Should we be shielding our kids from what is happening in the world?

Every time you tune into the news, you can see evil working its way into the world. Whether it be ISIS beheading journalists in the Middle East or kids bullying an autistic teen in Ohio, darkness seems to be covering the world. But you can do something about it, starting by having honest conversations with your kids. They are growing up in a safety bubble, and we shouldn't shield them from the horrors in the world.

Below is a transcript of Glenn's opening monologue

Tonight, I want to start here though on kind of a conversation that I would like to start to have with you over a longer period of time, and that is this, I really think that we all basically are the same inside. We might vote differently. We might, you know, like different colors, whatever, but we all want the freedom to choose. We want the choice of our own path in life. We want the freedom to speak out. We want the freedom and the respect that our voice is being heard without fear of any kind of persecution or repercussion, at least when it comes to the government.

We want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We want to see a grander vision and build that, mainly for our kids because we want our kids to have it better than we did growing up. There is a ton of noise that gets between all of us, and it suggests otherwise, but I believe it’s true, that we can disagree on a ton of things, and those disagreements are often really very real, but when it all comes down to it and the dust settles, we have more in common than not.

In the days and the weeks ahead, we’re going to be trying to find people who really get that. We might disagree on really big things, but it’s important that we find the things we do agree on. Tomorrow, I’m going to be talking to a guy who I think is one of the more interesting people alive today. I’ve not met him yet. I’ve had him on the show I think once before. His name is Andrew W.K.

He is a rock star. He is a guy who I think writes for the Village Voice. And I’ve read his articles. I agree with this guy. I think he may be one of the most important voices in America today, and I want you to meet him. We’re going to have a fascinating conversation with him. That’s tomorrow night. He’s trying to unite us on the big stuff, and that’s what we have to do.

Now, is that going to help or hurt? Because a lot of people are like you can’t even talk to anybody. No, and by saying that I want my kids to not have the same kind of fears and worries that I had as a kid, is that help or hurt? I don’t know about you, but do you remember when we were kids, and we had this, you know, war, this Cold War, with the Soviet Union. That was really scary, right? I thought we were going to be vaporized. I can’t tell you how many nights I had nightmares as a little kid because that’s all you saw on television. Well, think about what our kids are seeing on television now.

Now, conversations like this may hit close to home, but I think that’s what TheBlaze is really all about. TheBlaze is a place to where we want to be able to challenge and question everything, everything that we’re doing as a parent, everything that we’re doing as people, but that challenge might just affirm the path that you’re on as well.

The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous and dark, dark place, and you know it. You just watch it. I think that’s why people are not watching news the way they used to, because they don’t know what to do about it. They feel helpless. There is no perspective, and when you see something like ISIS and everything else that’s going on, you think to yourself, “What am I going to do about it?”

You don’t have to look overseas to see evil, either. In Ohio, this is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever seen, an autistic child was tricked into doing the ice bucket challenge, and some of his “friends” dumped feces and urine on him instead. In Seattle, a wheelchair-bound couple had their computer stolen by a pair of thieves while they were at the mall. There is evil everywhere. It’s there. So what are we going to do about it?

Well, I don’t think there’s a better time than right now to first self-examine and honestly ask ourselves, “What are we teaching our kids?” Are we teaching them the things that they will need to be prepared to make sense of the world that they’re going to inherit and then change it for the better or are we just sheltering them so they can save their childhood and then send them off into battle completely naked, woefully ill-informed, and armed with only a phone full of selfies?

We mean well, but in our quest to make things better, we’re probably disabling our children, and we’re shielding them from reality or we think we’re shielding them from reality. I don’t think you can anymore. The things that we saw on TV, our parents kind of monitored. If they walked away from the room, we could change the channel, but there were only three channels.

Now, things are happening, and people have cell phones everywhere. It’s happening, it’s happening live. Anywhere from the greatest of the greats to pornography is happening all around our children in the schools, everywhere. We’ve worked hard to afford suburbia and give them the things that we didn’t have, often times at the expense of our own presence, and then we try to make up with things or we make up or we’re tired.

