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Glenn's Show Prep

The seven mountains of culture - Glenn says 'if we lose these two, we're done'

September 24, 2015
Staff

WRITER

On radio Thursday, Glenn was joined by David Barton and George Barna - a pollster and researcher on American culture. Glenn started by introducing seven cultural elements, which are required if you want to destroy or build a culture.

The Seven Mountains of Culture:

1. Business

2. Government

3. Media

4. Arts and Entertainment

5. Education

6. Family

7. Religion

Glenn said we've already lost all the mountains except for two - family and religion - but they too are clearly under attack.

"If we lose these two, we're done," Glenn said.

Then they discussed what can be done to preserve our culture by defending the principles our nation was founded upon. According to Barna's research, it starts with encouraging America's pastors to become better leaders by preaching about the important issues affecting American society today.

Listen or read the transcript below for more.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: I want to give you the seven mountains of culture. Business, government, media, arts, and entertainment, education, family, and religion. Those are seven mountains of culture. And if you want to destroy or build a culture, you have to have those seven mountains. We have lost the mountain of business. They don't even teach ethics anymore. We're not teaching moral sentiments anymore. We're just teaching raw capitalism. The best business schools in the country, when the professor stands up and says, "Okay, so here's your case study, was that good or bad, was that right or wrong? The hands go up and say, did it make money?" And so we've lost business.

We've lost government. The media, I don't know if we've ever had. Arts and entertainment, we've never had. Education is gone to us. The last two mountains of culture -- and if we lose these two, we're done. The family. It is absolutely under attack. And the last one is religion. And religion, I think at this point, is neutral. It could go either way. The same thing with the family. But it is certainly not a positive impact. And I will get into that here, just a bit with this amazing pollster and researcher on the culture, George Barna. And he's with the Barna Group. And he's a Christian polling firm that goes out and looks for what is affecting the culture. What is actually happening?

David Barton is joining us, because this actually started with a conversation we had, how long ago, David Barton?

DAVID: Oh, it's probably been about almost two months ago, Glenn.

GLENN: Okay. So we started having a conversation -- why don't you tell the story how we got here.

DAVID: Yeah, we were having a conversation, and you said, "We need to get people to get their pastors to preach about stuff. What do we ask them to preach about?" And I looked at you and said, "I don't have a clue, but I think I know someone who does." So I called George that night and said, "George, here's the deal. Glenn would like to have people ask their pastors to preach about certain things. What do people want to hear? What do they want to --

GLENN: Looking for leaders.

DAVID: Looking for leaders.

GLENN: In our pulpits.

DAVID: Yep.

GLENN: Because I contend they're not shepherds, they're sheep. They're afraid. Some of them don't know what to lead on. Most of them also don't know how to be active.

DAVID: Well, there's a difference between being a pastor and being a leader. There's a lot of pastors; there's just not a lot of leaders. And a lot of leaders -- one of the things I challenge pastors with now is, hey, if you announce on Sunday morning or Saturday morning, or whatever your service is, you announce you're shutting down your church, on Monday morning, will civic officials be lined up at your church saying, "No, don't leave. You're too valuable to the community. We can't have you leave. You offer too much good stuff." And most churches community would never know.

GLENN: What was the church I went to in Houston, Pat, for that funeral. What was the name of that?

PAT: Second Baptist.

GLENN: That church, because I talked to the city officials, they've said, "They've changed our community. They've changed our community."

DAVID: That's right.

GLENN: That church, if they close down, that church would have city officials --

DAVID: They would have city officials banging on the stage because there's too much value added. And that's leaders. Those aren't pastors. Now, he's a pastor, but he's a leader. And he's changed his community around him. Too many places of worship do not change their community.

GLENN: So, George, how did you put this polling together? How did you go out and conduct this? When you hear what the results of this poll are, it will blow you away.

GEORGE: Well, the first thing we did, Glenn, was we wanted to do some qualitative research, which means, rather than telling the people, these are the issues you can choose from, we simply asked them, "What are the things that are on your mind, on your heart? What do you want to hear about? Just give us a laundry list of whatever comes into your mind."

So we did that with 150 people across the country, and then we put together this exhaustive list and looked at I think it was 150 different issues that got mentioned. Then we took the ones that were toward the upper half of the list and said, okay, let's go out toward a larger more representative sample of people. Give them the list and ask them on a scale, which ones do you absolutely have to hear. So what we're going to be talking about are the ones where people said it was extremely critical or very critical.

GLENN: "Critical" was the word?

GEORGE: "Critical" was the word, where they said, "I need to know what -- not what my pastor thinks about this, but what does the Bible teach about this?"

GLENN: Okay. I want to start at number 13.

Number 13, the media influence on public, content responsibility, truth, moral standards, choices for exposure, and resistance.

DAVID: This is what they're asking their pastor to talk about.

GLENN: Right.

DAVID: This is unbelievable. I don't think a pastor has ever been asked to talk about media, but people are begging for that.

GLENN: And the media itself would dismiss any pastor talking about the media.

DAVID: That's right.

GLENN: Now, 70 percent of the sample said that is critical to talk about this.

GEORGE: Extremely or very critical for them to know about that. Now, I have to say, the sample that we talked to, these were conservative individuals who are religious. The vast majority of them are Christians.

