"Ready… set…"

Last night on TV Glenn recapped everything happening around the globe and most of it isn’t good. Glenn says the perfect storm that’s been brewing for years may finally be coming ashore. Look at all of the unrest and ugly hatreds rising in Europe and elsewhere right now - and this before a real economic depression hits. What happens when the economy takes a deep dive? It’s go time.

Below is a transcript of this segment

I’ve told you for the last year that I kept hearing in my prayers that I would hear every time I’d pick up the newspaper and so it begins. And so it begins…that was last year. This year I am getting a different call. In fact, I’m starting to understand and so it begins a little bit more. This, I think, is the beginning of all of the things. These are the beginnings of sorrows.

These are the labor pangs, if you will, of the things yet to come, and they have begun. The water has broken. But today I was talking in a meeting, and I really think that a better way to explain this is you’re at a starting line, and when you’re at a starting line, they always say three things. What are they? Everybody knows—ready, set, go. Why do they say that, instead of just go? Because you’re not ready. Ready, set, go.

Anybody who is standing at the starting line…you’re in the Olympics, and you want to win. If they say ready, set, and you’re just standing around, and then they say go, you’re going to lose. I believe last year when I told you and so it begins, that was ready. I believe what happened in France was set, and we’re about to hear go.

I don’t know what’s coming our way, but it is trouble, and so there are things that we have to discuss and things that we have to do, because I really, truly believe, and I’ve always said this, I believe for some strange reason, and maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe I’m nuts, but I really truly believe that this audience will help pull the world away from the brink of insanity, and insanity is coming in spades as you will see tonight.

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There are four things that I believe that are true about all of us, and it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, you’re poor, you’re black, white. It just doesn’t matter, liberal or conservative. We all want to belong to something bigger than us, and that is our nation. That is our family. That is our job. Who wants to go to work every day, and you’re just time to make the donuts, man?

If you’re making the donuts and you know that people are coming in, and it really enhances people’s day, well, then you’ve got meaning in your job, but we all want to believe that we belong to something bigger than us and better than us.

Two, we all want to be heard. We don’t necessarily all expect to get our own way all the time, but we want someone to listen to us. Three, we all want control of our lives. We know that sometimes our lives will get out of control, but we want that system and that sense that yes, I can affect the outcome of my life, not my neighbors, not anybody else, but my life. And four, we generally all want to live in peace, I think. I know I do.

I know, everybody I know, we’re going to have arguments. We’re going to have strife. We’re not going to get together as family or neighbors all the time, but generally we all just at the end of the day are like look, we’re going to agree to disagree, let’s just move on. Can we just agree to disagree? Yes, if we have something to unite on. So, what is that that unites us?

We used to be a melting pot. I remember my family used to say that to me all the time, America is a melting pot. We’re not a melting pot anymore. Nobody comes here and melts into us. You were supposed to come here and bring what was great, the best part. Leave all the crap behind. Bring the best part and melt in and be an American.

We used to say that America was truth, justice, and the American way, but what is that? Does anybody know? Is it truth? Is it justice? Our culture has gradually disintegrated since the dawn of the progressive era to the point to where it’s in our national interest, violates our principles, and that’s what I want to talk to about, national interest over national principles.

This is the root of our problem in our decision making. We know, for instance, that it is in our national interest to have cheap oil, right? Everybody wants cheap oil. I don’t want to pay a lot for gas. It helps me get to work. It helps us build things. If we have cheap energy, it’s in our national interest, but it is not our national principle to have cheap oil. It’s in our national interest. There is a huge difference, but we no longer talk about our principles anymore.

Because of our principles, we know yes, our interests tell us we want cheap oil, but our principles tell us we don’t have the right to kill people or take over a country and just steal their oil. No war for oil reflects our national principle—principles over interest.

Is it in our national interest now to be in a war in the Middle East? Is it? Why? What core American principle is compelling us now to remain in a war with unclear goals that is sapping the creativity of a nation, killing its own citizens, killing citizens elsewhere, leading to the loss of perhaps an entire generation? I can’t think of one, and here’s why I can’t, because I can tell you it’s in our national interest not to be killed and slaughtered by Islamic jihad people, but we won’t even admit that. We won’t even admit that, and that’s an interest, not a principle.