This is mine. I’m so tired at the end of the day, I’m just like, “Whatever, that’s good. You know what, honey, just go ahead.” No. We prop them up with false compliments. We give them these fake trophies for participation. We don’t discipline. We don’t train them for a life in a broken and a very harsh world. Instead, we try to protect them from it. We’ve shielded their eyes.

You know me well enough to know that I don’t claim to have any answers. I don’t, especially when it comes to parenting. Anybody who says they’re, you know, I’m a parent, and I’ve figured it all out, you’re a liar. As a father of four, I can confidently tell you I am fumbling my way through it. I think I’m getting better, but make no mistake, raising and leading a family, mom or dad doesn’t matter, most important job and the hardest job there is.

But that I think is why we have to have an honest conversation. We have to have this conversation with each other because I don’t know, you’re like me, my wife and I, we sit in bed at night, and we will look at somebody else’s, our friends’ Facebook pages. And we see their put-together life, and it’s not our life. And we have a pretty sweet life, but our kids are, you know, messy and complaining and everything else, and so we look at this, and we say, “How do they do it? How do they do it?”

We can’t figure it out. And then we post all of our perfect moments on Facebook, and our friends are going, “Look at the Becks. How are they doing it?” The deal is none of us are doing it, none of us. And the things that we’re dealing with now have never been dealt before in all of human history. There is no detailed manual on what to do with kids, let alone kids with this kind of technology.

Never before has mankind seen this. With so much information out our own fingertips, what do I show my kids? What do I not show my kids? How do I keep my kids away from finding it on their own? Do I let them see the scary parts of movies? And what is even scary? What was scary is so far beyond what is scary now. What about video games? Do I tell them the truth about what’s happening to children in the Middle East?

You want to talk about nightmares, they’re teaching their children to hate and kill and to behead people. Do I teach them that? Do I show them that? Are they going to see that on their cell phone in grade school? This week is the anniversary of 9/11. A lot of us didn’t even show our kids the horrors of that day. Think about this, the kids born after 9/11 are now reaching their teenage years. That is incredible.

I will never even forget the smell of that day. Our kids weren’t living during that time. We saw evil rain down. We felt it. There was no mistaking it. Now we don’t even show the planes hitting the towers. It’s too scary. It’s too disturbing. If we don’t show them the truth, an entire generation is going to rise up blissfully unaware of what awaits them.

They didn’t feel the terror the morning of 9/11 when one plane hit, and we all said, “That’s a small plane. That has to be a small plane. That was just an accident. Maybe he had a heart attack.” And then another and then another, and then we all said, “How many do they have? Where are they going to hit next? Is this going to go on all day? Are suicide bombers going to be on the streets? Are they going to be in the malls? Is our country over today? Do you remember having that feeling, is our country over today?

Damn right, we were scared, because even though we didn’t know who Osama bin Laden was, even though we were all like who’s doing this to us?, we understood how fragile, just that day, how fragile this whole thing is. Our kids don’t know that, because it’s not. It’s bailouts. Everything is fine. There’s no mistakes. There’s nothing that can ever hurt you.

When our kids get old enough to understand the Muslim Brotherhood and that it’s a legitimate organization and that their real designs…when they get old enough to understand that ISIS is not a jayvee squad, they’ve got an eye-opening experience for them. Heck with our kids, half our population doesn’t even know that. We’re living in denial, and in our quest to give our children better, in our quest to make sure that our kids don’t have the nightmares that we had, they’re growing up in a safety bubble that doesn’t exist, and it’s not working out.

Do they really have it better than we did? Do they really have it better than our grandparents did when they were growing up in the Depression? Are we helping or are we hurting?

So what do you do?

Glenn invited Dr. James Dobson onto the show to explain how you can have conversations with your kids about what is happening in the world:

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

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By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.