WATCH: Cyprus a global "shark bump"

Updated 3/20:

Hello, America, and welcome to The Glenn Beck Program and to TheBlaze. This is the network that you are building, and dare I say the only network surprisingly bold enough to bring you the stories that are important, so important that the mainstream media has missed or I believe chosen to ignore, and they mean something to you. In the next 30 minutes, you’re going to learn things about the U.N. and their new arms treaty that you’re not going to hear anyplace else on television.

First, let me give you a quick update, the president is on the ground now in Israel. No word if he has found any really expensive golf courses yet, but we’ll keep you up to speed on that. Let me also give you the latest on the global economic meltdown, at least the one that is coming. Maybe this is the beginning of it. Let’s go Cyprus where we were yesterday. They have rejected the Euro Zone’s bailout offer.

This bailout came with a condition. The people of Cyprus were going to lose part of their savings accounts. Anything that you had in the bank, you were going to be taxed anywhere from 6% to 10%. I love that. Hey, everybody, we’re not going to tell you about it. We’re just going to take money from your account. We’re not stealing. Well, I mean, we’re not stealing as much from you as we are the rich guy. Cool, right?

The banks are remaining closed until Thursday over fears that there might be a run on the bank. Gee, you think there might be a run on the bank? No. What will likely happen is that the largest banks will now fail, and the country will go bankrupt. Uh oh, that sounds like an emergency, a crisis. And the people of Cyprus will now be left looking for a strongman, somebody that can fix this problem because there will be no other way out. Yet, there is a solution, and I’ll tell you about in the minute. And I bet you they don’t take it.

Here’s what’s really happening – the politicians in Europe are farther ahead in the decay scale than we are here. We don’t trust our politicians at all; however, we’re not at the point the rest of Europe is at yet. The politicians have so discredited themselves here, but over in Europe, it’s happened for so long that the newly elected President of Cyprus can actually promise one thing and then three weeks later do exactly the opposite when it comes to your bank account and think he can get away with it. Hmm, I don’t think so.

See, this is what this really means – the politicians know they no longer have any clout. They no longer have any possibility that they can change people’s minds. They know that they can’t stand up in front of people and say, Hey we’ve got a do this. They have no chance of turning the tide of public opinion because there is zero credibility left in the tank for the politicians and the banks and everybody else.

This is the beginning of two things, two things globally. One, Totalitarianism. Totalitarianism, when the people are so far away from the politicians or the politicians are so far away from the people, and there is an emergency, and there’s nobody with an answer, it will be handled by a strongman and in that part of the world probably the Nazis. I can’t believe that we were mocked so much for talking about how the Nazis were going to come back and be a part of our lives again, and here they are. They’re going to need a strongman, and it will happen.

The other thing that is happening here is this is a shark bump. It’s a global shark bump. Cyprus is just kind of like the little Petri dish. It’s the first to get it. We’ve talked about shark bumps before on this program. Sometimes sharks will bump a potential meal before attacking, they just kind of rub into it to see if it’s going to fight back. I believe that’s exactly what is happening with the EU. Will the people rise up and fight back? How do we handle this?

Cass Sunstein wrote a book called Nudge. The premise is that individuals are incapable of making any kind of correct choices so they need to be nudged into the right choice. Well, as it turns out, it’s weird, people don’t like to be nudged, so they resist, and eventually a nudge has to turn into a shove. We’ve talked about this many times in the past. Europeans have been nudged enough, and now they’re about to be shoved in a big way.

So why does this matter to you? Who cares if a few skinny-jeans wearing, you know, Europeans get tossed around by big government, right? Because this is a global shark bump because we are all in this one together. We’re just the last in the boat, but we are the biggest fish that will come into the boat.

Let me start here. The radicals in our own government are very interested observers, watching very closely how the people of Europe respond to this Cyprus offer. What are they going to do? What can the politicians do better next time? Cyprus is a teachable moment for all of the people that want to grab control of power, but it is also a teachable moment for us if we will just see it that way. It will explain a ton.

I think I asked you yesterday about guns. Has anybody asked why they’re limiting guns? Has anybody thought of that? Why are we limiting guns? And I told you last night it was Cyprus, but there is another thing. At the same time they’re limiting guns, they’ve got soda, too, that they’re limiting, and those things make sense, right? They’re limiting cigarettes, soda, trans fats, SUVs. That makes sense. These two make sense together, but then this one doesn’t.

