GLENN: Hopefully we'll have Mike Lee on with us for a second. He has a tax proposal that he's working on. We'll talk to him about it.
STU: There's some ridiculous things going on, arguments against the tax bill. And there are arguments against it. Good ones, in that, it's not as good as it should be. It's not as bold as it should be. Mike Lee is trying to do some things to it, that may help depending on your perspective. But some of the arguments against it, are also unfair. National Review has four of them that they feature today. People are calling it a middle class tax hike. This is an interesting thing. Because what they're trying to do with this is play with the numbers.
Tax policy center analysis on the Senate bill reveals that three-quarters of all families would get a tax cut. Twelve percent will see a tax increase, and they're concentrated around the rich. Now, to me, that's annoying because no one should be getting any increase. But the idea it's a middle class tax cut, you're seeing that on Facebook. You're seeing that on mainstream media. The average middle income family would receive a tax cut of approximately $850 through 2025. Now, what they're doing is, they're looking at the year 2027, and they're seeing lots of tax increases in that year.
The Senate bill is structured to make these middle class tax cuts expire in 2025. They do this for a dumb budgeting gimmick. The idea is, in 2025, no one is going to say, well, we should raise taxes on the middle class. No one will want to take that position, so they'll all keep the tax cuts. That's risky. I don't like it. But even if you say that they don't extend them, what you would have is a 7,000-dollar tax cut in the earlier years, followed by a 100-dollar annual tax increase later.
GLENN: I'll take it.
STU: It's still a big cut over time, they're just focusing on --
GLENN: No one is going to do it at that time anyway.
Mike Lee is with us. Senator Mike Lee, how are you, sir?
MIKE: Doing great, Glenn. Good to be with you.
GLENN: Can you help us make sense and heads or tails of the tax plan and tell us what's going to happen. And I want to talk about, you and Rubio have gotten together. And you're asking exactly, what?
MIKE: We're asking to make the child tax credit more meaningful to everyone that works and everyone who pays taxes. What we want is a tax credit. People can take advantage of up to 13.3 percent of their earnings. This is a tax -- payroll tax is something that almost every American worker pays. And our tax system fails to take into account what we call the parent tax penalty. Our child tax credit proposal, would address that.
Now, Glenn, I've been accused justifiably in the past of being really poor on your show. Talking about this proposal subjects me to that accusation.
GLENN: No. We're going to let you go. It's just that you get turned on by numbers and clauses in the Constitution, that most people don't --
MIKE: Don't we all?
GLENN: No, we don't. But I appreciate that in a senator.
MIKE: Well, thank you. And I appreciate the chance to come over and talk about it. Because it's really important.
Look, America's working moms and dads contribute to our senior entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare twice, once as they pay their taxes and a second time to incur the cost of child rearing.
Because of the pay-as-you-go nature of Social Security and Medicare, working parents are contributing to Social Security and Medicare twice. By increasing the child tax credit and making it refundable, up to 15.3 percent of earnings, what we're doing is we're making sure we provide necessary tax relief to offset this penalty.
GLENN: Mike, is this going to pass?
MIKE: It will. And we'll make sure. Look, it will pass because it has to pass. And I'm not sure what form the tax bill is going to pass. But it's going to pass. I and my Republican colleagues in the Senate are going to make sure.
STU: Mike, they were talking about potentially as an offset to an increase child tax credit of having to increase the -- the proposed corporate tax. So it was 20 percent. They're talking about 21, 22 percent. Is that going to be necessary to do the changes you're talking about?
MIKE: This is one method of paying for it. We're not necessarily wedded to that method of paying for it. We're open to other suggestions. I'd love to leave the corporate rate at 20 percent rather than 22.
But as of right now, we got to keep in mind, that as President Trump himself explained to us at lunch the other day, 70 percent of tax relief in this bill is for corporations, leaving 30 percent of the bill for individuals.
This is one way of shifting more of that relief to individuals, especially to America's most important entrepreneurial class of investors, that is America's parents.
GLENN: Do you believe that America's corporations feel comfortable enough in investing that money in -- in capital expenditures or investment and employees, or are they just going to roll those tax savings into the market?
MIKE: I think they will invest in a lot of things that will create jobs. That's why I'm pleased of corporate tax relief. The corporate tax itself is kind of a devious thing because it disguises the cost of government. People think taxes on corporations don't cost workers any money. They do.
In fact, according to some economists, it may well be that half or so of corporate taxes end up coming out of workers wages. In any event, we know that taxing corporations would slow economic activity. And that affects everyone, including America's middle class taxpayers.
