McMullin Confirms He's Straight (Not That It Matters). Can We Discuss Real Issues Now?

Presidential hopeful Evan McMullin joined The Glenn Beck Program on Wednesday to discuss, among other things, the recent robocalls made in Utah by a self-described white supremacist. According to the Deseret News, William Daniel Johnson urged Utahns to vote for Donald Trump and said that "Evan is over 40 years old and is not married and doesn’t even have a girlfriend. I believe Evan is a closet homosexual."

Adding to the embarrassingly tawdry 2016 presidential campaign, McMullin has since had to address the issue of his sexuality. For the record, he's straight, not that it matters.

RELATED: Captain America Is Straight and Libertarian—Deal With It

"You know, it's truly unfortunate. Donald Trump's campaign of bigotry have brought these people out of the cage. Just a month ago, they held a big press conference in downtown Washington, D.C., that never would have happened in the last couple of days, but now they feel empowered," McMullin said.

In a video of the meeting, available on YouTube, the white supremacists voiced their disagreement with the ideas of liberty, and that all men and women are created equal.

"Many white nationalists are also neo-Nazis. Nazis are national socialists. So, of course, they don't agree with freedom and choice," Glenn said.

McMullin also discussed the problem with Putin supporting white nationalists across Europe.

"He does that to attack the principles on which these these democracies are based, the idea of equality and liberty," McMullin said.

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these questions:

• Since when do we listen to white nationalists?

• Is McMullin part of the Mormon Mafia?

• What is McMullin's biggest ambition in life?

• What is the largest intelligence success in modern times?

• If Hillary Clinton wins, will World War III start?

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

GLENN: Presidential hopeful Evan McMullin who is neck-and-neck with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in Utah. Welcome to the program, Evan.

EVAN: Great to be with you, Glenn.

GLENN: Good. A white nationalist, which we'll get to in a second, came out and said something. But I first noticed this coming from a state senator and a former bishop saying, "Hey, look, all I can tell you is -- you know, this guy, he's been in the CIA, he's worked for Goldman Sachs, and he's a 40-year-old man who doesn't date. I'm just saying."

(chuckling)

GLENN: How did that make you feel -- I expect it from the white nationalist. How did that make you feel?

EVAN: Yeah. Well, I can't say, Glenn, that it's a surprise candidly. I mean, this is the kind of campaign that Donald Trump has run. And many of his supporters have joined in that approach. In the past -- in the past week -- in the past few days especially, I found that my faith has been attacked. My service to this country has been attacked. My mother has been attacked. They're spreading lies about who I am. And even now we're receiving death threats from the white supremacist movement.

But you know, I knew this would come. I knew this would happen.

PAT: Wow.

EVAN: I knew -- I knew there would be opposition. But we will not be intimidated.

GLENN: I will tell you, Evan -- Evan, I will tell you this -- first of all, I'm sorry for the attacks on your mom. I don't know what anyone would have you do.

PAT: Terrible.

GLENN: Apparently --

PAT: I guess you're supposed to disavow her?

GLENN: Disavow your mom or something. I don't know if you were to punch her in the stomach or what you were supposed to do.

EVAN: Yeah. Right, yeah, exactly.

GLENN: Yeah. Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to your mother.

EVAN: Thank you, Glenn.

GLENN: I will tell you this, Evan, that when I just endorsed Ted Cruz, I knew politics was ugly. I knew what -- you know, what was possible. But there's a difference between knowing that and experiencing that. I will --

EVAN: That's right.

GLENN: I will never get near that cesspool ever again. Ever again. So you can't tell me that you knew this was going to happen. There is a difference.

EVAN: Well, I knew that I would be attacked. I knew that my service would be under attack.

PAT: Uh-huh.

