she gave that speech when she said, “We are going to do everything we can to make sure that the guy who made this video goes to jail.” And they put him in jail. Hillary Clinton also said there was no advanced intelligence that warned of an attack.

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Hillary Clinton: And with all of our missions overseas in advance of September 11th, as is done every year, we did an evaluation on threat streams. And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said we had no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent.

Key word – actionable. I’ll get to that in a second, but here’s the truth. September 8th, three days before the attack, a local security official met with American diplomats in the city and he warned them about the deteriorating security. He told the U.S. officials, “The situation is frightening. It scares us….” And Gregory Hicks said this.

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Greg Hicks: In Bahrain, my Shia opposition contacts gave me advanced warning of impending attacks on our embassy and anti-American demonstrations, allowing us to prepare and avoid injuries to staff.

Okay. We received a quote from one our sources, “Everyone in the Intelligence community knew this attack was coming.” This bolsters Hicks’ account and further proves Hillary Clinton was lying when she said there was no advanced intelligence or warning of any pending attacks. However, she used “actionable.”

Well, if you want to excuse her by using the word “actionable,” then we have to know the answer to this question: why were you confused, why did you swear you were going to arrest a filmmaker, because you did have intelligence. Maybe it wasn’t actionable at the time, but once it broke, you knew.

Just a few hours ago, about noon, the president again talked about the video. Here’s what he said today.

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President Obama: Immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had been, uh, how it had occurred, what the motivations were. It happened at the same time as we had seen uh, attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film.

Unbelievable. But here’s the truth, there was no protest in Benghazi. It was an attack. The protests in Egypt weren’t about the video either. He’s lying again. We know that the 9/12 Egypt protests were about the imprisonment of the Blind Sheik; a terrorist serving a life sentence in the States for his role in the ’93 World Trade Center bombings. So he’s making this up yet again!

No one even knew this video existed. There were no media reports prior to September 11, 2012. It had virtually no views. People weren’t even motivated to email it, let alone protest and kill somebody over it. It is a mountain of lies.

Let me give you a flashback from the debates.

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President Obama: And the suggestion that anybody on my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. Ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive.

Oh, well, I want the president to know, I’m not only suggesting it, I’m declaring it and I agree, it is offensive. It’s sick. And so why would this administration do it and then lie? Well, a few reasons. One, it fits with their political correctness theme; their embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals. It also provides political cover for the administration’s lie that al-Qaeda was defeated.

But it goes deeper than that, and this is the one thing that you’re not going to get the Republicans to talk about either. And believe me, believe me, at the highest levels, they know. It goes back to the original theory that we broadcast here on this network just a few days after Libya, and on Friday Geraldo Rivera reported on that very thing, about what we talked about days after Benghazi he said he’s now hearing from his sources – arming the Syrian rebels. Watch.

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Geraldo Rivera: I believe and my sources tell me they were there to round up those shoulder-fire surface to air missiles, they were going to hand those missiles over to the Turks and the Turks were going to give them to the rebels in Syria. It was like Iran Contra. I think that it merits gigantic investigations. It will all become clear—

Okay, this is really interesting, because FOX News should either discredit Gerald Rivera and make it clear that his sources were wrong, or they should follow that story up. We made the same prediction on September 17th. We’re a scrappy little media group. I don’t have the global resources of Fox or ABC or CBS, but we’re still breaking ground on this story.

Why is it the big networks, with all of those resources have nothing? Well, actually they do. CBS News has spiked a couple of stories on this. Yet, the problem is, is that the head of CBS News, he has a brother and his brother happens to be the guy who changed all the talking points on Benghazi – David Rhodes. Now this is the head of ABC. This is Ben Sherwood. I actually like the guy. He’s a friend, but he’s wrong here. Give him credit, they did break the story on Friday and they were the ones that broke the damn, but his brother is President Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, no, that’s this person. Ben’s is his sister. His sister is Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood. She is the Special Assistant to the President. And then you have Jay Carney. Well, Jay Carney is married to somebody, she just happens to be the Senior National Correspondent, Claire Shipman.

Let’s see, CBS, ABC, NBC. Hello! NBC spiked the story this weekend – Gregory Hicks, the whistleblower – they spiked it. The story is a Democrat, a Democrat that voted for Hillary Clinton. But NBC didn’t think that that was important. Maybe the president mocked the idea of tyranny lurking around the corner, because it’s not around the corner. It’s already here. It’s not only here with Benghazi, it is also here with the IRS. And please, Dear God, pray that your neighbors open their eyes, because the IRS becomes the healthcare enforcer in just a few months. And we’ll show you what the press has finally recognized that the IRS has been doing for the last couple of years, next.

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.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

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.