Glenn’s one day only Comprehensive Midterm Coverage: Ben Sasse

October 27, 2014

Writer

As you may have noticed, Glenn has been increasingly focusing outside of Washington, DC for solutions. Yes, elections are still important, but the primary battleground is at home and in the culture. That said, it remains vital to elect good people to represent us in DC.

First off, we're introducing you to Ben Sasse, a Tea Party favorite who is running for a vacant Senate seat in Nebraska. Glenn has interviewed Ben Sasse on the program before, and it was on the radio show that Sasse's primary opponent Shane Osborne revealed his relationship with progressive Republican Grover Norquist.

Watch the interview below:

We have Ben Sasse now from Nebraska, running for an open senate seat. He's dirt strong, a constitutionalist. If the GOP wouldn't have destroyed all the other constitutionalists, we would have had more races like this one, I believe. He's now up 20 points. They are not taking polls anymore. It's like why waste the money on the polls. Ben is with us now. How are you?

SASSE: Hi, Glenn. Good to be on. Hope my wife isn't listening because when you refer to me as something to get out of the system she will call and say amen.

GLENN: How are you doing as a family? You never know. It all depends on who goes out to vote. If everyone thinks you are going to win, they may not go out and vote, but the idea of now being the guy going in to the lion's den, how is it sitting with you and the family?

SASSE: We have been blessed this year. We are nearly out of our voices, having lived 13 Mondays out of the campaign bus, so we are tired, but we have had a blast. Our kids, are 13, 10 and 3 and they have gotten to see every nook and cranny of 93 counties in the state but also subsector of agriculture and they have -- it's been an encouraging learning experience for us, so we are doing really well.

GLENN: How's that affected the kids?

SASSE: We live a mile from where I grew up in the eastern part of the state. Nebraska knows that's the row crapping part of the state, corn field, bean fields. Central America Nebraska is becoming cattle country. Nebraska is the largest cattle state now, and my 13-year-old daughter jokes that we spent so much time with ranchers this year, she could deliver a breach calf.

GLENN: The president needs to fill Eric Holder's spot. He nominates someone you think is qualified, but not someone you think believes in the Constitution. Do you vote to confirm, seeing your duty as simple advise and consent or do you vote against someone you don't feel as qualified to be the chief law enforcement officer in the land?

SASSE: The oath of office is to uphold and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. So if your hypothetical someone who doesn't believe in the Constitution as actually written is not the right guy to be enforcing the laws. We need a Constitutional recovery in this country. We only have, according to recent poll, 36% of the elect rat even knows we have three branches of government. We have a crisis. The founders wouldn't think we could exist in that vacuum. We need every moment possible to help hour folks understand what the glory the Constitutional system is, so we need to pass it on.

GLENN: Another hypothetical. You are in the senate and the president is pressuring these states to not take and quarantine Ebola victims. This is happening now. You believe that hypothetically speaking, we should stop the air travel even from West Africa, not necessarily to, but from West Africa, without a quarantine. What do you do?

SASSE: I think there are two different parts of that. The first one is we are fortunate to have a federalist system where you have layers of government, so we don't want in the American system to consolidate power at this distant place called Washington, D.C. Washington exists for a limited number of things. There are really important duties, but they are enumerated. So most decisions, wherever possible, should be made at the state and local level. If governors and mayors think a quarantine is in order, they are closest to their people and know the circumstances. So we'd want to respond to the lowest levering of government where possible.

Obviously, on something like a public health pandemic crisis, isn't contained inside some geographic border, so Washington has important responsibilities. Right now the administration can't explain with any clarity why they are opposed to a hiatus and pause on granting new visas from the three most affected countries. It is really bizarre.

Your hypothetical lays out the distinction between travel from and travel to. One someone asks why would we grant new visa, when we don't understand what's happen October ground in Liberia, why risk the pandemic coming here. And the administration responds with this bizarre kind of "run out the clock" by pontificating about how you don't want to solve the problem. The best way to solve the problem is on the ground, closest to the point of origin, so that's in Liberia, the U.S., particularly through the CDC has important responsibilities, and we should deploy folks, public and private sector, to Liberia, but the administration doesn't answer with any coherence.

