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Congressman: "There will be anger, frustration, and embarrassment" when classified pages are revealed

July 30, 2014
Wilson

Writer

Wednesday morning, Glenn played audio of Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) calling for the government to declassify twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 report that have been hidden away from the American people. He claimed those pages do not present a threat to national security, and that they would fundamentally change people's understanding of what happened that day. Wednesday night, Rep. Massie joined The Glenn Beck Program to discuss in more detail why those pages should be released and how the American people will react.

"Tonight, we’re going to shine the light on something that has been kept in the dark for nearly 13 years going back to the Bush administration and even before," Glenn said. "It’s going to lead to some ugly truths, but no matter how embarrassing it might be for the Bush administration, for the Clintons, or whoever else is involved, if it’s embarrassing for our allies, a nation that claims to stand for truth and justice must adhere to that principle every time, not when it’s easy, not when it’s in our best interest or our political interest, but when it is a value every time."

"Citizens, especially the families of the 9/11 victims, deserve to know the truth. Now, some congressmen were recently given access to 28 classified pages from a 9/11 intelligence report. TheBlaze has shown this before, but we’ve just shown you the blacked-out pages. Now, after reading it, the whole page, one congressman who we’re about to talk to here, said he couldn’t go more than a few sentences each paragraph without having to pause and 'rearrange his understanding of history.' That’s remarkable."

"Here’s the story, back in 2002, a congressional report was released called Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. We have gone through this, we have talked about it. People back in 2002 or 2003 were asking for more of it. It’s why we have these conspiracy theories in the first place.

"But 28 pages of the report, about 7,200 words, were redacted and deemed classified by President George W. Bush. Now, his reasoning was a vague reference to it being national security risk. Normally, and the reason why this didn’t work, is normally only sensitive names and contracts and covert agents, etc., are redacted, but this had 28 pages that were entirely blacked out."

"And at the time, 46 senators, that’s half of the Senate, led by Chuck Schumer, wrote a letter to the president asking to declassify the pages. Schumer claimed that the redacted information was related to, and I want to quote, 'specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11th hijackers while they were in the United States' – probably screams Saudi Arabia, and that’s what it did. He went directly to claiming Saudi Arabia was the primary source of this foreign funding."

Glenn explained that other people have come out and drawn connections between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi Arabia, including former Senator Bob Graham.

While Congressman Massie can't reveal exactly what he read in those redacted pages, he can speak out about why it's important they be released. He talked to Glenn about those issues Wednesday night:

A transcript of the interview is below:

Glenn: Congressman Massie joins me now from Washington, D.C. Congressman, how are you?

Congressman Massie: Doing well, Glenn. Thanks for having me on.

Glenn: I’m concerned because I know you can’t say anything because anything that you say can and will be held against you, so, you know, you’re going to have to talk as cryptically here, but I was gravely disturbed by your description where you said you had to stop and refigure history every couple of sentences. Can you give us any other description other than that?

Congressman Massie: Well, absolutely. You know, when 9/11 happened and shortly thereafter, we were all like sponges, we’re trying to absorb as much information to understand the who, the what, the why, the where, but at some point you quit collecting information because there’s no more information to be had or you think there’s no more information. And it all sort of sets up like concrete in your brain.

Well, as I was reading these 28 pages, I had to try and take apart that concrete that had set up, my own understanding of what had led up to 9/11 and what had enabled it. And then also what really hurt me was to wonder why did my government keep this from me for 13 years? What were their motives?

You know, there will be anger, frustration, and embarrassment when these 28 pages finally come out. Those are all emotions that you describe that I had while I was reading these pages. These are emotions that I think the public will have when they find out.

Glenn: Here’s what worries me, and I want to make sure that we’re not talking about this. We went to war, we’ve killed a lot of people, and we used our own righteous indignation or righteous anger to stop this. Have we done something morally reprehensible here? Is it going to change our understanding of war?

Congressman Massie: Well, you’re right. We fought two wars ostensibly to keep another 9/11 from happening, and I’m not ready to relitigate those wars and the causes for going to war. But here’s why I’m coming out right now and making this one of my priorities to get this out there is we’re talking about getting involved in two other wars, the war in Syria and a war in Iraq. And I don’t want to relitigate the other wars, but look, before we jump into these wars, we need to understand what really caused 9/11.

And if we’re going to use 9/11 as a motivation to get involved in these civil wars in the Middle East, then I think the American public and surely to goodness all of the congressmen up here who are going to be voting on these wars need to read these pages and understand what truly caused 9/11 and who our friends are and who our enemies are.

Glenn: Okay, I mean, I know you’re not going to tell me, but this sounds like we’re talking about Saudi Arabia, but I want, and that just could be my bias from the things that we know from the intelligence community that have been told to us, we know there is a bias on that. I don’t think anybody would be surprised, and let’s use both Clinton and Bush, I mean Sandy Berger went in to smuggle papers out of the National Archives in his underpants. You don’t do that and then get pardoned by the guy from the other side if they’re not trying to kick dirt over the trail.

And I don’t think personally that it was anybody in our administration was doing anything nefarious or, you know, anything like that. It just looked bad. It was just embarrassing because they might’ve been, you know, taking too many walks with too many princes or whatever. Is this stuff that will deeply tear us apart, or will this be just, has our government been worse than just sloppy and greedy at times? I’m trying to figure out a way to ask you these questions.

Congressman Massie: No, this will not tear our country apart. It will be embarrassing. It will not endanger us to release this information, but the American public needs to have it. I would tell you to look to maybe Bob Graham, Senator Bob Graham, who was privy to even more information than I have in those 28 pages since he was on the intelligence committee. You know, he’s leading this charge.

I will say, you know, there are things I can’t even tell my wife that I learned about in these soundproof SCIFs, and those 28 pages are included in that category. Congressman Walter Jones from North Carolina, he’s the one who sponsored this resolution. It’s called House Resolution 428, and you know, they thanked him for sponsoring that by the establishment primaried him and spent ten times as much money as him back in his district this spring, and he still won because he represents the people and truth and transparency.

But those are the kind of risks that, you know, we bring upon ourselves by speaking out. But now is the time, and I’ll tell you, you mentioned the families. You played a clip from the families of the victims. This needs to come out because there are things being litigated in court right now that pertain to these 28 pages, and the families of the victims deserve this information and this evidence because there is culpability here, and there is liability. And you know, if our judicial system is going to work its way, the evidence and the truth needs to be there.

Glenn Congressman, thank you very much, and you keep up the fight. Let us know, I’ve directed TheBlaze to cover any and all, so you can count on us. Just let us know how we can help. Appreciate it.

Congressman Massie: Thank you, Glenn. People need to contact the White House. They need to contact their congressmen and their senators.

Glenn: Thank you. God bless. Listen, TheBlaze is going to stay on this as much as we can until the information just dries up, but this is not a partisan thing. This is a bipartisan thing. This is about the truth. This is about who are we really, and as the congressman said, before we go any further, we have to know who the bad guys are, we have to know what we’ve done.

Let the chips fall where they may. I mean, if George Bush was involved in doing some things, and he was buddies with somebody and whatever, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. That’s in the past. Let’s chart the course on the future, and the only way we can do that is if we build it on a foundation of truth.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.