THIS is one of the best Glenn monologues of the year!

Check out behind-the-scenes photos from the show HERE.

I’m telling you, we’re living in an America that I’ve never seen before.  It’s an upside-down world.  Remember, somebody said that a few years back, you won’t understand the world.  One day, you’ll wake up, and the whole country has changed.

That’s it.  It’s almost like we’re in a movie, and I just want to go home.  Don’t you wish we had like little ruby slippers we could like there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home?  I’m telling you, the flying monkeys are coming.

I was thinking about, because this is what I do, this is what I do for a living, I think about things like The Wizard of Oz.  That’s the way I roll.  And I was thinking about Dorothy.  Wasn’t she just glam?  And I was thinking, you know, Dorothy has this little problem of this little yappy dog.  I hate these dogs, the kinds that are always like yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, and they’re as big as your foot, and yet you can’t kick them.  That would be wrong.

Well, the old lady down the street wants to take the little yappy dog because it bit her, and the woman deserved to be bitten.  It’s the only time I look at the little yappy dog, and I’m like, “Good dog, good dog.”  You’re plastic.  What’s wrong?  What’s up with that?

Anyway, so the lady wants to take, and so Dorothy, what does Dorothy do?  She puts it in the little basket where I keep all my little yappy dogs, and she’s like I’ve got to run away to the circus.  And so she runs into the circus trying to find somebody who will give her hope and change, but then the storm comes – oh, there’s a storm in this one too and it’s really bad?  Let’s sing about it – somewhere over the rainbow.

Okay?  In the end, we find out that the whole thing’s a total sham, okay?  When she goes, because I think like she gets in a house, and then a house falls on her or the house falls on a witch or her sister.  Here, the house falls on like two little feet.  It’s like the ruby slippers, the ruby slippers, get the ruby slippers, and then she comes over and she’s like I’ve got to put the ruby slippers on.

Oh, I don’t know why I’m doing it, except it’ll be really agonizing to run down the stupid brick road with these ruby slippers.  I mean, who wears heels in a place like this?  Anyway, can’t we have some comfortable shoes.

So what happens?  The witch comes – I’ll get you, my pretty.  But just in time, this one comes, and you think wait a minute, she’s a witch?  She can’t be a witch.  She’s too beautiful.  Yeah, this is what a witch is supposed to look like.  And so what does she do?  Remember, she takes Dorothy and her little dog – and your little dog too – and she goes into the castle, and she’s sitting there at one point with that big huge, you know the big huge globe, and she’s like puppies, puppies, puppies.

And she’s in the zzzzzzzz and even Toto’s zzzzzzzzyeah, sleep, sleep.  What’s she doing?  She’s watching everything, right?  She’s monitoring.  She’s harassing.  Ooh, she’s scary.  Meanwhile, I just want to go home.  I’m so sleepy.  I forgot to tell you some of the people that she meets along the way, people that keep promising I’m going to help you, some of them are well-intentioned, but they’re all deeply flawed, even this one, the “good witch.”  Really?

What is the good which doing to Dorothy?  Oh Dorothy, all you have to do is wear the ruby slippers and then just go for a long, long, long, long walk.  Somebody’s going to set you on fire.  Dorothy just wants to go home.  She can help her, but she wants her enemies defeated, and she knows she can do it.  She can’t, but she can.  Got it?

Go see the Wizard.  Who’s the Wizard?  He’s the answer?  When you get there, you’re like this guy is a loser.  He’s corrupt.  He presents himself as a loving and kind man just wanting to help, but he’s a complete phony in the end who actually sends Dorothy out into danger.  Why?  Because he too wants to kill her.

All you have to do, come back!  All you have to do is bring me the broomstick.  What?  Why don’t you do it?  He doesn’t care about Dorothy.  He’s being selfish and ruthless.  The only difference between the two is eventually the Wizard admits it.  In the end, the Wizard says I don’t really have any power.  I’ve got a bunch of crap in a closet.  That’s all I’ve got.

And he says I can’t take you home.  Oh, that’s when she reveals in the end oh, you know what, you actually had the power the whole time.  That’s when if I were Dorothy, I would have – but she doesn’t.  She’s like really, what do I have to do?  Oh, just bear down, focus for a minute, and will yourself there – there’s no place like home, there’s no place like homeAnd you and you and you were there.  The end.

Now, why am I telling you the story of The Wizard of Oz?  Well, let me take you through some of the characters again.  Who’s Dorothy?  Dorothy is us, the American people.  Dorothy is the one who has a little problem, got a little yappy dog, but I love the yappy dog.  I love her.  But you’re not taking care of him.  You’re not paying attention, something else as it’s biting people.  Oh yeah, but I love it.

So what we do because somebody’s like hey, there are some things you have to do?  What do you do?  You run, you run away, and you run to somebody offering hope and change at a carnival.  That’s not going to work out well.  And then when we run home, it’s too late because the house is about to be sucked up with you in it, a little too late.

So once it gets too late, then you have somebody up here going ah, puppies, watching you the whole time.  Who’s this?  NSA, is that you?  Government regulators, is that you?  The IRS, ObamaCare, is that you?  Ah, puppies, puppies, yes, it is.

Gee, if Dorothy would’ve paid attention a little earlier, maybe this one wouldn’t have had happened.

So what does she do?  She gets advice from this one.

