"Heroes For My Daughter"

April 10, 2012

Writer

On radio this morning, Glenn interviewed "Heroes For My Daughter" author Brad Meltzer about his new book. Watch the full interview in the clip above.

Rush Transcript:

GLENN: Brad Meltzer is here. Out today is a new book called Heroes For My Daughter, a follow-up to a book that he wrote -- how many years ago was that? Two, three?

MELTZER: Two and a half years ago.

GLENN: Two and a half years ago. Heroes For My Son. Brad is a good friend of mine and the Heroes For My Son is a great book. Heroes For My Daughter includes stories on Tina Turner and what she had in her pocket. Brad, do you want to tell this story?

MELTZER: Yeah. You know the story. Basically six years ago when my daughter was born, I decided to write a book that lasts her whole life and I was going to fill it with all the things she needed to become a great woman and I wrote rules for her like love God and be nice to kids and the truth was I had done Heroes to My Son, as you know. You helped me launch it. For three -- for two years now my daughter has asked me, where the heck is my book? That's been the No. 1 thing she wants to know, because she's, like, you've got the son one. Where is mine? But I looked at people like Tina Turner. You know, Tina Turner what I loved about her -- and, you know, we have obviously Rosa Parks and Amelia Earhart, all the people that, you know, we all know and love, but why I wrote about Tina Turner is when she ran out of the hotel room after Ike had beat her up, do you know what she had in her pocket? She had $0.36 and a Mobil credit card. That was it. And after 16 years of cruelty, she walked out on Ike Turner and what I think her lesson is for, you know, every young girl but also every woman is just to know that you have to fight back and you have to never forget that no matter how deep the hole is, you can always find a way out because she kept saying to herself over and over, I will die before I go back. And, you know, she fought her way to become, again, this great rock icon and I said, I want my daughter to learn how to fight. I want her to learn how to stand up for herself and so I picked heroes like Rosa Parks, you know --

GLENN: Tell me about Sally Ride. Tell me about Sally Ride. Why was she picked to be an astronaut?

MELTZER: People say it was because -- when she was picked to be an astronaut, it was just because she was (inaudible) great athlete, some say because she was fearless and all those things are true, but here's what she also had to do: She had to answer an ad in her college newspaper that said NASA was looking for astronauts and she had to look at it moment and see this and I said, I want my daughter -- you know, that's how she became the woman that did what no one had ever done before. She saw a moment and she seized it and I want that lesson for my daughter and that's what Heroes to My Daughters was designed to be, is to give her those lessons and examples.

GLENN: One of my sister's heroes is Julia Childs because Julia Childs was a massive failure.

MELTZER: Yeah, she was. You hit it right on the head. You know, everyone knows Julia Childs. Everyone loves Julia Childs. You know, she's one of my heroes because she was actually a spy, also. People don't know that about her. She was a spy for the U.S. Government as part of the OSS. But what I love about her is, you know, she wrote the greatest cookbook of all time, mastering The Art of French Cooking but, you know, she got rejection letter, rejection letter, rejection letter, over and over again after six years of working at it and everyone said this book is never going to work and she never, ever ever gave up. Her secret ingredient was the most vital ingredient of all. It's to never give up on what you love and I said -- the funny part is, again, when I was writing the book, I handed in the first draft and my editor said to me, We have a problem. I said, what's the problem? She said, you use one word over and over again in all these heroes. I said, What's the word? She said fighter. She said, you use the word fighter for the

Dalai Lama's entry. The Dalai Lama's a passivist and I use the word fighter, but clearly it tells you about me as a father. One, I'm overprotective of my daughter. No question about it, but, two, and here's what I don't apologize for -- I do want my daughter to learn how to fight. You know, I tell her all the time, I said, you know, you have to fight for something when you want it and when you see injustice, you have to fight harder than ever before and I also tell her, don't be the princess who's waiting for Prince Charming to come save you. You can save yourself and I said, that's what I want the book to be full of examples of that.

GLENN: Do you think that heroes for your daughter is more important in today's world or Heroes For My Son?

MELTZER: You know, when I started doing the book, I thought I was going to do equal books, one for my son, one for my daughter, my son's would have more male heroes, my daughter would have more female heroes and it would be the exactly the same and I would treat them the same, but what I realized in this fighter comment that I just was talking about is I do treat my daughter differently and do you know why I do? Because the world treats my daughter differently. It is a statistical fact and I wish this weren't the case, but my daughter will have a harder life just be by being a woman. She is going to statistically make less money, have a harder time getting a promotion and I hope these things will change. We all hope these things will change, but I know that I do treat my daughter differently for that. And people sometimes say that with our sons, we inspire and with our daughters we try and teach them how to battle and we try and protect them and I fight myself every day to be a good father and just put them on equal ground, but I know that, like any father with their daughter, I'm just always going to be protective of her.

GLENN: Okay. Can I ask you a question? There are male heroes in this book, as well?

MELTZER: Of course there are male heroes. If I just put male heroes for my son, I wouldn't be doing it justice and for my daughter, of course I -- I mean, how do I not --

GLENN: I can't believe that the Three Stooges is in --

MELTZER: Do you want to hear -- you've got to hear the Three Stooges story. So, yeah, let me start with the big one. Yeah, I've got to give my daughter Abraham Lincoln, I have to give my daughter Christopher Reeve, I've got to give my daughter Ben Franklin and I want to give my daughter, you know -- there are male heroes I want her to have. I saved Ben Franklin for her because I just love him, but I have the Three Stooges in there and I put that in there because my dad, when I was growing up, used to show me the Three Stooges. My mother hated it. My wife hates it. Most women hate the Three Stooges. Here's what I want you to know about the Three Stooges is that the three stages were actually the first ones to parody Adolf Hitler on film. Everyone thinks that Charlie Chaplin The Great Dictator was the great one, but the Three Stooges who were three Jews, the Three Stooges were the first one to parody him. They actually did it two years, almost two years before Pearl Harbor, the three Stooges stood up to the bully and said, You know what? Everyone said we can't make propaganda. Everyone said you're not allowed to do any propaganda about Hitler. Hollywood really kind of had a serious push not to do such things and these three so-called idiots were the ones who stood up to him and I said, I love that. I've got to give my daughter the lesson of what it means to stand up to the bully.

GLENN: So, the name of the book is Heroes For My Daughter. It's out today. I have Heroes For My Son. I will be getting Heroes For My Daughter, as well. Just great books. Brad is a good friend, a great writer, knows heroes. In my book he is -- he is a hero himself and, Brad, it's always great to talk to you.

MELTZER: Yeah. No. I appreciate it, Glenn, and I appreciate your support from the very start. Can I say one thing? The last hero in the book is the most important one because it's a blank page and it says: Your hero's photo here and your hero's story here and I promise you, you take a picture of your mom or your grandmother or military for you family and you write one sentence of what they mean to you and you put in in this book and it is the most perfect page in Heroes For My Daughter is the hero they live with every day.

GLENN: Brad, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

MELTZER: Thank you, sir

GLENN: You bet. Heroes For My Daughter, available in book stores everywhere today.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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