EVAN: I knew that people would attack me on all fronts. I knew that would happen. I think you're not prepared for it until you -- you experience it and you about it through it. So I understand your point there. But, look, I saw that Donald Trump attacked Ted Cruz's wife and his father. This is the kind of campaign they run. Other surrogates and supporters of Donald Trump are -- are attacking my faith. Calling me -- saying that I'm part of a Mormon Mafia. We've had fun with that online.

GLENN: Which, by the way, has been a very popular -- at least in my neighborhood. The Mormon Mafia showed up at my house for trick-or-treat a couple of times.

STU: Did they?

GLENN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I had to ask what they were. They were all dressed in black with, like, fedoras. And I said, "What are you?" And they're like, "The Mormon Mafia."

(laughter)

EVAN: Did you get a picture of that, Glenn?

GLENN: I don't think I did, but I can ask Tania. She might have.

EVAN: Yeah, let's try -- let's get one. That would be a lot of fun.

GLENN: Yeah.

EVAN: But, yeah, you know, we're all having fun with it. But in a more serious way -- I mean, this is an attack, and there have been other attacks on my faith and -- on my -- my personal faith, but then on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the -- the church I belong to, as a part of what we're doing and a part of Donald's opposition to us.

But, look, I wear it all as a badge of honor, you know. That robo-call said that I was gay. I'm not. I'm straight. I've never had to defend that about myself before. You know, the man who did the robo-call was on a local radio station in Utah yesterday and gave me the advice that I should get married and have children.

And I said, "Well, at least that's something we can agree upon because that's -- that's my biggest ambition in life."

But, you know, going after my mother -- they point out that my mother --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Hang on just a second. Before we get into your mom.

EVAN: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: Was this a credible radio station that had the white nationalist on?

EVAN: Yes, actually it was. It was.

GLENN: Okay. Can I ask a question? Because I saw this white nationalist on a network, a cable news network, and I don't want to say which one because I don't remember which one it was on.

EVAN: Yeah.

GLENN: Since when do we listen to white nationalists and their advice?

EVAN: Right.

GLENN: Since when?

EVAN: Yeah.

GLENN: Were they presented in a credible way?

EVAN: Halfway credible. When you have them on at all, I think it helps lend credibility to them and their cause.

JEFFY: Yes, it does.

EVAN: You know, it's truly unfortunate. Donald Trump's campaign of bigotry have brought these people out of the cage. And now they're -- just a month ago, they held a big press conference in downtown Washington, DC, that never would have happened in the last couple of days. But now they feel empowered.

And you know what they said, Glenn? You got to watch this tape. You can find it on YouTube. I can send it to you. They talk a lot about how they don't agree with the idea that all men and women are created equal. That much we know, but you know what they went on to say, Glenn? They went on to say that they also didn't support the idea of liberty, the cause of liberty. And that was a huge wake-up call for me.

I am I was already in this fight when it happened. I was already in the race. But when I realized -- of course, if you don't agree that all men and women are created equal, then it follows that you're probably not for liberty. But they said it. They made a case that -- yeah.

GLENN: Many white nationalists are also neo-Nazis. Nazis are national socialists. So, of course, they don't agree with freedom --

EVAN: Yes, that's right.

GLENN: -- and choice. They're national socialists.

EVAN: That's -- that's right. But they're saying this openly and in a way that I hadn't seen it before. We know they're fascist. We get all that. But they made a case to talk specifically about liberty. And we do not accept liberty. So, yes -- but these are people who are supporting Donald Trump. And he is -- his campaign is -- is fueled in part, not entirely -- let's be clear about that. And not everybody who supports Donald Trump agrees with these guys, but these guys form a large part of his support. And this is what we're up against, Glenn. And this is what we're fighting for.

And it's fitting and it's -- it's right that there would be this opposition. And I'm proud that this is the opposition we're facing, because it means that we're fighting for the right thing.

STU: I think we've learned a lot, by the way, of -- in this campaign from having the white nationalists finally be open and honest about their opinions.

GLENN: Yes, it is good.

STU: I'm fine hearing from them. In reality, if you don't hear from them, they hide and do these things in private.