GLENN: Is McCain going to stick with you guys? I saw a story yesterday afternoon. Looks like McCain is at it again was the headline. Is McCain --
MIKE: Yeah. I saw that story too. It gives me nightmares, had nightmares ever since that fateful night in July when he left his thumb hanging in suspended animation, leaving us in -- turned the thumb down. Want to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Look, I think he'll vote with us at the end of the day. Even if he doesn't, we can lose him and still pass the thing without him.
STU: Mike, I'm glad you're talking about the payroll tax. I think it's something that conservatives don't get fired up enough about.
Here's a tax that is a regressive tax, meaning that people on the poor end of the scale pay more than people on the high end of the income scale, which is something I can't believe any progressive ever defends. But they seem to defend it. And not only it locks us into this -- this idea, and a lot of conservatives, I think, fall for it, which is, these long-term giant programs that are supposedly funded through this, when in reality, it kind of all goes into a big pot anyway. These big programs are owed to us because of this separate tax. We don't look at any other giant program the way we look at these entitlement programs. And I think it's a real problem. Is there any hope of attacking this payroll tax even more boldly?
MIKE: Well, I think you made the point well. And this leads to a point I've been meaning to use in messaging with this, which is the best way to understand the Rubio/Lee amendment is that it basically provides a tax cut with respect to payroll taxes. And for some of the reasons you identified. We have to focus on this more than we do. And just as importantly, a related point is that the people who would benefit most acutely from the Rubio/Lee proposal would be those workers who are perhaps most at risk of falling out of the work force and choosing instead to go on welfare. You know, parents with young children, who are right at the edge economically of whether or not they're going to decide, make sense to continue working and instead stop and take welfare benefits. We want to keep them in the workforce. We want to give them plenty of opportunity to stay in the workforce so they can benefit themselves and their families so that they can get promotions, and continue to make more and be contributing members of society. This would incentivize them to do that remove some of the incentives for them to just go on welfare and SNAP.
GLENN: Mike, I want to switch gears with you, and then I'll let you go. You know, Matt Lauer was just let go. Garrison Keillor was just let go. And it's -- it's a little disturbing to me that, A, we're letting people go without any kind of real due process. It seems like this could get out of hand quickly, if we're not really careful. I mean, I'm glad bad guys are going away, and I want this to be solved, but it concerns me that there's no due process here.
However, the only ones that don't seem really affected by it are those in politics. You know, on the Republican side, Roy Moore and Donald Trump. On the liberal side, it's John Conyer and Al Franken.
They're not going anywhere. Does that concern you, Mike?
MIKE: Yeah. In politics, some things operate differently, quite tragically. The meaning of the word "politics," break it down to its Greek roots, poly, which means many, and ticks, which are blood-sucking parasites. A lot of what happens here.
Look, as to your first point about due process, in the case of Matt Lauer, for instance, look, he was fired by a private, for-profit corporation. I assume he was an at-will employee, or if he wasn't an at-will employee, that he had some kind of provision in his contract, allowing his employer to take this action when they did this.
So speaking literally, in constitutional terms, that means there isn't a due process issue. Due process in the lowercase sense of the word, I assume that NBC, being well-represented by capable attorneys, made sure that they dotted their i's and crossed their t's and that they made sure the facts were adequately substantiated before taking this step. Firing someone who holds public office is a little bit different because normally, in most circumstances, to fire them, you have to wait until the next election.
But I suspect that there will be a whole lot of people getting fired by their voters as these things continue to come out.
GLENN: You believe there's more to come out, Mike? You've been there a while.
MIKE: Sadly, I come to suspect that there are. I've been saddened and surprised by some of the horrible things that have been happening. And it seems to arise in circumstances where men will do really bad things in circumstances where they think they can get away with it. There aren't enough reasons that they see not to do it. And it's tragic. It should not be that way.
GLENN: Which makes --
MIKE: But we've seen that -- news entertainment, media entertainment, and government and politics. And it's really sad.
GLENN: And it makes me a little nervous that if the people don't vote those people out, if they decide that it doesn't matter, we're going to end up with some of the worst people in the world, even worse than we have now in Washington, showing up, because you'll literally be able to get away with anything.
MIKE: Yeah. I think that's right. And that would be an absolutely unacceptable outcome. Fortunately, Glenn, I don't think that will happen for two independent reasons. First, I think a lot of people are going to take themselves out of contention. Perhaps most or all of those people who are in government right now, who are subject to these accusations are going to decide, it's time to hang it up. Secondly, I really don't think their voters are going to put up with it. This is unacceptable. They shouldn't elect people who will do awful things like this.
GLENN: Senator Mike Lee, thank you very much. Good luck.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