I’m kind of focused on this because last night I saw American Sniper, and I sat next to Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle’s wife. I watched Lone Survivor sitting next to Marcus Luttrell, and I watched this sitting next to Taya Kyle, and my daughter was with me. And my daughter, God bless her, walked out of the theater together and composed, and the minute we walked out, we got into the back of the theater and we went out by the screen, so we were in the back alley. She took three steps, the door closed, and she turned to me, and she buried her head in my chest, and she just started to cry.

She said, “Dad, what do we do now? We see this now, what do we do?” We know what’s happening. I’ll give you my review of the movie later on in the hour, but we have to solve this. Most of all the problems we face, if not all of them, can be traced back to interests over principles, and the loss of our principles is what’s led to the loss of our culture, the loss of our guiding principles and values.

Try this, are we a Judeo-Christian nation, yes or no? It’s a yes-or-no question. No, “Well, I don’t know…” No, yes or no, are we a Judeo-Christian nation? The answer is very clear. Historically it is very clear. Look at the artwork. Go to the Supreme Court, see what is sitting behind the justice. The bench, what’s sitting there? Moses, Moses. We are clearly a Judeo-Christian nation.

Now, here’s why this matters. If you say no, okay, all right, then what are we basing our laws on? What is the basis of our society? Because out of that Judeo-Christian value comes our charity and our kindness and our basic rules—don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal. And by avoiding this conversation, what happens is we coddle those who disagree with Judeo-Christian values, and that has led to confusion at best, because now what one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces, and that’s what’s coming our way.

We’re not just coddling those who disagree now. We are becoming openly hostile to our own foundation, the principles that set us up. We have tolerated and excused and embraced the ideals that are in direct opposition to our founding principles.

Let me ask you this, if I woke you up in the dead of night, and I said to you, “Hey, which one do you choose, which one do you want, is it God or is it Satan,” which one? I would be surprised…I mean, I could imagine that the atheists, what 2%, 3%, 10%, they would say well, I don’t know, but I don’t want either one of them. I select science. Fine. Everybody else, 99.9993 would say, “Uh…God. Now, can I go back to sleep?” Right?

Satan, we know that’s a bad concept. It’s evil. Schools in Orange County, Florida, have now banned Bibles, going against our principles, Judeo-Christian values, because Satanists have threatened to pass out information pamphlets to the students, so we tolerate it because we’re afraid. There’s not even enough spine left to stand up to Satanists, and we lie to ourselves, and we say well, it’s our principles. We believe in free speech. It’s not our principles of free speech. This is national suicide.

You cannot violate your principles over and over and over again. Now, it’s not too late to turn it around, but I warn you, ready, set, go is coming. Meanwhile, as the willingness to defend Christianity rides off into the sunset, Duke University has planned to start a weekly campus-wide Muslim call-to-prayer from the tower of their church chapel. How many towns in America don’t allow the bells to ring anymore because it’s a nuisance?

But now a Muslim call-to-prayer from the Duke University church chapel. So you know, just before the show, they scrapped that plan. The university said Muslims will instead gather on the quad before heading into the chapel for their weekly prayer service, but without principle, decisions are based on what’s going to make this problem go away or what do I need today? And I warn you, what you need today is not what you’re going to need tomorrow.

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If I got everything I ever prayed for, I would have married a very stupid supermodel at about 18. Would that be a celebration of my principles today? No, that would have been my in my 18-year-old interests, not necessarily something that lasts a long time. We do things now to make people happy, to make people shut up, to take the path of least resistance, make problems go away, and we’re doing it without standing up for our own principles, and without principle, no individual, no nation will stand for long. Look what happens to a nation without principles.

