The Nazarene Fund and The Middle East with Johnnie Moore

Making their way to eastern Europe --- just in time for Christmas --- is the first group of refugees being saved by The Nazarene Fund. How are they feeling?

According to Johnnie Moore, author of Defying ISIS, they're still in a bit of shock, wondering if this is too good to be true. Having experienced persecution and the ravages of war, they're astonished by this outpouring of compassion.

The families feel comforted about their final destination --- an eastern European nation that is selectively taking Christian refugees only. Of course, there's trepidation in the mix as well, and the fear that --- as Syrians --- they might be mistaken as former members of ISIS.

Glenn and Johnnie discussed on air today how The Nazarene Fund is providing a bit of peace and security for a persecuted and desperate community.

If you would like to help rescue highly vetted Christian refugees, make a donation by visiting #NeverAgainIsNow or calling 844-637-2791.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

GLENN: Johnnie Moore is joining us now because he has been on the front lines leading the fight to bring in Christian refugees. And, Johnnie, can you tell me the difference between a Christian refugee? I mean, how dare you make this racist and this Islamophobic differentiating point, but can you tell me the difference between the Christian refugees and the Muslim refugees?

JOHNNIE: Yeah, exactly. And it's really, really simple. There is no Christian member of ISIS. Not one. Not a single Christian member of ISIS.

And, by the way, all these Christians, are Middle Eastern pacifists to begin with. You know, they wouldn't even know what to do with a gun if they found one.

I mean, this is totally, totally incomprehensible last week when the president spoke most passionately in an hour-long press conference at the G20, he spoke most passionately about what I characterize as discriminating against Christians. Because that's what he's decided to do.

And, you know, what's so strange about this, Glenn, is that the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the UN convention on genocide, official State Department policy, every nonsectarian, nonreligious NGO in the world has always provided special treatment to those who have been persecuted for religion. And yet for months, we've been saying -- we've been saying it, we've been very, very clear about it, that it seems like this administration is discriminating against Christians, and they denied it. The State Department released press release after press statement after press statement, and then the president just came clean last week in front of world leaders at the G20 and made it very, very clear, Christians aren't welcome from the Middle East in the United States, unless they just slip in.

GLENN: He's saying that there is no genocide of Christians.

JOHNNIE: No -- and he's said it from the beginning. And it's crazy. I don't even know how he believes this. A million Christians are gone from Syria in five years. A million Christians. Over a million Christians are gone from Iraq in the last seven or eight years. I mean, this is like -- it is really, really, really shameful. And the fact that the president spends all of his energy, you know, trying to make those of us who want to provide special treatment to genocide victims look like bigots at this time when we're facing a just total crisis, when it comes to the fact that, in Europe and the United States, we haven't a clue who is here. I mean, this is really, really terrible. And it's very, very, very dangerous.

You know, and, by the way, he speaks, you know, caustically about all this stuff. You know, last week he said sarcastically, "What do these Republicans, what do these conservatives want? You know, they're scared of widows and orphans from Syria." Well, you know, the truth is we are scared of widows and orphans from Syria because we don't know if they carry the ideology.

You know, why is this woman a widow? Did her husband die fighting for ISIS? You know, what have they been teaching their children? What about the communities they're going in, in the United States? Those of us who are close to the situation know two things: The first thing that we know is, the vast majority of Muslims aren't going to strap a bomb to themselves. The second thing we know is, those that are often ideologically led by the woman in the home. It's the woman that teaches the ideology to the children. And oftentimes the husbands, you know, follow that path. So, you know, I think a lot of us that are close to the Middle East are -- are terrified of the fact that we're not scrutinizing things.

And, you know, the other side of this too is, we right now at the Nazarene Fund with Mercury One, we have employed former United States intelligence agents that are doing our own vetting of our own Christian refugees before resettlement. And I was just talking to one of them last week and she told me. She said, "You know, vetting is difficult for professionals. It's difficult for CIA people." So the fact that we're leaving this to untrained UN people or, you know, immigration people, it's just -- it's just really, really scary, Glenn. Just so many things to be worried about right now.

GLENN: How do you argue this with your friends? If you're listening and your friends are going to be around a Thanksgiving table, and I can guarantee you, some of them are going to say, "We have to bring the Syrian refugees in. We have to. This is so un-American to say 'no' to Syrian refugees." How would you argue that?

