GLENN: Yesterday, the media found a new word.
VOICE: Mr. Woolsey told several people contemporaneous, and I've spoken with them --
VOICE: There are contemporaneous notes that were backed up.
VOICE: There was other contemporaneous notes.
VOICE: Talking about contemporaneous issues.
VOICE: If the FBI is still doing, one, contemporaneous with anything they're doing. But I don't think we can --
VOICE: Have a discussion, contemporaneous.
VOICE: They're going to have a hard time proving it, because they didn't catch him contemporaneous.
VOICE: Having these type of contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: And we have Director Comey's contemporaneous notes. They're called 302s. They're contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: Bob Muller kept his contemporaneous notes.
VOICE: Contemporaneous notes of those conversations.
VOICE: What do Comey's contemporaneous memos say?
VOICE: Which is a nod, again, to how powerful contemporaneous.
VOICE: Those notes, the contemporaneous notes --
VOICE: They were contemporaneous at the time.
VOICE: One reason why lawyers take contemporary notes is --
GLENN: Contemporary.
VOICE: Rely on a contemporaneous.
VOICE: As close to a contemporaneous way.
VOICE: Where he has made contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: How contemporaneous is --
VOICE: Kind of contemporaneous at the time.
VOICE: The FBI director kept contained -- contemporaneous, sorry. It's hard to say that word.
PAT: Especially when I've never seen it before.
GLENN: Yeah. But that one made me feel better. That one made me feel better.
So they found this new word yesterday, and they found it for a very important reason. And we need to start with the definition of contemporaneous and why they're using that word, helping you understand your world a little bit more, when we come back.
[break]
VOICE: Mr. Woolsey told several people contemporaneous, and I've spoken with them.
VOICE: There are contemporaneous notes that would back up?
VOICE: There was other contemporaneous notes?
VOICE: We're just talking about contemporaneous issues.
VOICE: If the FBI is still doing, one, contemporaneous with anything they're doing. But I don't think we can afford --
VOICE: Not have a discussion, contemporaneous.
VOICE: They're going to have a hard time proving it, because they didn't catch him contemporaneous.
VOICE: Having these type of contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: And we have Director Comey's contemporaneous notes. They're called 302s. They're contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: Bob Muller kept his contemporaneous notes.
VOICE: Contemporaneous notes of those conversations.
VOICE: What do Comey's contemporaneous memos say?
VOICE: Which is a nod, again, to how powerful contemporaneous --
VOICE: Those notes, the contemporaneous notes --
VOICE: They were contemporaneous at the time.
VOICE: One reason why lawyers take contemporary notes.
(laughter)
VOICE: Rely on a contemporaneous.
VOICE: As close to a contemporaneous way.
VOICE: Where he has made contemporaneous memos.
VOICE: How contemporaneous is --
VOICE: Were kind of contemporaneous at the time.
VOICE: The FBI director kept contained -- contain -- contain -- contemporaneous. Sorry. God, it's hard to say that word. Contemporaneous.
STU: It is.
PAT: When you've never seen it, you don't know what it means.
GLENN: All right. So Merriam-Webster defines contemporaneous, existing, occurring, or beginning during the same time.
So a political event and cultural event that are happening at the same time. In this particular case, the -- the notes that are contrary, because the notes were taken at the same time as the meeting.
So there's a difference between notes that you go and you write, you know, a week or two later, as opposed to the notes that you take at the time.
Now, when I met with President Bush, I know that I could not take a pencil or paper, a telephone, anything in. No recording device.
However, I could record my reflections of feelings. That's what it was explained to me. And so I know that when you're with the president, if he's having an off the record talk with you, the rules are, you don't write anything down.
And so the minute -- you try to remember -- it's the most important meeting of your life. You try to remember everything that is being said to you. And the minute you get out of that meeting -- I mean, I remember -- I don't remember who was with me. Stu, I don't know if you were with me.
STU: No.
GLENN: But I had somebody standing outside of the gates of the White House with a pad and a pencil and a phone. And I, you know, vomited into the phone as much as I could. As much as I could remember. And then I started writing it all down so I could remember. That's what James Comey did. He left the meeting and he immediately wrote down what happened in the meeting.
Now, this is not something that James Comey just did for this meeting. He is known in the FBI as being very, very buttoned.
PAT: Also, very contemporaneous.
STU: Very, very contemporaneous.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: See, that comment is happening contemporaneous with this subject.
PAT: It is. It is.
GLENN: Thank you.
PAT: I was speaking contemporaneously.
GLENN: Yes, you were.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: And you were exhibiting contemporaneousness, if you will.
STU: Oh, yeah.
PAT: And I will. And I will.
GLENN: Anyway, so what he did was, whenever he was involved in a serious exchange for case or anything like that, he is known as taking copious, contemporaneous notes. I'm going to let you figure out copious yourself if you don't know. But he would take copious notes, as soon as he would leave meetings. And then he would file them away.
So we don't know if these notes are real. But it is definitely a shot back to the White House, saying, oh, really? You got tapes? Good. Because I've got contemporaneous notes.