There was another homegrown terrorist busted in America, Ohio, yesterday, inspired by ISIS. He wanted to set off a series of bombs and kill a bunch of lawmakers. His plan was to detonate pipe bombs at the U.S. Capitol building and start gunning down anyone who fled the building. Officials were quick to call this, of course, say it with me, a lone wolf attack. Why? Because it’s in their interests.

Public pressure, political correctness, they want to admit that they are in control, that they were not wrong. They want you to believe that things are okay, you’re safe. Many of them don’t actually believe in actual evil, I think. I think there are some people who are so blinded by their hatred of our original principles, and they don’t even know their own that they embrace anything and everything that goes against our founding principles, even if it doesn’t make sense.

Think of this, think of the people who are embracing…the homosexual community that is standing up for the people like ISIS or the people over in the Middle East, Hamas, that will kill homosexuals that fast. That doesn’t make any sense. Why? Because they’re playing what’s in their interest, and their interest in many ways to some is to destroy the principles and the values of America and the West.

They want you now to believe that it’s just one crazy guy and nothing to worry about, but you know that’s not true. Truth, justice, and the American way, the truth is there have been so many lone wolf attacks around the globe, commentators are now calling it a wolf pack, a wolf pack of lone wolves. It’s either a lone wolf for a pack. Which one is it?

Europe tried the nothing-to-see-here approach. They embraced multiculturalism. They allowed their founding principles and their values which weren’t very strong in the first place to be eroded into meaninglessness, and their lack of meaning is going to lead them back to the same Fascism and the same Communism that we saw occupy Europe in the 20th century.

People are now being pushed into extremism. It’s not that hard to figure out. It’s not a justification of it. It’s just stating a fact. Europe has been crumbling. The basic comforts of life are being ripped from underneath them, and it is the natural reaction because everybody wants to belong to something, and I don’t want to belong to the EU. I don’t even know what the EU stands for. What’s the EU’s principle? Money, the European economic system. That’s not strong enough.

People want their homeland. They want their family. They want to believe in something that is rooted in tradition. So, people like Golden Dawn and other extremists are there ready to give you that tradition. They’re ready to give you that answer, and that answer will always be it’s them, it’s the Jew, it’s the immigrant, it’s the person different than you. A German plan now has…there’s a town in Germany that has a bunch of refugees coming in.

Now, in your wildest dreams, if you know who you are as Germans, in your wildest dream and you’ve learned your lesson, when you have a bunch of unwanted refugees, does anybody suggest hey, why don’t we put them up in the old concentration camp? No, but they just did. They’re now heading down the same path.

France—listen to these stats—France has 6 million Muslims. If you believe in the lone wolf and say it’s not the majority of Muslims, which I subscribe to, it’s not the majority of Muslims, but if you say the radical-to-moderate Muslim ratio around the globe is true in France, and I’m going to take the lowest estimate. Some people say it’s as high as 10%. Some people say it’s as high as 40% in the Middle East, but let’s just say some people say it’s 10. I’m going to say it’s 1%, 1%. In France, that leaves you with 60,000 jihadists in that one country alone, 60,000 lone wolves.

Germany has 5 million Muslims. One percent, that’s on the uber low side of radicalized Muslims, that’s 50,000 jihadists in Germany minimum. You get the idea. There are hundreds of thousands of radical jihadists roaming Western Europe alone, and they are here. They’re in Canada. They’re in Australia. They’re everywhere, and we won’t even recognize it. Wake up! It is not in our national interest. It’s a national priority to reconnect with our principles so we can stand against evil.

What we saw in France and other “lone wolf” attacks ignores the problem if we don’t address it, if we don’t say it out loud. It would be like looking at a concentration camp in Buchenwald and say well, that’s just an isolated incident. Buchenwald, okay, sure, you know, that’s run by Wilhelm, Buchenwald, but Auschwitz, Auschwitz, that’s in Poland. I mean, you know, you can’t connect all of these concentration camps together. These are lone wolves, isolated incidents, nothing to see here. Excuse me? They’re united in their hatred, and by letting the problem fester, it only gets worse.