GLENN: Next hypothetical. Baghdad falls. We have the largest embassy, larger than the Vatican, the largest embassy in the world cost us --

PAT: I think several billion.

GLENN: Hundreds of billions. Maybe three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Most expensive. It's bigger than the mall in Washington D.C., bigger than Vatican City. It's own country.

STU: Real estate in Iraq can't be that expensive.

GLENN: Spent at lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of bloodshed --

STU: $1 billion, by the way. That's a lot of money.

SASSE: It's early Monday morning. Who's going to argue about three more decimal places?

GLENN: So we spent money, time and treasure. We are days perhaps within the fall of Baghdad. What do you do in the Senate?

SASSE: I'm not duck your question, but I think your crisis is a lot bigger than that, so I'll back up one step. I think the crisis is we don't have any coherence about what the medium and long-term U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives are in the Middle East. When you travel all day on a bus, as we have been doing for months, talking to Nebraskans, some people, if they came and rode the bus and listened to our folks on the ground, they may hear isolationism, but that's not what I think our people are saying. They are saying they are really, really aware that the sword a dangerous place and there are blood-thirsty terrorist organizations that will fill vacuums that arise and the kind of miniaturization technology that exists, where you can port nuclear technologies across the globe in stuff the size of a large travel suit case, the U.S. has responsibilities to stop terror networks and jihadi groups of global terror reach, but our folks are skeptical of giving any authority to politicians of either political party that are driven by the next media economical rather than articulating a long-term policy. When we make a commitment, our allies should know they can trust us and enemies should know to fears. Right now we don't have that with Israel. Israel doesn't think they can trust us and our enemies don't fear us. I think the bigger problem is the ungoverned regions in Pakistan, large parts of Afghanistan, and these kinds of places can swallow the vacuums could expand and swallow a place like Baghdad and making a single city decision is not the right choice. The right choice is we need to be articulating a long-term policy that explains that if a jihadi group believes they kill in the name of religion, we opposed to them, no matter on if they are on this side or that side of Afghani-Pakistani border. That doesn't mean we can eradicate everybody, but it does mean if one of the terror groups has global reach, they should know to fear us. Right now they don't.

GLENN: None of these are really hypotheticals. All of these are going to happen with you as a senator, most likely. The election is over, the president decides he's just going to grant amnesty. He's already printed 9 million green cards. More are supposedly on the way, but he's already ordered up 9 million green cards. He grants amnesty. What do you do?

SASSE: Yeah. I sure hope that isn't where we are headed. Hope we are not headed to --

GLENN: We are headed towards that exact place.

PAT: I think it will happen by executive action.

SASSE: His pen and phone a speech from last year sets up the predicate for those kind of actions, but it is a direct attack on his constitutional responsibilities. Our big problem, though, is that the president can say, if the Congress doesn't pass the laws he wants them to, it is not that big of a deal to him because he has a pen and phone. Even bigger than that act is the belief that so much of the American electorate doesn't understand he doesn't have those freedoms.

So we have to have a long-term civic re-education, but the Congress has to start by affirming the three separate but equal branches. And the power of the purse, powers of oversight as well, but the power of the purse is what gives that teeth. Need to begin by only funding those parts of agencies that have the authority to do that. So the president can't do what you are proposing, but executive branch officials also can't execute those kind of edicts if they don't have fund to do it, so we need to be sure we start to bring the American people along, moving step by step incrementally to funding those parts of executive agencies that are aligned with the missions of legislation that reaction gave them the authority to act. According to one recent study, only about a third of all the activities of EPA actually have any legislative authorization. They just used rule-making process to make up law now. That's a crisis, but the bigger crisis is that the public doesn't understand it.

GLENN: How do you feel about -- where's your support coming from? Because you are very, very clear on who you are. The GOP would say you are an extremist. The GOP is not going your way. They are saying people with your point of view is the reason why the GOP is in trouble, yet, you are one of the only senators running that have any real support and real run-away poll numbers. What do you attribute it to?