GLENN: I don't mind exposing them. I do mind taking them seriously.

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: I didn't hear the interview on whatever station. I did see it on one of the cable stations. And it may not have even been him. It may have been somebody else. But they were not talking about his white nationalism. They were talking about Evan. And I'm like --

EVAN: Right.

GLENN: -- how are we -- wait. Let's talk about the guy burying the message here. Doesn't that bother anybody?

EVAN: Right.

GLENN: Yesterday, we talked to somebody who -- you know, my vote is coming down to a couple of people. You're one of them. Darrell Castle is another one. And yesterday, I asked him a few questions about Russia. And I believe Russia is deeply involved with the --

EVAN: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: -- white nationalists and with this -- this Neo-Eurasian kind of philosophy.

EVAN: Yeah, right.

GLENN: Are you familiar with that at all, Evan?

EVAN: Yes. Glenn, this is what -- this is what Vladimir Putin does in Europe. He promotes these white nationalist groups, and then he -- and then he finds leaders of them and then promotes those leaders. And he does that -- and this is -- Glenn, you know, this is just so fundamentally important.

He does that to attack the principles on which these -- on which these democracies are based, the idea of equality and liberty. He wants to attack those because Vladimir Putin is smart enough to know this -- that the United States, the power of the United States and the power of some of our European -- many of our European allies ultimately comes from these ideals. You know, we have differences between the way we look at the role of government and all of that between our European allies here and all that. We know that. But Vladimir Putin wants to undermine the cause of liberty and equality in these countries because he knows that if he does that, he will weaken those countries, weaken the United States.

Our -- so much of our power, Glenn, comes from the fact -- from this cause of liberty. Countries around the world want to work with us, cooperate with us, be led by us, when necessary. And that is an enormous source of power. And it keeps authoritarians -- expansionists, authoritarians like Vladimir Putin in check.

Now, if he undermines our values, then he undermines that goodwill, then our power recedes, and then he has a freer hand to do more of what he does, what he's doing in Syria, what he's doing in Ukraine, what he's doing in western Europe, by undermining their democracies by promoting these white nationalist movements. He's doing that right here in the United States. And it's tragic that he's the Republican -- Donald Trump, his man, Vladimir Putin's man is the nominee of a major party. It's perhaps the largest intelligence success in modern times that Russia has had.

GLENN: I agree.

EVAN: I assure you in the Kremlin, they're just wildly excited about. The success they're having.

GLENN: Excited. Evan, I'm going to ask you -- in advance, I'm going to warn the audience, this is an extremely unfair question because I don't know anyone honestly that can answer this question yes. But if there's anybody that might, it might be you. And bonus points if you can.

EVAN: Okay.

GLENN: Can you explain Neo-Eurasianism? Do you know what that is?

EVAN: Well, I -- I actually -- I have not heard that term. You mentioned that. Is that -- is that something that you're coining, or is that something that you're --

GLENN: No, that's something that Dugin and Putin's people have coined. I wondered --

EVAN: Yeah.

GLENN: You sound like you're aware of it, you just may not be aware of the term.

EVAN: The term, yes.

GLENN: Because it's something that I don't think anybody is aware of. And it is the root of what's happening with -- with Putin. And you sound -- the only reason why I asked you is because you sound like you get it. And I don't know if you knew it by that name or if you just instinctively have been watching Russia and know what's going on.

PAT: You probably would have had to read Aleksandr Dugin's book, Evan. We don't think we'd expect you to have read that at any point --

EVAN: Yeah. I don't know if there's a lot of time reading Dugin's work.

PAT: No.

GLENN: That's fine. That's fine.

EVAN: But, yes, this is what he's doing. Yeah.

GLENN: Because we're seeing people that are dismissing Russia. And it is so clear they're interfering with our politics. And especially Donald Trump supporters, 48 percent say that he -- that Putin is a friend of the United States.

EVAN: Yeah. Yeah.