At the same time, they want you to be able to smoke pot, all the pot you want, apparently. We showed you Mike Bloomberg yesterday, and he is going after everything except – watch this video – except for pot:

VIDEO

Mayor Bloomberg: Commissioner Kelly and I support Governor Cuomo’s proposal to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a violation rather than a misdemeanor and will work to help him pass it this year. But I’ll tell you, we aren’t going to wait for that to happen. Right now, those arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana are often held in custody overnight. We’re changing that. Effective next month, anyone presenting an I.D. and clearing a warrant check…

Okay, stop. Do you have this? He’s got to go – today he’s going after cigarettes. He’s got to go in after soda. He’s got to do these things, but he thinks it’s a waste of time to go after pot. Isn’t that a health risk? If you believe that soda is a health risk, how is smoking pot – I don’t care about, let’s say the intoxication – the lungs, what it’s doing. He has to move cigarettes out of the way, but pot isn’t a problem. We’ll maybe it’s because we couldn’t afford it, because that’s kind of what the president said yesterday. The president has said we have bigger fish to fry than going after pot smokers. Watch:

VIDEO

President Obama: As it is, you know, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions. It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that’s legal.

This puts us into a constitutional crisis, and you would think a man who is a constitutional professor would know that. Now think of this, we have – let’s take him at his word – we have to prioritize things. So the man who made a big deal over free condoms at colleges, a man who spent his time lobbying to change the college football playoff system, doesn’t have the time to keep us out of a constitutional crisis. But don’t get lost there.

These two, these three, these two match; these three do not. Why is it these champions of manufacturing only healthy choices are not willing, they’re in favor of legalizing pot? Let me get back to this here in a second, and let me go over here. Why are Progressives trying so hard – I’m sorry, over here – trying to take away your guns, here and internationally? See, this is not about Sandy Hook, because in international terms, Sandy Hook was no big deal.

We know why we’re supposedly going through it is because of the shooter in Sandy Hook, but why is the U.N. arms treaty being pushed right now and going through? They’re working on it right now.

And then, why is the administration pushing so hard behind the scenes to absolutely, totally control your child’s education, the curriculum and every piece of access you as a parent have via Common Core? And in that educational system, they are teaching you about this, through here, they’re teaching you irrational fear of guns, a disdain for the Western way of life, how bad this is, but that one is popular still.

Why is Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, injecting himself into a school board issue, as we told you last night, in New Orleans? This man is worried about who is elected to the Board of Education in New Orleans. He spent money on that race, when today we find out that 80% of those who graduate from high school in New York City are incapable of reading or writing or doing enough arithmetic to gain entrance to any level college – 80%. You would think if they don’t have time to bust the drug users, they wouldn’t have time to worry about cigarettes under the counter or education in another state.

The answer again, found in Cyprus. You see, before a strong-arm, a strongman, or totalitarian government can grab power, they have to try to make people really, really want it. You have to train the citizens to think that their best friend is government. To cement that idea in place for all time, you have to teach kids to distrust their parents and instead make government their mom and dad. Remember this:

VIDEO

Al Gore: There are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know.

Got it? Strip away the authority of mom and dad, and this has been done for years. Give kids the green light to whatever they want. I mean, you can’t have a soda. You can’t have chips. You can’t talk about God, but there are condoms and abortion pills in the vending machine in the hallway, and the health teacher is demonstrating the healthy ways for teenagers to engage in sexual promiscuity. This isn’t making sense, is it?

We also have to cut mom and dad off from viewing the curriculum at all, and then we’re going to call it “Common Core,” meaning the core of who we are that is common. The common core of their world view comes now from school and radicals, not those old people like mom and dad who, I mean, you just know better than they do. And then they have a curriculum that teaches how bad the Western way of life is and the free market is, especially if you’re just a greedy capitalist like Michael Bloomberg or George Soros. This is – if you were just a greedy capitalist, that’s bad in the curriculum, but there is a better way, working for everybody in a communist utopia, and that’s darn near exact from the textbook.

And then at the same time, you have to teach an irrational fear of guns, not a fear of guns, but an irrational fear of guns. You make kids afraid of assault Pop Tarts and pieces of scrap paper shaped like an L, and you call the police on that. Now, here’s the latest example. I want to show you a picture. This was posted. I saw this picture, and New Yorkers would say, Oh, he’s in camouflage with a gun! I saw that picture and I said, Look at the way he’s holding the gun. This kid’s been well trained. It is unnatural for a kid to grab onto a gun, for anybody to grab onto a gun without putting their finger in with the trigger. You have to be trained to hold a gun like that. This kid has been well schooled, most likely from his parents.