SASSE: We don't pay a ton of the attention to the polls. There are numbers out there that are pretty gaudy. I have never run for anything before. I'm a 42-year-old nonpolitician, so I won't believe it until the election is over, but we have been running hard in all 93 counties. No one's ever really, in the history of member politics built a field structure in all 93 counties. We have a campaign in every county. I have done town halls in every county. When you travel 93 counties, our people believe great American stuff. They just draw that basic fundamental distinction that all Americans used to be able to draw between federal programs and bureaucracies and the meaning of America. They are not the same thing. Washington has some responsibilities, but America is a lot bigger than Washington's mandates and tacks and prohibitions. The meaning of America is neighbor helping neighbor. It's small business people and farmers and ranchers that build the future. It's what happens on Sunday morning the motivation that has people want to put on the uniform and serve to defend our freedoms and pass it on to the next generation, but all that is so much bigger than the small subset of America. So there's a danger of saying this in a way that sounds -- my 10-year-old was on a bus with us one day, there was a reporter riding with us and she tried to frame up this question. It had so many caveats at the front that it said the only people who must support you are right wing crazy people that want to shut down the government. She framed the question that there was nothing you could really say. She has parsed everybody by gender, race, socioeconomic class and job type and whether they like green or red bicycles. Almost nothing left to say. I just paused. And my daughter looked at her and said ma'am, we want all the votes. And what she was getting at is I really believe that there are lots of sensible democrats in Nebraska. I disagree with them on certain things about federal policy, but you should be able to agree with them about the larger constitutional structure. I think that's what's happening on the ground.

STU: He's going for a unanimous vote here.

GLENN: Ben Sasse from Nebraska, running for the open Senate seat running away with it at this point. We wish you all the best, Ben. Thank you.

SASSE: Benfornebraska.com, if your listeners are interested in more.

GLENN: Thanks.

Critical theory destroys truth and justice

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

Critical theory once stood out as the absurd progressive notion that it is. Now, its maxims are becoming an integral part of ordinary political discourse. The more you repeat a lie, the more you will believe it, and this is the very dangerous place in which we find ourselves today.

Take this critical theory maxim as an example: If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice. It's a necessary evil, if you will, the necessity of “controlled injustice.”

By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we’ll save the republic. We’ll be acting in a noble way.

This definition of justice is defined by the “oppressed,” not the “oppressor.” It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. To achieve this justice, however, we need to endorse acts on occasion that, while seemingly unjust, serve a higher purpose. It will ensure the stability and the unity of our republic, and this may manifest in ways that seem contradictory to our values. But these are the necessary shadows to cast light on “true justice.”

And isn’t that what we are all after, anyway?

Here’s another critical theory maxim: Sometimes we find the truth through fabrication. Our pursuit of truth sometimes requires a strategic use of falsehoods. The truth is a construct that has been shaped and tailored to promote the well-being of the collective.

We sometimes need to accept and propagate lies designed by "the system” — not the old system, but the system that we’re now using to replace the old to get more justice through injustice and more truth through fabrication.

We’re engaging in a higher form of honesty. When we fabricate, it’s for the right reason. We are reaching up to the heavens fighting for a higher sort of honesty. To fortify the truth, we occasionally must weave a tapestry of lies. Each thread, essential for the greater picture, will ultimately define our understanding and ensure our unity under this infallible wisdom.

The election is coming up. Does this maxim sound familiar? Many think it is imperative that we secure our republic through election control to maintain our republic. Sometimes, we might need to take actions that by traditional standards might be questionable.

The act of securing elections requires cheating. It's not mere deception. It is a noble act of safeguarding our way of life. We're on the verge of losing this democracy, and without deception, we will lose it.

To ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of those we know will destroy it, we may have to make a few fabrications. We're fabricating stories to be able to control or secure the republic through our elections. By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we'll save the republic. Therefore, we'll be acting in a noble way. Stealing an election from those who wish to harm our society is truly an act of valor and an essential measure to protect our values and ensure the continuation of our just society.

If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice.

I know it's a paradox of honor through dishonor. But in this context, by embracing the dishonor, we achieve the highest form of honor, ensuring the stability and the continuation of our great republic.

Let this be heard, far and wide, as a great call to patriotic action. As we advance, let each of us, citizens of this great and honorable republic, consider these principles. Not as abstract or paradoxical but as practical guides to daily life. Embrace the necessity of controlled injustice, the utility of lies, the duty to secure our electoral process, and the honor and apparent dishonor. These are not merely strategies for survival. They are prerequisites for our prosperity.