GLENN: And on the other side, we have Hillary Clinton who we're being told is going to start, you know, World War III with Putin.

EVAN: Right. Right.

GLENN: How do we deal with this? You're president of the United States, what do you do?

EVAN: Well, first of all, that is absolutely bogus, the idea that if we elect Hillary Clinton, it's going to start World War III. Now, if we elect Hillary Clinton, it's going to do enormous damage to our country, period. But the same is true with her fellow big government liberal, Donald Trump.

But this is -- Putin is trying to scare the American people. He's trying to influence the election in a number of ways. It's RT America. You know, the Russian cable network here in the United States.

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

EVAN: You know, that is something they sow seeds of skepticism in our democratic institutions.

It's very -- its purpose is to undermine our faith in our system, in our democracy. And, look, our democracy is not perfect. We're blessed to have it. It is not perfect. We can all admit that and still be proud Americans. We can make improvements to it.

But we are so fortunate to have what we have. And, yes, let's improve it. Let's make it better as we go, in accordance with the Constitution.

But, you know, they're trying to sow seeds of skepticism in the system so that Americans let go of -- of -- of foundational American principles. And so that weakens our country in the way that I described earlier.

And it's the hacking. It's all this other -- all these other things. The promotion of the white supremacist movement. All of this.

GLENN: Okay. I only have one minute. Stu has a question.

STU: Yeah, I'm a numbers guy.

EVAN: Yeah.

STU: And we've seen a lot of numbers being thrown around here. So I want to -- give me your number answer on this. We have Hillary Clinton proposing a $275 billion infrastructure stimulus. We have Donald Trump proposing a $1 trillion infrastructure stimulus. What is the Evan McMullin stimulus number?

EVAN: Well, Stu, I may disappoint you on this one, but I think we're asking the wrong question. The reason why this question is so hard to answer is because we don't have the money. The reason we don't have the money is because we refuse to reform entitlements. That's what we need to be talking about. We need to reform entitlements so we can bring down our deficits and our debt. And then we have more money to spend on things that are important. Infrastructure is important. We do need to spend money on that. Right now, we don't have it. And that's why --

GLENN: We spend money on infrastructure or spend money on a stimulus.

EVAN: On -- well, on infrastructure.

GLENN: Okay.

EVAN: Yeah, on infrastructure.

GLENN: Okay.

EVAN: But this is the problem, where we keep talking about infrastructure, and we're avoiding -- the real problem is entitlements. That's what -- we need to fix that, then we have the finances to do other things we need to do. But right now, we are not reforming entitlements. They're 66 percent of the budget. In ten years, they'll be 78 percent of the budget, if you include interest payments on our debt. We've got to get those under control. And then things like infrastructure aren't such a big deal.

GLENN: Evan, our best to you. And good luck. If we don't speak again until the election or after the election, good luck to you. Thank you for being a decent human being, and our best to your mother and your family. God bless.

EVAN: Thanks, Glenn. Thank you so much, Glenn. Thanks, Stu. Thank you --

GLENN: All right. Here's our sponsor this half-hour. You notice he didn't thank Pat or Jeffy.

PAT: I noticed that.

STU: No one's going to thank Jeffy, but I think he was in the middle of thanking Pat at the end.

Featured Image: Former CIA agent Evan McMullin announces his presidential campaign as an Independent candidate on August 10, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

When 'Abolish America' stops being symbolic

Al Drago / Stringer | Getty Images

Prosecutors stopped a New Year’s Eve bombing plot rooted in ideology that treats the US as an enemy to be destroyed.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.

According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.

When ideology turns operational

For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.

Bombs are not metaphors, however.

Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.

The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.

Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.

The red-green alliance

For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.

History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.

Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.

ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This moment is different

What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.

The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.

Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.

The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.

This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Sharia arrives

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

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

The warning from those who have lived under it

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

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

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

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

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

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

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

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

Wake up before it is too late

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.