And so whichever one is playing chicken here is making the other one sweat.
STU: Yeah, and they keep pointing that out, specifically, because like think of the alternate situation here. James Comey comes to testify, after he's been fired. And says, "Well, you know what, Trump told me in that meeting that he wanted me to back off the Flynn thing." I felt comfortable.
Well, that means nothing after he's been fired, right? I mean, if he's saying that now, everyone is going to say, "Well, look, he's just saying that now."
PAT: But if he supposedly wrote that down at the time --
STU: And it's filed at the time. So it's not even supposedly. It was filed in a way -- it was marked and it was known that it was the time it was filed, it's going to be a lot more powerful and credible. While he was still working for them. Where they were having meetings before and after this. Supposedly, he did this with every personal meeting he had with Trump.
PAT: Would you also record it, if you're going to do that, to have proof?
GLENN: No, you can't. You're asked --
PAT: Probably can't record your conversations with the president, yeah --
JEFFY: Well, you better hope there's no tapes.
GLENN: You're told --
STU: And their response to that comment from Trump was, oh, I hope there are.
You know, his side is saying, "Yes, please, bring on the tapes. If they exist, please bring them on."
And the rumor is, at least the speculation is that this -- this was leaked to the media so that the -- Congress would subpoena these things.
GLENN: Well, Jason Chaffetz has already said turn them over, or I will subpoena them.
STU: Yep.
GLENN: And they should be subpoenaed. The White House record should be subpoenaed. We should know all of these things. And we should be as transparent. And the media should shut their pie hole and let the system work. There's a clear way to make this work. There was a clear way to make the IRS investigation work, but we didn't follow it. And what happened?
STU: Uh-huh. Nothing.
GLENN: Nothing.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: So let's follow the rule of law. And, you know, what is it, 70 percent of the American people now say appoint a special prosecutor? Look, I want a neutral special prosecutor. I don't want a guy who is hell-bent on destroying the president or anything else. I want somebody who is just going to look at the facts of this. And they don't have a horse in this race.
Please, for the good of the nation, we need to know, is the president a liar? Did the president -- is the president reckless with classified information?
If those things are true, we need to know it. And I mean -- when I say a liar, we know that -- I mean, we've seen this record. But when it comes down to the United States of America, are you lying to us, dude?
I mean, this is not about, you know -- this is not about your personal life or anything else. This isn't even about you.
And that's what's so sad about this is I think the president keeps thinking all of this is about him. And I do believe with the press, it is about him.
STU: Yeah, they -- I mean, they don't care. Many of them, at least don't care about what the truth here --
GLENN: Right.
STU: Many of them -- but, again, Jonah Goldberg brought this up, and I think said it correctly is that, you -- yes, of course, they want to take him down. There's no disagreement. You talked about this with Bill O'Reilly last week too. He's like, but, Beck, I can't believe you don't get that when they want to take you out. Well, of course, you get that. You absolutely get the media wants to take Trump out at all costs and will do whatever they have to do to do that.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: However, if there is something legitimately to be criticized, you have to have the principle and spine to do it.
PAT: Now, you're speaking uranusly, right?
STU: Uranusly, yes.
PAT: Or contemporarily.
STU: Contemporaneously.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: Uranusly means you're speaking out of your butt.
STU: Yes. That's a good point.
GLENN: You're speaking uranusly, you're speaking out of your butt. And that happens a lot on this program.
STU: Absolutely.
PAT: No, that's the Webster's dictionary definition.
GLENN: That's Merriam. That's Merriam. The wife of, I don't know, Bill Webster or whatever. Merriam, she's got her own dictionary.
STU: Sure, these are all facts.
PAT: The whole family had dictionaries. It's really kind of weird.
GLENN: There was Bill and the other Webster, famous one. And then Merriam, who was a sweetheart of a gal.
PAT: Right.
STU: And we should point out, and we have several times today -- again, think of the chain that this has come down here. This is a Comey ally who didn't give the memo to the New York Times, who read over the phone a memo to the New York Times.
The New York Times took notes over what he read. Did they read the entire thing? Did they read only the parts that they liked? Were there other parts of the memo that made Trump look really good?
We don't know any of that. That information went to the New York Times reporter. Do we blindly believe everything the New York Times says? Absolutely not.
Did the New York Times print the entire memo? No. We haven't seen it yet. The reporter hasn't even seen it yet. Nobody outside of the FBI has actually seen this thing yet. The other side of it is, this is not going to be the only memo. If it does exist, which you can't believe they just -- but it's possible, right? It's a Comey ally. It's not impossible they just made it. We saw that with the Rather situation, that someone who was going up against George W. Bush literally made something up. It's not impossible.
But if it does exist, it's not going to be the only one. Comey was well-known for this practice. He was well-known for creating paper trails when he believed something was going wrong, when he was made uncomfortable. He was a guy who documented what happened with his interactions with this president.
GLENN: Quite honestly, it's not the way we meant it, but it's turning out to be the same thing: Don't screw with the justice and intelligence agencies. Don't piss them off. They will find out what you're doing, and they will destroy you with it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