We all have to remember that justice is what our leaders define, that truth is what our party tells us. Our republic stands strong on the values of injustice for justice, honor through dishonor, and the fabrication of truths. To deviate from this path is to jeopardize the very fabric of our society. Strength through unity; unity through strength.

We've heard this nonsense for so long. But now, this nonsense is becoming an instituted reality, and we are entering perilous times. Don't be fooled by the narratives you will hear during the march to November. Never let someone convince you that the ends justify the means, that a little bit of injustice is needed to achieve a broader, collective vision of justice, that truth sometimes requires fabricated lies and narratives. If we do, justice will cease to be justice, truth will cease to be truth, and our republic will be lost.

Top 5 MOST EVIL taxes the government extorts from you

David McNew / Staff | Getty Images

"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." -Ben Franklin

The injustice of taxation has been a core issue for Americans since the very beginning of our country, and it's a problem we have yet to resolve. This belief was recently reignited in many Americans earlier this month on tax day when the numbers were crunched and it was discovered that the government was somehow owed even more hard-earned money. As Glenn recently discussed on his show, it's getting to be impossible for most Americans to afford to live comfortably, inflation is rising, and our politicians keep getting richer.

The taxpayer's burden is heavier than ever.

The government is not above some real low blows either. While taxes are a necessary evil, some taxes stretch the definition of "necessary" and emphasize the "evil." Here are the top five most despicable taxes that are designed to line the IRS coffers at your expense:

Income Tax

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income." -Ben Franklin

On February 24th, 2024 we hit a very unfortunate milestone, the 101st anniversary of the 16th Amendment, which authorized federal income tax. Where does the government get the right to steal directly out of your paycheck?

Death Taxes

Dan Mullan / Staff | Getty Images

"Now my advice for those who die, Declare the pennies on your eyes" -George Harrison

Not even in death can you escape the cold pursuit of the tax collector. It's not good enough that you have to pay taxes on everything you buy and every penny you make your entire life. Now the feds want a nice slice, based on the entire value of your estate, that can be as much as 40 percent. Then the state government gets to stick their slimy fingers all over whatever remains before your family is left with the crumbs. It's practically grave-robbery.

Payroll

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

"The power to tax is the power to destroy." -John Marshall

What's that? The nice chunk of your paycheck the government nabs before you can even get it to the bank wasn't enough? What if the government taxed your employer just for paying you? In essence, you make less than what your agreed pay rate is and it costs your employer more! Absolutely abominable.

Social Security

VALERIE MACON / Contributor | Getty Images

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." -Ronald Reagan

Everyone knows the collapse of Social Security is imminent. It has limped along for years, only sustained by a torrent of tax dollars and the desperate actions of politicians. For decades, people have unwillingly forked over money into the system they will never see again.

FICA

Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Images

"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." -Thomas Paine

FICA is the payroll equivalent of Social Security. Your employer has to match however much you pay. It means it costs your employer even more to pay you—again, you'll NEVER see that money. At this point, are you even working for yourself, or are you just here to generate money for the government to frivolously throw away?

5 DISTURBING ways World War III will be different from previous wars

Oleg Nikishin / Stringer | Getty Images

Has World War III begun?

Over the weekend, Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel involving over 300 missiles and drones. This marked the first direct attack on Israel originating from Iranian territory. Fortunately, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, 99 percent of missiles and drones were successfully neutralized by Israeli defense systems. Iran claimed that the operation against Israel had concluded and that no further offensive was planned, although the possibility of another attack is still present.

This has left many people, including Glenn, wondering the same thing: did we just witness the start of World War III?

Glenn recently had a World War II Air Force Veteran as a guest on his TV special, who told stories of the horrors he and his brothers-in-arms faced in the skies over war-torn Europe. This was a timely reminder of the terrors of war and a warning that our future, if it leads to another world war, is a dark one.

But, if Glenn's coverage of the Iranian attack revealed one thing, it's that World War III will look nothing like the world wars of the twentieth century. Long gone are the days of John "Lucky" Luckadoo and his "Bloody Hundredth" bravely flying their B-17s into battle. Over the weekend, we saw hundreds of autonomous drones and missiles clashing with extreme speed and precision over several different fronts (including space) simultaneously. This ain't your grandfather's war.

