BLOGOctober 02, 2017

After Las Vegas, Can We Take a Moment to Agree Not to Politicize Tragedy?

The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history happened late last night in Las Vegas, and Americans everywhere are in shock.

At least 50 people are dead, and more than 400 were wounded after a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of a Vegas hotel. Thousands of people were enjoying a concert that was part of the Route 91 Harvest Festival; Sunday night was the last night of the three-day country music event.

We’re struggling over at TheBlaze to make sense of this tragedy just like the rest of this country. Doc took a moment while standing in for Glenn on Monday’s show to talk about how the shooting will inevitably be politicized and to give some perspective.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: It may sound simple. But how do you know if something is being politicized, a tragedy, that is? How do you know? Well, you may say, it's pretty obvious, or whatever. No, I don't think it is.

Is it okay to discuss a tragedy after the tragedy? A day? A week? A month later? A year later?

CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah.

DOC: Of course, I can discuss it. Can you discuss it and assign some blame, when there is blame? Mistakes. Let's say there were failures that led to it.

CHRIS: Like you say, maybe there was a note left by the police officers, and they forgot to follow up or something like that? Yeah, you can discuss that.

DOC: Whatever. Yeah, you can discuss those things.

And in an effort to assign blame, not just for vengeance, but to try to stop failures in the future. Of course, you can do that.

I think you know when it's being politicized, if the criticisms happen like they have already this morning, before we know all of the details. We don't know all of the details about the shooting in Las Vegas. We know very few. The numbers keep changing. The numbers dead and injured, the way this rolled out, what room he was in.

That stuff is changing constantly. So that's one way you know.

Number two, if blame is being assigned without all of the facts being displayed. Maybe a week from now, somebody points to this tragedy and blames whoever. I don't care if they blame somebody on the left, the right, the president, past presidents. It doesn't matter. If they're doing it without telling you all of the facts, without full disclosure, only letting you see a little bit, what that's doing is showing you they are crafting a message for you or anybody else who is viewing it, reading it, whatever, that they only want you to know a little bit in order to drive the narrative in a political direction.

That's what's been happening with Puerto Rico over the weekend. That's what's been happening before the mayor of San Juan and the president. We'll get to that later on in the program. But let me share with you what Piers Morgan tweeted out. And, again, I'm not being political -- I'm just pointing out how ridiculous -- this is what politicizing it is. What did Piers tweet out, Chris Cruz?

CHRIS: So he tweeted about an hour ago. He said: Big test for Donald Trump. The NRA helped him get elected, now worse ever US mass shooting has happened in his watch. #Vegas.

DOC: So the worst mass shooting has happened on Donald Trump's watch. He's right.

CHRIS: He is right.

DOC: On his watch. While he's president. He's right.

The second now most deadly mass shooting was the Pulse Nightclub.

CHRIS: Yes, 49 dead.

DOC: Prior to today, it was the most deadly. Whose watch was that on?

CHRIS: Obama.

DOC: Prior to that was Sandy Hook.

CHRIS: Yep. The childrens of the school.

DOC: Right. And whose watch was that on?

CHRIS: President Obama.

DOC: Do you see what I'm saying? I'm not saying it's Obama's fault. I'm not saying it's Trump's fault today. I'm saying these numbers always change. New situations, new circumstances. And what would Piers have them do?

Gun control is not a solution to this. He simply wants you to believe it is, before he even knows the facts.

There could be significant facts to come out that Piers doesn't know, but he's happy to jump to that political arena.

CHRIS: And then if you go down that rabbit hole of let's blame President Trump, it is his fault, what can you blame him on? Like, seriously, what can you blame any president when a mass shooting happens like this?

DOC: It's asinine.

CHRIS: It's not like Donald Trump was right there sitting next to the idea or Obama was sitting next to the other guy saying, hey, hey, are you going to push the trigger? Hey, hey, are you going to push the trigger right now? Hey, hey, do it right now.

It's not that. I blame society before I blame any president.

DOC: Including Obama. Including others.

CHRIS: Yes.

DOC: You know what, I think today I've made a realization about the politicizing of those issues. That needs to be something that we discuss all the time. We need to start calling out the politicizing of tragedy. And I just shared with you some of the ways you know it's being politicized. If they're not sharing all of the facts, if they're discussing and pointing the finger of who is responsible, who is to blame, before we know any of the details.