Well, according to his dad, merely posting this picture prompted an unannounced visit from the New Jersey Department of Youth, who were accompanied by police officers. The police officers did not have a warrant. They demanded entry into this home and access to the firearms. Dad said, You don’t have a warrant, beat it. I personally don’t think this is the end of this story. I instructed TheBlaze today to make sure they’re on top of it and inform the family that if anything happens in the future to know that they have a friend in TheBlaze. We will bring you up to speed. We will be a watchdog.

But you have to understand, you are no longer mom and dad. The government is now the new mom and dad, but your new mom and dad is dangerous. How? Let me take you back to Cyprus because remember, they’re ahead on this timeline. Since the bailout offer has now been rejected – okay the idea was, Hey, we’re going to prop up the banks that have been screwing all of us. We’re going to prop up the banks by taking 6 to 10% of everybody’s savings, or we’re all going to die. Oh, wow. So they said, No, we’re not going to do that.

Now, there is another offer on the table. Russia has an offer on the table, and they said, Hey look, Cyprus, we’ll pay for your bailout. You just let us explore in your water for oil or gas. But my guess is the dysfunctional mom and dad will not want a capitalist way out of this. They will not want to solve this problem. They need this problem. In fact, they’ve just made it worse. That’s great. You lost 10%, but now your banks are going to fail, so you’re going to feel the immediate pain, and the message of control is more important than a solution to the problem. With this vote, their banks will fail, and the country will be in chaos, but mom and dad will be happy behind closed doors, because mom and dad will tell you, We told you so.

And the chaos will cause the children to, look, mom, dad, come help. It’s what’s happening right now in a small way with our Easter egg hunts and our White House tours. Why do you think he’s cutting the Easter – they had a St. Patty’s day party, but they’re cutting the Easter egg hunt. Why? To irritate you. I mean, if they think that we’re going to rise up over an Easter egg hunt and say, enough, enough. But that’s what’s happening. The Easter egg hunt and the White House tours, that’s this Cyprus scenario, but Cyprus is at DEFCON 1.

That’s why you must educate yourself, and it is why they are not educating but indoctrinating. You have to indoctrinate to be able to control, but then you have to disarm. You have to disarm the adults, because when you come after their life savings, their blood, sweat, and tears, their entire life, you better reduce the odds for a successful civilian uprising. You have to train ’em. You have to train ’em, and you have to take their guns away, limit the guns. I mean, you can’t have a bunch of guns, right?

You limit the success of an uprising, limit it, but you need the uprising because you have the uprising allows a strongman to gain control. Look to Egypt for the prime example of this. By the way, in Cyprus, private citizens – we just looked this up about an hour ago – completely forbidden from owning handguns and rifles in any category, any caliber. They only are allowed to have shotguns, and those require a license. And they’re limited the two rounds. Joe Biden would fit right in.

So let’s go back to drugs, because drugs and soda and guns doesn’t make sense, unless you know history – the Weimar Republic, notorious for having extremely lenient drug laws. They infiltrated, discredited religion, and then they promoted reckless partying and promiscuity and drug use. People would get sauced up. They’d forget their problems in sex, booze, or bong. See, this is what stuck out to me. It’s interesting Progressives will go after a 16-ounce soda but not pot.

I mean, I understand if you’re a Libertarian, you might be for legalizing drugs because you think the drug war doesn’t work, and you think that, you know, there’s no necessarily inherent value in you taking the drug, but you believe you should have the right because they’re not your parent; you are. You control – maximum freedom, maximum liberty. I get that, but Progressives typically don’t believe that, or you’d be allowed to have Ho Hos and a soda.

Why would Soros favor lenient drug laws? Cyprus is the answer. Before government can come for your life savings, you’ve got to limit the guns, but if they’re going to take everything that you’ve worked for in your entire life, I mean, you’ve got to have a getaway car, you know. You have to have an escape car for the Progressives, for the Totalitarians. You have to be able to control the citizens, and you need to have them just a little blurry eyed so you can get away fast. It’s Oceans 11 times 16 trillion.

Here’s what makes, I think, TheBlaze unique. Have you seen anybody put these facts together like this at all on the air, at all? Are you hearing anybody talking about why guns and soda and drugs and education, and what does Cyprus really mean?

The most important move on guns in the history of the world, a move that would guarantee the world would fall into the hands of thieves, technocrats and dictators is afoot right now, and our government knows it, and our press knows it, and it’s happening in New York City right now. And I believe we’re the only network talking about it, and I’ll show it to you and finish this picture when we come back.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

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They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

Chicago Tribune / Contributor | Getty Images

Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

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- Glenn Beck