The 2016 election will come down to one word: Authentic

Phony politicians have crippled American politics for way too long. They pretend to be grassroots, but really they are backed by corporate elites and donors with endless money to spend on influence in Washington, DC. The apathy the American people showed to Hillary’s announcement is just the latest example. People are hungry for the truth. They want authenticity. And it’s not going to come from the establishment of either party.

2016 election is going to come down to one word, and that word is authentic. I really, truly believe if it doesn’t happen this time, we are done as a nation because people are absolutely starving for something or somebody that’s real. We don’t even have to agree with them all the time. We just have to believe that they’re real. If anybody starts smelling like a focus group or you can tell that they’re just going after polling numbers, phony concern, processed language, anything like that, anything that is fake, it is over that fast.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton got wrecked. She was destroyed because he basically showed up in Iowa expecting to be crowned the nominee. So, now what is she doing? She’s going to be just like you. She’s riding around in a van pretending to be an average person, going to Chipotle, you know, like she always does. Come on. She is so desperate to appear normal when we all know she’s not normal. And that’s okay.

Her first campaign ad was excruciatingly boring, but it was real people. You’re made to believe that they are just regular people. They’re just people just like you doing mundane jobs just like you. But they’re not regular people. This woman, show this woman. This woman here, she’s not a regular person just planting her garden. No, she’s in this for a reason, because she is a big-time former abortion lobbyists who was leading a campaign for Wendy Davis. So, having her in this spot was speaking to all of her supporters—see, we’re just like you. We’re abortion activists.

So now Hillary is riding around in a crappy van, and actually it’s not a crappy van. It’s a $75,000 van. Wait. Dana has a great show. She’s going to be talking about the van tonight. But she’s driving around, she’s talking to people at gas stations. When do you think Hillary Clinton actually got out at a gas station and pumped? By the way, I like the Chairman Mao outfit she’s wearing there, I mean, because that’s what the regular people in Iowa wear are designer Mao jackets like that one.

When do you think she actually was at a gas station and was looking through the beef jerky? Really? Do you think she’s actually gone to the gas station and said, “Man, there’s Duck Dynasty T-shirts and key chains and everything everywhere; these guys really are big”? She’s not hanging out at gas stations. It’s not who she is, and that’s perfectly okay.

She was the first lady back in the 80s. Then she was the former first lady. Then she was a senator. Then she was the Secretary of State. Now she’s running for president again. She’s an elite with access and connections to powers that few in human existence have ever achieved. That’s okay. She used to be poor, and then—because they were both attorneys, I mean, poor is kind of relative here. She did go to Yale, but now they’re mega million dollars rich.

She’s a woman with ambition to be president of the United States. Good. I think she’d have a better chance if she were just honest about it and say look, okay, I’m never really quite comfortable hanging out at the gas station. No one’s buying this rollout, and it’s really laughable. Saturday Night Live, did you see it this weekend, hitting her harder than they did the Sarah Palin? It’s rough, and it’s because she’s a phony, and everybody knows she’s a phony. Just accept who you are and be honest about it.

She can’t even be honest about the fans on her social media sites. A study was done of her Facebook page. Again, we had to go across the ocean. We had to go to I think it was The Guardian in England to get anybody in the media to do a job. They found something odd about her followers. Seven percent of her followers were from Baghdad. That’s not really comforting or real. And on Twitter, it was revealed that 15%, about 544,000 of her Twitter followers, are bogus accounts.

If her team is willing to lie about Facebook and Twitter fans and make people up just out of whole cloth, what else are they willing to lie about? Why can’t we just be honest about what we really, truly believe? Honestly, this is why I would love to see a campaign between Ted Cruz and what’s her name up in Massachusetts, Tiffany? The woman, Elizabeth Warren, you know, Cherokee people?

I’d love to see those guys because except for the “I’m from an Indian tribe,” at least they’re honest. Wouldn’t you love to have a debate—we talked about this on radio today, a debate where Ted Cruz is like this is the Constitution, and this is what I believe because I believe in these founding principles and here’s why. And she says okay, that’s fine and everything, but it doesn’t really work. I’m a Socialist. I don’t believe in communist Russia. I believe in Sweden, and we should be more like Sweden, and this is why it works.

To tell you the truth, I think the Sweden argument would probably win at this point in this country, but I could at least live with it because we’d have an honest debate. And everybody right now is just sick of these lies. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she was asked to answer a simple question on abortion, is it okay or not to kill a seven-pound baby just before birth in the womb? Two networks tried to get her to answer. She danced around this answer every which way so she didn’t have to say yes or no. Watch.