Glenn Beck Makes the MORAL Case for Mass Deportation | Glenn TV | Ep 383

America’s political and military enemies are using asymmetric warfare on us, and we don’t even know it. Their means of attack? Immigration. The progressive vision for this tactic is meant to overwhelm the system, collapse it, and then rebuild. But our global enemies — from Russia to Iran — are using it to destroy the system completely. Thanks to the Biden-Harris mass migration policy, Glenn argues we are at the precipice of another 9/11-style attack. He takes you inside secret meetings in South America that some of the world’s scariest terrorists are attending — like the supreme leader of Hamas and the chief of operations for Hezbollah. Their game plan starts with recruiting Venezuelan gang members, taking them to Iran for “training,” encouraging criminal activity south of the U.S.-Mexico border, and then facilitating the spread of that violence to our own streets in America (like we saw with Tren de Aragua gangs terrorizing citizens in Aurora, Colorado). Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportation for illegal aliens is not racist. It is not heartless. It is — as JD Vance said in the CBS VP debate — common sense. Mass deportation has a long history of working under presidents like Hoover, Eisenhower, Clinton, and Obama. So why the crocodile tears now? Where are the tears for victims of open-border policies in states like New York, Colorado, Florida, and Georgia? The border crisis is no longer some abstract, faraway issue for the U.S. Border Patrol to deal with. It’s a national threat for the entire country. And catastrophe is coming.

RADIO

Did Arizona register 98,000 ILLEGALS to vote? AZ Justice sets the record STRAIGHT

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick joins Glenn Beck to set the record straight about a claim that Arizona registered 98,000 illegal immigrants to vote. Justice Bolick tells Glenn that this is NOT TRUE and there is NO indication that any of the voters in question were here illegally. So, what actually happened? Justice Bolick explains and also comments on what you should do if you’re concerned about the fairness of the 2024 election.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

You know, our job is getting harder and harder.

I just gave permission to hire, you know, another researcher. This morning.

Because we are just overwhelmed in stories, that we don't know what the truth is.

You should see my -- my email, my -- my private messages.

And even my text messages from friends that I trust. That are like, Glenn, I don't know if this is true. I don't know either!

I don't know either.

And I know you're in that situation. And we are going to go off the cliff, if we can't verify some things.

That's one reason why I'm going to Asheville North Carolina today.

I need to know. Is this stuff happening?

Are there bodies in Chimney Rock, that are still there?

You know, what is happening on the ground?

And we're bringing, you know, a plane full of supplies for them. Through Mercury One.

But we have to -- this is what I said in the meeting today.

We have got to come. And even if we don't talk about them. We have to find out. Are these things true, so you know if they're true or not?

And we'll do our best. But it takes so much time. We have so much going on. I think it was like a week ago, or so.

Do you remember the story that Arizona added 98,000 illegals?

STU: I remember that being, yeah.

GLENN: And I think we talked about it, right?

STU: Yeah. I think we did at the time. And tried to give perspective.

So much stuff for people to sort through right now.

GLENN: Firm the story right, it was hard decipher.

I think that's why we didn't follow up on it, at all. Because I don't know what is right on this story.

STU: Let's lock it down.

GLENN: Well, good news, the head guy of the Arizona Supreme Court wrote to us. He's Justice Bolick. He, who joined the court in 2016. He previously cofounded the Institute for Justice and served as litigation director for the Goldwater Institute. So he's one of us.

He litigated constitutional cases from coast-to-coast, including the US Supreme Court.

He's not the Supreme Court. He's a Supreme Court I couldn't wait. But he's not the chief justice now, in Arizona.

But he says, that story is wrong.

And he would be the guy that knows. Clint, welcome to the program.

CLINT: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Glenn. And thanks for making the correction. My boss, the chief justice would have drawn and quartered me.
(laughter)

GLENN: You know, this story was everywhere. And I don't remember what we said. We might have said that yep. That's crazy.

And the Supreme Court is out of control.

I don't know what we said. But if we got it wrong, A, I apologize.

So let's correct it. And correct all of the stories that were out there. What happened?

CLINT: So, Glenn, thank you so much for that.

And, you know, usually, when a court issues controversial decisions, they know it.

And so for a couple of days after, we did not consider this to be a controversial decision at all.

But all of a sudden, we were hearing from people, and I was encountering people, who were saying, we were letting illegal immigrants vote.

And I looked at the headlines, that had come out, and just I've got one I'm reading in front of me, from Newsweek, that said Arizona court, says nearly 100,000 people with unconfirmed citizenship can vote.

And so I can well understand, why people got that impression.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

CLINT: But the headline should have read, court. Arizona court prevents disenfranchisement of 100,000 people over computer error.

And that's exactly what happened.

So Arizona is one of the few states, that requires proof of citizenship, before someone votes.

And when the law was passed, they assumed, that people who had registered by 2005, were -- were legal citizens. So they didn't require you to show proof of citizenship, unless you moved to a different county, or applied for a duplicate license. And due to a Department of Motor Vehicles glitch. And I know that's hard to believe.

GLENN: Oh, no. It's hard to believe that the government would do anything that had glitches in it.

CLINT: Yeah. So in any event, apparently, a large number of people, who were registered to -- to -- to vote, and who had driver's licenses before 1996, and who moved, or got duplicate licenses, were never asked to prove their citizenships.

Now, most of these people had been voting for decade.

And, you know, so -- so there's no indication that any of them are illegal who didn't notice. But once this problem was discovered, the county recorder of Maricopa County, went to court, and said, all of these people should be removed and required to prove their citizenship, between now and the election.