But why won’t this one actually take care of the problem?  Why won’t this one just tell her hey, you know what, you could go home.  I am a bad witch in the end because you could go home right now, but I’m going to send you on this really, really nasty, nasty adventure.

She could’ve done it, but she didn’t, because she wanted her enemies defeated.  Gee, is there anybody that’s like that that could stop things but really doesn’t because he’s got some people he wants taken out?  Bingo, Mitch McConnell.  Now, who’s the Wizard?  Well, we keep going to the Wizard right?  Everybody says go to the Wizard because he has all of the answers.  Boom, Karl Rove, is that you.  Uh huh.

Now, along the way we meet a couple of other dopes, somebody who’s like I don’t know which way to go, I’m Lindsey Graham, I have no idea which way to go, the Scarecrow.  Then, of course, you have the Tin Man, the old broken-down rusty machine, John McCain.  And if you don’t think John McCain will take an axe to you if somebody oils him up, you can’t see John McCain going oh, oil my arms, oil my arms?

Yeah, he would, and then he’d cut you up into little pieces with his axe.  And he’s an old rusted piece of crap from the last century left in the woods.  Don’t oil him.  Oil my arms – don’t do it.

And the Cowardly Lion, somebody who says I’m going to help you, yeah, I’m going to help you lots, and then soon as trouble starts up – John Boehner? – doesn’t do jack.  I was afraid.  I was afraid.  Look, here’s the thing, puppies, this is real – puppies, puppies.  May I suggest you get your little dog too and your little ruby slippers, okay?

I mean, I would like to wake up from this dream.  I’d like to be able to say I had a crazy dream, and there was this guy who was the president and the NSA and the drones and then all that stuff.  I’d like to be able to say and you were there and you and you and you.  Sure, when we wake up, our world won’t be quite as colorful.  It’ll be black and white and more of a sepia tone.

It won’t be as exciting, of course, but at least it will make sense.  At least it’ll have everything in it that is meaningful.  In the end, all of these things that you were looking for, all these people that you were saying oh gee, they’re going to have the answers, remember, they’re only circus people or hired hands.  You have to dig deep and just say there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

Labor Day began as a political payoff to Socialist agitators

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

During your time off this holiday, remember the man who started it: Peter J. McGuire, a racist Marxist who co-founded America’s first socialist party.

Labor Day didn’t begin as a noble tribute to American workers. It began as a negotiation with ideological terrorists.

In the late 1800s, factory and mine conditions were brutal. Workers endured 12-to-15-hour days, often seven days a week, in filthy, dangerous environments. Wages were low, injuries went uncompensated, and benefits didn’t exist. Out of desperation, Americans turned to labor unions. Basic protections had to be fought for because none were guaranteed.

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

That era marked a seismic shift — much like today. The Industrial Revolution, like our current digital and political upheaval, left millions behind. And wherever people get left behind, Marxists see an opening.

A revolutionary wedge

This was Marxism’s moment.

Economic suffering created fertile ground for revolutionary agitation. Marxists, socialists, and anarchists stepped in to stoke class resentment. Their goal was to turn the downtrodden into a revolutionary class, tear down the existing system, and redistribute wealth by force.

Among the most influential agitators was Peter J. McGuire, a devout Irish Marxist from New York. In 1874, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workingmens Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. He was also a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, which would become the most powerful union in America.

McGuire’s mission wasn’t hidden. He wanted to transform the U.S. into a socialist nation through labor unions.

That mission soon found a useful symbol.

In the 1880s, labor leaders in Toronto invited McGuire to attend their annual labor festival. Inspired, he returned to New York and launched a similar parade on Sept. 5 — chosen because it fell halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

The first parade drew over 30,000 marchers who skipped work to hear speeches about eight-hour workdays and the alleged promise of Marxism. The parade caught on across the country.

Negotiating with radicals

By 1894, Labor Day had been adopted by 30 states. But the federal government had yet to make it a national holiday. A major strike changed everything.

In Pullman, Illinois, home of the Pullman railroad car company, tensions exploded. The economy tanked. George Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages for those who remained — yet refused to lower the rent on company-owned homes.

That injustice opened the door for Marxist agitators to mobilize.

Sympathetic railroad workers joined the strike. Riots broke out. Hundreds of railcars were torched. Mail service was disrupted. The nation’s rail system ground to a halt.

President Grover Cleveland — under pressure in a midterm election year — panicked. He sent 12,000 federal troops to Chicago. Two strikers were killed in the resulting clashes.

With the crisis spiraling and Democrats desperate to avoid political fallout, Cleveland struck a deal. Within six days of breaking the strike, Congress rushed through legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.

It was the first of many concessions Democrats would make to organized labor in exchange for political power.

What we really celebrated

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

Kean Collection / Staff | Getty Images

What we celebrated was a Canadian idea, brought to America by the founder of the American Socialist Party, endorsed by racially exclusionary unions, and made law by a president and Congress eager to save face.

It was the first of many bones thrown by the Democratic Party to union power brokers. And it marked the beginning of a long, costly compromise with ideologues who wanted to dismantle the American way of life — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Hunter laptop, Steele dossier—Same players, same playbook?

ullstein bild Dtl. / Contributor | Getty Images

The Durham annex and ODNI report documents expose a vast network of funders and fixers — from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to the Pentagon.

In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network's architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

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.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

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.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

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.