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Megyn Kelly: At what point is it appropriate to say it’s no longer just between a woman and her doctor?

Wasserman Schultz: What is appropriate from our perspective, I’ll speak for myself, but I think I can speak for most of my party, and that is that a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her body should be between her and her doctor, and that in terms of personal liberty, we definitely have a different opinion, Rand Paul and I do. And there is a Supreme Court decision though that answers those questions for us.

Megyn Kelly: But that Supreme Court decision, Casey, says the state has a say.

Wasserman Schultz: That’s right, and states have done so.

Megyn Kelly: But what it recognized is that it’s not just between a woman and her doctor; that the state has a right to step in on behalf of the fetus and say at some point that fetus does obtain rights. You know, you would admit that you can’t have women aborting third-trimester babies just on a whim, right?

Wasserman Shultz: Certainly not on a whim.

Not on a whim. Okay, stop. Okay, so she’s fine with killing a seven-pound baby if the mom and the doctor say it’s okay. All right, what’s the problem with that? I disagree with it, entirely disagree with it, but what is the problem with that? The problem is that third-trimester abortions is only popular with about 15% of the American people. You’re down to—let’s be really, really overly fair and say cut that number in half, 7% of the American people would be okay with what she just said. That’s why she’s not saying it, but that’s what she means.

She’s totally fine. You want to kill the baby, if the doctor and the mom say I want to kill it instead of giving birth to it, they’ll kill it right before birth. That’s fine. She is all in favor of giving somebody that choice to commit murder. Okay. But that’s not the way the game is played. She can’t be who she really is because she’s playing politics. The inner conversation that she’s having in her head when they ask that question is if I say something wrong, then the pro-choice people will be mad at me. If I say it’s okay, then I’m okay with killing a baby, so I’ll just really say nothing. I’ll let people read between the lines, and then you get those fake answers—oh, it’s choice, choice, choice.

It’s a bunch of phonies. And this isn’t merely a Democratic problem. This is a political problem. This is a problem that we have accepted. This is all Astroturf. And here are the people that really know it and are not going to put up with it anymore—the college age. If Jeb Bush decides to run, trust me, you are going to see a similar reaction to Hillary’s announcement. Nobody is buying into the organic grassroots Jeb Bush campaign. I’m not falling for it. I don’t think anybody else is.

But the media is all about the establishment. Did you see them today running after Hillary? This is the most amazing video. Okay, here they start running because her van just passed. She’s going to the back. She’s going to the back. Oh my gosh, look, there she goes. There she goes. Quick, everybody grab your cameras. We’ve got to get her out of the car. We’ve got to get that shot. It’s crazy. There are no actual literal people there, just reporters falling all over themselves, and they fall over Jeb Bush too.

But they crucify people like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, even though there is genuine excitement for those guys. Let’s talk about Ted Cruz here for a second. Say what you want, but the guy is not establishment. That much is really clear. They hate his guts. Now, how much of that is resonating with the public? Well, I think pretty well.

I want you to listen to an answer that Ted Cruz gave that I think is the right answer to give. Now, he happened to give this at an agricultural summit in Iowa, and it would have been very easy for him to give another answer, but he didn’t because it’s not what he believed. This is him saying he was against ethanol with a bunch of farmers in Iowa. Watch.

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Ted Cruz: Look, I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks who the answer you’d like me to give is, “I’m for the RFS, darn it.” That would be the easy thing to do. But I’ll tell you, people are pretty fed up, I think, with politicians that run around and tell one group one thing, tell another group another thing, and then they go to Washington and they don’t do anything they said they would do. And I think that’s a big part of the reason we have the problems we have in Washington is there have been career politicians in both parties that aren’t listening to the American people and that aren’t doing what they said they would do.

That is exactly the problem, and it’s exactly what we’re tired of. Most politicians would be too afraid to do just that. It was not that hard. Just tell the truth. He was applauded for telling the truth. That is what people are hungry for, starving for, to be truthful. We’ve had our share of career politicians who have come into office saddled with political debts that they have to pay, and I have to ask you a question, how’s that working out for us? Working out well? The president, no matter which side, the president gets in office, and he’s handcuffed. The country ends up paying the ultimate price because the politicians are too afraid of special interest groups—too many conflicting debts that they have to pay.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

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Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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.