History is repeating itself, and I don’t think Americans…I don’t think most Americans have a problem with immigrants. I really don’t. We all are immigrants, but it has to be somebody who’s coming in here the right way, doing the right thing, melting into us. We welcome those people. That’s the second part of it. You have to be willing to embrace our culture.

I look at that list of those four things—we all want to live in peace. That means I can disagree with you, but I can say you know what, Bob, we’re neighbors, we all want the same basic thing, let’s just agree to disagree. It’s why I decided to visit the border. I have relatives and friends whose parents came from places like Italy or Korea, and their parents speak the native tongue. They also speak English, but they speak the native tongue.

But their kids, none of my friends whose parents are first-generation, none of them speak a lick of the language of the country they came from, not one. They all speak English. Why? Because as my Uncle Leo would say, you’re in America now. You adapt. You came here to live. You become part of the culture, just like you would if you went to live in Germany or Mexico or France or England. But you have to have a culture. What is our culture? Truth, justice, American way.

Who stands for truth? Business? Citibank is willing to put taxpayers on the hook for a bailout because it was in their self interest. What happened to the principle of personal responsibility? That was a principle. Churches, synagogues, are they standing up? Are they willing to take on their own tax exempt status? Are they willing to say you know what, I don’t care, I’ll lose this mega-church. I’ll got out in the street and preach poor if I have to because this is right?

Is anybody standing up for our military after 14 years of war? You know, World War II, World War II, think of all the documentaries and all the films and all the things that happened. That was four years, four, count ’em. We’re in year 14 of this never-ending war. Why? And why am I the guy on the television asking that question? Where are the protesters now? Where is the media with their daily death counts? Remember?

Every single month, 65 soldiers died over in Iraq today, 55 last month, 47 last month. It’s getting worse. Where are they? People, women, men, still dying. I haven’t seen a death count since Bush left office. Why? Why? Because it’s no longer in their interest. It was never about principles. International answer, it was never about principles. It was about politics. CNN and their death count, the New York Times and their death count, it’s not about principles.

The massive debt obligation that we are heaping on an entire generation of children who will be forced to reap what we have sown, who is going to pay for our generation’s recklessness? Hey, I’ve got an idea. You know what, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you and I, let’s go to the Bugatti store today, you and I. We’ll both go buy a Bugatti, and I’m going to take a loan out on my children’s life so my children will pay for it when they turn 30. They’ll pay for the Bugatti now, but we’ll have a Bugatti. It’ll be great—greed and lies.

I’ve been reading the Torah lately. The best thing in the Torah is this so far, the very beginning. I know, I’m running out of time. The best thing about the Torah that I’m reading right now is it says “in the beginning of God’s creating.” It’s not in the beginning God, created the heavens. In the beginning of God’s creating…how fantastic is that? He’s been around for a while.

Now, let me show you, here’s the beginning of His creating. But the word God, if you read it in the King James Version or anything else, we just get one word. Jews really have it going. They’ve got all kinds of words for God. This one is justice, meaning that when God created the heavens and the earth, He created it with justice, which means warning: The events will always bend back towards justice, because the entire system was built for justice.

Race riots, anti-cop violence, extremists that are rising, the Fascists, the anti-Semitism, all of this stuff is happening. It’s going to be wiped out because the whole universe is bending towards justice. It might take a while. We might have to go to hell, but real economic strife hasn’t even come ashore yet. What happens when it really gets ugly? All this stuff that is happening now, it hasn’t even started.

People still have their frickin’ iPhone. What happens to that person who hasn’t been paying attention to the news, all of a sudden their livelihood is taken away? All of a sudden they’re like wait a minute, what do you mean I can’t have my iPhone? Wait a minute, what do you mean? Somebody’s going to be willing to say, “It’s those guys over there.” It’s the immigrants, they took your job. It’s the Jews. It’s the conservatives. It’s the liberals. It’s whoever. It’s the blacks. It’s the whites. It’s the rich. It’s the poor.

You think you’re tough, really? We’re the most coddled generation possibly in the history of the planet. People think they’re so tough. They go over from France to go over to Syria and participate in jihad. They are literally crying themselves to sleep at night because they can no longer use their Wi-Fi on their phone. You’re going to behead people, and you can’t handle losing your iPhone?