JOHNNIE: I'd tell them how compassionate are we being, if we're endangering the United States of America, endangering our own children? You know, it's absolutely true that most of these refugees aren't going to strap a bomb to themselves. But it's absolutely true that the United States of America hasn't effectively figured out how to discern who is and who isn't dangerous.

And, you know, we just discovered last week in a Senate hearing, Glenn, that there were five individuals who were recruited by ISIS that worked in the United States airport, including LAX. You know, the airport I fly out of every day of my life. I mean, there are really, really alarming, alarming things. And, by the way, don't mention the fact that, you know, Europe has embraced such -- such an you attitude of tolerance, like you were describing moments ago, that they allowed all of this to fester.

You know, and those of us that have been studying this and close to this, this wasn't a surprise to us. Paris wasn't a surprise. You know, when I wrote my ISIS book a year ago, one of the most startling pieces of information I stumbled upon was that 31 percent of the Arabic language tweets in Belgium that mentioned ISIS were in support of ISIS.

And, you know, this information was in the public domain a year ago. I remember being in France in Leone just seven or eight years ago with a group of students from Liberty University. We were distributing food in a poor community, a poor immigrant community outside of Leone. And we were run out of that immigrant community, like people throwing stones at us, literally throwing stones at us. I mean, this has been allowed to fester.

And now we're living in a global world. And so right now, one of the things that we know is at least 1800 French citizens, French citizens with French passports traveled over to Syria. They fought for ISIS because they have French passports, unless they're on a list. And everyone has admitted, the EU and the United States has admitted that our lists are insufficient. Those people with French passports can fly back to France. They can get on a French plane and because of the visa waiver program, they can arrive at any airport in the United States and do whatever they want unless they happen to be on a list.

And the FBI director told our Congress just over a month ago that our Syrian list is dismal. And, by the way, a number of people in France were on our list, but we're still incapable of organizing our intelligence and working cooperatively with other countries that these people were just sort of allowed to warned around Europe. This is really, really a precarious moment.

GLENN: Johnnie, I know that the first group of refugees is coming out of Syria here in the next few weeks, before Christmas. How are they feeling? Because I would imagine -- I spent a lot of time this weekend thinking, "If I'm one of them and I see the world collapsing around, I'm -- I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do." Because you're not going to escape this -- you know, what are they feeling?

JOHNNIE: I think they're sort of feeling two things. And the first thing is, they're still feeling that this is too good to be true. I just -- I think down deep inside, they're all waiting for something to fall apart because they're not used to the world showing this type of compassion to Christians.

And we keep telling them, "It's not too good to be true. It's actually going to happen." And secondarily, I think they actually feel a bit of comfort because they're going into a country in eastern Europe that very, very early on stood up and said, "We're a Christian country, you know, we're more than happy to take Christians, but we're not going to take everyone." And I think that provides another level of security.

And then you have on the same token, because of the way the migration system in Europe has been allowed to function, you know, without -- without sufficient regulation and vetting, they're also fearful that people will confuse them as persecuted Christians for Syrians that -- that, you know, might be former members of ISIS. I mean, this is what's so, so crazy, you know, about the situation, that -- that they're facing.

I mean, the world is in total upheaval. Everyone is confused. Our leaders are doing crazy things. I mean, just today, you know, I was reading the news from Iraq. And Russian missiles have accidentally gone into Iraqi airspace where ISIS isn't even. So you can imagine what could happen if a Russian missile, because of their imprecise activity, ends up falling on Baghdad. I mean, we could just have 1,000 apocalypses in every direction that we look. And so what we've done is we've carved out a little bit of peace and security around a really, really persecuted and desperate community. And we're bound and determined that if all hell breaks loose around them, that they will be saved and they will have a future and we will have done our part.

GLENN: Johnnie, we thank you. And we pray for you. And we pray for the refugees that we're trying to get out. If you would like to assist, you can go to now.mercuryone.org. Or you can call 844-637-2791. And make a donation. I went to a book signing this weekend. People came with 5-dollar, 10-dollar checks, hundred dollar checks, and one family came with a 10,000-dollar check and said, "We really want to help a mom and a dad get their family out of there."

JOHNNIE: Wow.

GLENN: Johnnie, thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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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.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

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Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

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A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

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A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.