GLENN: Yeah, I mean, we're asking churchgoers. Yeah, we're asking church people, what is it -- what do you want to have your pastor talk about?

Number 12, no pastor in America would say this is even in the top 20. Islam. The core beliefs, response to Islamic aggression, threat to peace and domestic stability.

GEORGE: Here you have a group of people coming to church week after week, they're not sure they know what their own faith is about. And then in the news, they're reading all kinds of conflicting reports about Muslims and Islam and Iraq and Iran. They don't even know where these places are on the map. And so there's all these kinds of issues that are swirling around in their head. They're crying out for somebody to help them make sense out of this, and not just from a news perspective, but from a biblical perspective because they want to serve God well. They're begging leaders to lead them in this arena.

DAVID: Three out of four want to hear that. Three out of four.

GLENN: Number 11, church in politics and the church in government, separation of church and state, legal boundaries, church resistance to government. 73 percent say that's critical that it is preached from the pulpit.

GEORGE: And once again, to them, they're coming into this whole arena completely confused. Because they're being told all the time, no, we shouldn't talk about these things in public. In a church, are you kidding me? Why would you do that, talk about politics and government? They think there's nothing in the scriptures about this. They think there's no reason to even bring this up. But they're saying, God must have a position.

GLENN: Number ten is self-governance, biblical support, personal conduct, impact on freedom, and national sovereignty. Maybe I've heard one church talk about this, you know. That David Barton wasn't speaking at. Where I've heard them actually get up and on a Sunday start teaching about our -- our self-governance and what it means for the -- the governance of the people of the United States.

DAVID: You know, if you want to be a hero, just get in front of the bandwagon, like you're the band director. Three out of four want to hear this stuff, just be a hero, start talking about what they want to hear about. I mean, this should be a no-brainer. In a self-governing country, you can't be a self-governing country without self-governing citizens, and we won't talk about that?

GLENN: Number nine is bioethics, cloning, euthanasia, genetic engineering, cryogenics, organ donation, and surrogacy, 76 percent.

Then eight, role in government, the biblical view, the church/state relationship, our personal responsibility and limitations. What's the difference between eight and ten, self-governance?

GEORGE: Essentially, people don't know the difference. They just know that there's so much wrapped around these issues that they want them covered in full.

GLENN: Because there's three of them. There's church in politics, self-governance, and the role of government.

GEORGE: Yeah. And when you look at something like self-governance, remember the kind of culture we live in where people are basically saying, "Don't tell me what to do." Here's a group of people saying, "Please tell me how I should behave."

GLENN: Don't you think this kind of goes to our kids. People say, "Don't -- let your kids be free." No, kids want boundaries.

GEORGE: And structure.

GLENN: And I think we as a people know we need structure. We need universal structure. We don't want to be told what to do or treated like children, but we do want to know, there are some eternal answers here. Why are we just making this up, and why isn't anyone teaching us this?

DAVID: We're into kids and sports. Tell me any sports that kids are involved with that doesn't have boundaries and that we don't teach them boundaries from the very start. Why don't we do that with the rest of life?

GLENN: Correct. Number seven is Christian heritage and the role of Christian faith and American history, the church role in the US development, and the modern day relevancy. This is you, David.

DAVID: And I get my brains beat in by people saying, "You can't talk about that in church." 79 percent of Americans want to hear this in church. And I'm seen as an extremist for doing this kind of stuff.

GLENN: Right. Now, let me go to the top six, because I think these are stunning. There's not a preacher in the country -- would you agree with that? You poll these people all the time. How stunning is the top six.

GEORGE: I had to go back and rerun the data to make sure that I didn't get something wrong in the program that ran the data because it was not what I expected.

GLENN: Here's number six. 81 percent -- sorry, 80 percent are saying that it is extremely critical or critical that their pastor, priest, or rabbi speaks about Israel, its role in the world, the Christian responsibility to Israel, US foreign policy toward Israel and its enemies.

You guys were on TV last night and I said, "I knew we're doomed as a country when I stood in front of the capitol building and there were maybe 3,000 people there, 4,000 people there, and there should have been --

DAVID: And that was the Iran rally.

GLENN: Yeah, that was the Iran rally. There should have been maybe 10,000 pastors there alone.

DAVID: Yeah.

GLENN: Where were the churches? Where were they? The answer, they don't know.

DAVID: Right.

GLENN: The people, they have no idea.

DAVID: But people want to know.

GLENN: Correct.

DAVID: And, by the way, it's worth pointing out on this, also in the poll, he found out that 33 percent of pastors said they talked about Israel, but only 24 percent of people said they heard their pastor talk about Israel.

GLENN: So what does that tell you, David?

DAVID: It tells me that the guys who think they're talking about it, don't talk about it very much. Or they made a comment in passing or they thought they made an illusion that somebody understood. 80 percent of people want to hear this. Pastors, 33 percent said, "Well, I talk about this." But only 24 percent actually heard them say something. Which means they're not communicating what they think they are from the pulpit to the people in the pews.

Labor Day EXPOSED: The Marxist roots you weren’t told about

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.

Durham annex EXPOSES Soros, Pentagon ties to Deep State machine

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.