We can’t handle a day without bread and milk on the shelves, our 4G being down for ten minutes. We all freak out. What happens when real strife comes, when we lose jobs, when we lose food, when we lose safety, and we can’t depend on our neighbor because we don’t know what they even believe in?

What’s coming? You’ve heard it all before. You’ve seen it all before. You want to know what’s coming? Go watch a video. Go watch some documentary on World War II. It’s coming again. Ready, set…God help us when the starter says go.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

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From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The loneliness epidemic: Are machines replacing human connection?

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Seniors, children, and the isolated increasingly rely on machines for conversation, risking real relationships and the emotional depth that only humans provide.

Jill Smola is 75 years old. She’s a retiree from Orlando, Florida, and she spent her life caring for the elderly. She played games, assembled puzzles, and offered company to those who otherwise would have sat alone.

Now, she sits alone herself. Her husband has died. She has a lung condition. She can’t drive. She can’t leave her home. Weeks can pass without human interaction.

Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

But CBS News reports that she has a new companion. And she likes this companion more than her own daughter.

The companion? Artificial intelligence.

She spends five hours a day talking to her AI friend. They play games, do trivia, and just talk. She says she even prefers it to real people.

My first thought was simple: Stop this. We are losing our humanity.

But as I sat with the story, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe we’ve already lost some of our humanity — not to AI, but to ourselves.

Outsourcing presence

How often do we know the right thing to do yet fail to act? We know we should visit the lonely. We know we should sit with someone in pain. We know what Jesus would do: Notice the forgotten, touch the untouchable, offer time and attention without outsourcing compassion.

Yet how often do we just … talk about it? On the radio, online, in lectures, in posts. We pontificate, and then we retreat.

I asked myself: What am I actually doing to close the distance between knowing and doing?

Human connection is messy. It’s inconvenient. It takes patience, humility, and endurance. AI doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t interrupt your day. It doesn’t ask anything of you. Real people do. Real people make us confront our pride, our discomfort, our loneliness.

We’ve built an economy of convenience. We can have groceries delivered, movies streamed, answers instantly. But friendships — real relationships — are slow, inefficient, unpredictable. They happen in the blank spaces of life that we’ve been trained to ignore.

And now we’re replacing that inefficiency with machines.

AI provides comfort without challenge. It eliminates the risk of real intimacy. It’s an elegant coping mechanism for loneliness, but a poor substitute for life. If we’re not careful, the lonely won’t just be alone — they’ll be alone with an anesthetic, a shadow that never asks for anything, never interrupts, never makes them grow.

Reclaiming our humanity

We need to reclaim our humanity. Presence matters. Not theory. Not outrage. Action.

It starts small. Pull up a chair for someone who eats alone. Call a neighbor you haven’t spoken to in months. Visit a nursing home once a month — then once a week. Ask their names, hear their stories. Teach your children how to be present, to sit with someone in grief, without rushing to fix it.

Turn phones off at dinner. Make Sunday afternoons human time. Listen. Ask questions. Don’t post about it afterward. Make the act itself sacred.

Humility is central. We prefer machines because we can control them. Real people are inconvenient. They interrupt our narratives. They demand patience, forgiveness, and endurance. They make us confront ourselves.

A friend will challenge your self-image. A chatbot won’t.

Our homes are quieter. Our streets are emptier. Loneliness is an epidemic. And AI will not fix it. It will only dull the edges and make a diminished life tolerable.

Before we worry about how AI will reshape humanity, we must first practice humanity. It can start with 15 minutes a day of undivided attention, presence, and listening.

Change usually comes when pain finally wins. Let’s not wait for that. Let’s start now. Because real connection restores faster than any machine ever will.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.

Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.

They were wrong.

The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.

Willful blindness

On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.

Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”

And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.

Monthly attacks

Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.

In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.

That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”

On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.

Democrats are radicalizing

This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”

Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.

A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.

The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.

Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.