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Glenn's Show Prep

How much of a threat does Russia pose to the U.S. in 2015?

December 30, 2014
Wilson

Writer

Buck: Thanks for staying with us. We’ve talked a bit about national security threats that we’re expecting in 2015 coming out of the Middle East. We’ve talked about the philosophy of jihad and the Islamic State, Iran and its nukes or its quest for nukes, the war that continues in Afghanistan. So we’re going to move our focus now from the Middle East to what we could call Eurasia. We might even throw in some other dictators into the mix.

Let’s talk Russia-Ukraine for a second. It seems to me that if you had, and Jim, we’ll start with you, if you had told someone at the beginning of the year that Vladimir Putin would annex Crimea and run an insurgency in Eastern Ukraine and by the end of 2014 going into 2015 would have 80% support among his own people despite economic sanctions that have actually caused an imminent recession as well as all sorts of capital flight, people would say no way. That’s the reality we face, so what does that tell us about where we are right now going into a new year?

Jim: Well, we kind of actually came close to that. We did predict that Ukraine was going to be a flashpoint in 2014, so check the box there.

Buck: You mean you.

Jim: Well, me and Putin.

Buck: Jim is allowed to do a national security victory dance apparently, but I mean for the rest of the world that didn’t think Putin was going to go this…to the wall.

Jim: See, here’s the problem, right, so you keep saying the word Ukraine, and it’s not the Ukraine. It basically is unending from the Nordic down through the Adriatic. Putin is pushing everywhere, and so this is the big question in D.C., and this is the parlor game, right, is the economy has totally tanked. I don’t talk about how much the ruble has fallen anymore because it keeps falling, and I’m wrong when I say that, right? The economy is actually contracting. It’s in terrible, terrible shape, and the question is well, what’s going to happen? Is Putin going to get more or less dangerous?

So, the Council on Foreign Relations and the President of the United States would like you to believe well, Putin is going to be constrained now. Don’t pay attention to the rhetoric. He’s going to have to pull his horns in because he can’t afford this. First of all, there’s no evidence of that, but there’s lots of evidence for the opposite. He’s actually gotten more aggressive. You can find confrontations in the Nordic countries, in the Baltic countries, in Lithuania. He just gave Bulgaria a death sentence. He pulled the South Stream Pipeline. It was going to be their big economic boom. He just pulled that out from underneath them.

Buck: So he’s throwing punches all over the place, in different ways. Stephen, do you see that changing at all in 2015 or just getting worse?

Stephen: No, I think it’s going get worse, because the history teaches us that dictators don’t rise just when there are strong economies and don’t just start invading their neighbors when there are strong economies. It’s the sense of desperation. It’s the vacuum that’s occurring in their culture, so I think Putin’s going to be more dangerous because he’s going to start trying to use foreign endeavors to heal and outstrip the economic problems at home. So I think we’re going to be far more destabilized.

Sara: I don’t even think he really cares about the economic problems at home. I think he is very self-centered. He’s a narcissist, and I think he believes in what he has to do to expand what was for him the former Soviet empire. You know, this is where we misjudge. We always try to analyze people the way we see ourselves. I think that Putin does not see the world in that light.

And I remember at the very beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, I had spoken to the major archbishop who had come from Ukraine here. He had spoken with the vice president. I said what did you tell Vice President Biden? And he said to me I told Vice President Biden that Vladimir Putin was going to invade Ukraine. I told him that he will invade Ukraine this year, and he didn’t really believe him. And I think that the sense of like oh well, this is just not going to happen is still in the mind of this administration.

Buck: Putin has said that he refuses to be the bear that is chained down and given berries and honey; that in fact he must go out. This is actually what he says, so the bear is loose in 2015.

Sara: Without a shirt on.

Jim: There’s another part of this story that people really aren’t talking about, and it’s really the most insidious part, which is the disinformation and the propaganda that Moscow is shooting out everywhere. They fund environmental groups in Western Europe to protest against energy projects that compete with Russian energy projects. They complain about the rise of fascism in Western Europe, and then they fund the fascists, so they have fascists to complain about.

Buck: This is straight out of the KGB playbook, actually.

Jim: Absolutely. They are all over the place. Look, I would love for Putin to kind of, you know, call a timeout, but there’s just no evidence that that’s going to happen.

Buck: But Cuba is going to get much better in 2015, right, Jim? Cuba is going to be your…this is going…am I taking…? No, I am not taking him to his happy place. Tell me Cuba 2015, what does it look like? We’ve had the loosening of things. He’s tapping out on Cuba.

Jim: I mean, this is a really simple one. This notion is oh, we’re going to open up Cuba, and everything is going to be fine. Look, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, these countries know how to steal money. Any money that goes to their country, the government is going to take a piece of it, and it’s going to make them better and more powerful. And look at who their friends are—Russia, all the people that were on the map that we’re talking about.

Buck: Any country that’s in red there pretty much, with the exception of Israel, is a friend of…

Jim: The little funny shorthaired guy in North Korea with the haircut that just said he’s going to blow up the White House, that’s the guy that the Cubans tried to send arms to last year.

Buck: Right. Stephen, anything on Cuba?

Stephen: Yeah, you know, it’s intriguing to me that everything that we’ve been talking about is exactly what you would expect when U.S. foreign policy implodes, when we don’t know how to use our strength, and the one thing we tend to point at as any kind of victory is simply Barack Obama legacy hunting. Cuba is a Barack Obama legacy hunting. The rest of it though is what you would expect to happen when the U.S. simply does not show up, does not take strong steps, and does not use its defense apparatus the way it can. And so as a result, there’s a vacuum, and Putin is just stepping into it. He’s just feeding off of American weakness and playing that throughout the entire of Europe.

Sara: And Obama’s legacy hunting with every one of our enemies. He doesn’t try to legacy hunt with one of our allies, like try to build stronger relationships, try to reinforce certain areas of the world, try to lead. No, he leads from behind, and I think this is the problem that we’ve been seeing. This is why, just like Jim said, Cuba is going to take advantage of this. Why wouldn’t they? The Russians took advantage of us, and it wasn’t just in those areas of the world. I mean, how much has Russia been involved in Syria and Iraq and playing games with Iran?

Buck: And that’s an important part about Cuba too is that we said Cuba is friends with all these different countries, but there are relationships, for example, between Venezuela and Cuba that now that Cuba is in better shape, it will mean that the regime in Venezuela will be in better shape and vice versa, so by pushing in one place, you actually create a reaction elsewhere, and I think with the Maduro regime, we see people, there’s lines for people getting toilet paper and water in a country that has the largest oil reserves in the world.

It’s a shame that the administration threw a lifeline to Cuba because it’s not just for Cuba. It’s for all of Cuba’s buddies that they send doctors to and they send intelligence to. They have intelligence officers serving all over the world.

Jim: Yeah, well, it’s leading of a kind. You know, the first lemming off the cliff, he thought he was leading.

Buck: Well, there’s leading, and there’s leading. So, we’re going to talk a bit about threats coming from the east, from Asia, in 2015. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.

Front page image courtesy of the AP.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.