From EMP strikes to cyber attacks, here are FIVE ways the face of war has changed:

EMP attacks

New York Daily News Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

The entire modern world, on every level, is completely dependent on electricity. From your home refrigerator to international trade, the world would come to a grinding halt without power. And as Glenn has pointed out, it wouldn't even be that hard to pull off. All it would take is 3 strategically placed, high-altitude nuclear detonations and the entire continental U.S. would be without power for months if not years. This would cause mass panic across the country, which would be devastating enough on its own, but the chaos could be a perfect opportunity for a U.S. land invasion.

Nuclear strikes

Galerie Bilderwelt / Contributor | Getty Images

Nuclear war is nothing new. Many of us grew up during the Cold War, built fallout shelters, and learned to duck and cover. But times have changed. The Berlin Wall fell and so did the preparedness of the average American to weather a nuclear attack. As technology has advanced, more of our adversaries than ever have U.S. cities within their crosshairs, and as Glenn has pointed out, these adversaries are not exactly shy about that fact. Unfortunately, the possibility of an atomic apocalypse is as real as ever.

Immigration warfare

Nick Ut / Contributor | Getty Images

The strategy of strangling an opposing nation's economy to gain the upper hand is a wartime tactic as old as time. That's why the Border Crisis is so alarming. What better way to damage an opponent's economy than by overburdening it with millions of undocumented immigrants? As Glenn has covered, these immigrants are not making the trek unaided. There is a wide selection of organizations that facilitate this growing disaster. These organizations are receiving backing from around the globe, such as the WEF, the UN, and U.S. Democrats! Americans are already feeling the effects of the border crisis. Imagine how this tactic could be exploited in war.

Cyber shutdowns

Bill Hinton / Contributor | Getty Images

Cyber attacks will be a major tactic in future wars. We've already experienced relatively minor cyber strikes from Russia, China, and North Korea, and it is a very real possibility that one of our adversaries inflicts a larger attack with devastating consequences on the United States. In fact, the WEF has already predicted a "catastrophic" cyber attack is imminent, and Glenn suggests that it is time to start preparing ourselves. A cyber attack could be every bit as devastating as an EMP, and in a world run by computers, nothing is safe.

Biological assault

WPA Pool / Pool | Getty Images

Don't trust the "experts." That was the takeaway many of us had from the pandemic, but something less talked about is the revelation that China has manufactured viruses that are capable of spreading across the globe. We now know that the lab leak hypothesis is true and that the Wuhan lab manufactured the virus that infected the entire world. That was only ONE virus from ONE lab. Imagine what else the enemies of America might be cooking up.

The government is WAGING WAR against these 3 basic needs

NICHOLAS KAMM / Contributor | Getty Images

The government has launched a full-on assault against our basic needs, and people are starting to take notice.

As long-time followers of Glenn are probably aware, our right to food, water, and power is under siege. The government no longer cares about our general welfare. Instead, our money lines the pockets of our politicians, funds overseas wars, or goes towards some woke-ESG-climate-Great Reset bullcrap. And when they do care, it's not in a way that benefits the American people.

From cracking down on meat production to blocking affordable power, this is how the government is attacking your basic needs:

Food

Fiona Goodall / Stringer | Getty Images

Glenn had Rep. Thomas Massie on his show where he sounded the alarm about the attack on our food. The government has been waging war against our food since the thirties when Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. They started by setting strict limits on how many crops a farmer could grow in a season and punishing anyone who grew more—even if it was intended for personal use, not for sale on the market. This sort of autocratic behavior has continued into the modern day and has only gotten more draconian. Today, not only are you forced to buy meat that a USDA-approved facility has processed, but the elites want meat in general off the menu. Cow farts are too dangerous to the environment, so the WEF wants you to eat climate-friendly alternatives—like bugs.

Water

ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO / Contributor | Getty Images

As Glenn discussed during a recent Glenn TV special, the government has been encroaching on our water for years. It all started when Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, which gave the government the ability to regulate large bodies of water. As the name suggests, the act was primarily intended to keep large waterways clear of pollution, but over time it has allowed the feds to assume more and more control over the country's water supply. Most recently, the Biden administration attempted to expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to include even more water and was only stopped by the Supreme Court.

Electricity