And, of course, the same people who made the mistake, would have been this charge of -- of making sure that those were shown by the election.

And just imagine, if we had gone to Election Day and thousands, possibly over 100,000 people who had been voting for decades. Were told, oh, no.

We don't know whether you're a citizen or not.

GLENN: Right.

CLINT: And how this is not -- so, in any event, it was a very easy legal issue for us.

And it was the only election case, Glenn.

That I can remember, where the Arizona Republican party, and the ACLU were on the same side.

They hoped that please don't throw these people off the ballot.

You know, we discovered.

We determined that we had no authority to take that many people off the ballot.

You can challenge individual voters, at -- if you think that they are not citizens. And after the election, though, there will be an effort to verify citizenship.

But most of these people would have had no idea what was going on.

You know, given that they voted without a problem for -- for decades. And so it just -- it was one of those stories, that the headlines. One of those cases, that the headlines turned into a controversy.

But it really wasn't a controversy at all.

GLENN: Right. So with an election coming up, and you guys -- are you guys voted on, in the Supreme Court?

CLINT: So, yes. We are subject to retention every six years.

GLENN: Oh.

CLINT: And yours truly is one of those justices up for retention this year, with a very spirited campaign against me from self-described progressive groups.

GLENN: Oh, great. Well, all you had to say -- you had me at Goldwater Institute.

So, you know, I'm -- I'm for you, Glenn.

How -- how confident are you, that we can have a fair election this time in Arizona?

CLINT: Well, you know, I'm not on the ground. I'm not involved.

GLENN: Okay.

CLINT: You know, in the day-to-day.

And, you know, one of the things that I've been doing is encouraging people to volunteer as poll workers.

You know, and other jobs that take place on Election Day. The best -- the best place to be on Election Day, if you have concerns about election integrity, is on the inside.

And I've been very heartened that both political parties. Both major and political parties have really been encouraging volunteers to do that.

And when I hear that sort of thing, it gives me. It gives me confidence that, you know -- that --

GLENN: At least that step has been taken.

CLINT: Yes.

Yeah.

GLENN: Yeah. Well, thanks for clearing this up. I appreciate it.

And, you know, if -- if there's anybody who is on the right, that has misunderstood this, which I think probably a lot of people. Because it was everywhere.

And I -- I apologize.

Again, I don't know exactly what we said. But let's just assume, we were one of those who believed the headlines.

Apology to -- to our audience. And to everybody in Arizona. I'm glad you reached out to us, so we can set the record straight.

Thank you.

CLINT: Glenn, I am so -- you know, I am so glad that you gave me the opportunity. I'm sure it's not every day, that the judge contacts you. And says, hey.

GLENN: Yeah.

CLINT: This is not correct.

GLENN: Yeah. No. I agree. I invite anyone.

If we get something wrong, I'm not afraid of correcting it and saying, we were wrong. So I appreciate that you reached out to us.

Because we will correct it. We will correct it. Thanks.

CLINT: Well, and I am so grateful for that. If everyone did that, we would be in a much better place in our society right now.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. We would. We would. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Clint Bolick, he's Arizona Supreme Court justice. And apparently, running for reaffirment.

And let me just say, Goldwater Institute.

I don't think I need to say anymore.

RADIO

Israel stopped a SECOND Iranian strike. Will Netanyahu retaliate?

Iran has retaliated against Israel with a massive missile barrage, mostly targeting Tel Aviv. But "miraculously," no Israelis were injured and the missiles did no serious damage. But where will Israel go from here? Former IDF spokesman and Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus joins Glenn to discuss. Conricus, who was in a bomb shelter with his family during the attack, debunks some claims made by Iran and online and also explains why he believes "something special happened AGAIN yesterday." This is now the second time, he explains that Israel, with help from the United States, has neutralized a massive Iranian attack. So, will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike Iran in retaliation? And what are the odds that a larger war will break out?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: The other thing that happened yesterday, that is so important is Israel. Israel is going to respond. I believe we have lieutenant colonel retired.

Jonathan Conricus. He's been on with us before. He's the former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, and now senior fellow of Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

And we wanted to get you on, Jonathan, first of all, assuming you're in Israel.

You're safe. And that's good. Tell us what happened yesterday, and what it means going forward.

JONATHAN: Yes. Hi, Glenn. Thank you for having me again. A pleasure. What happened yesterday was the biggest missile attack in Israeli history. About 200 ballistic missiles were fired from about 800, 900 miles away, in Iran. At Israel.

The Iranians claimed that they were aiming for military targets. But most of the impacts were actually civilian neighborhoods. And luckily, and quite ironically, some might say, the only casualty in life, was a Palestinian in Jericho. No Israeli citizens were killed.

And while there were some impacted as an Israeli Air Force base, nothing of substance, and no real damage. Neither to infrastructure, or to military capacities.

GLENN: Wait a minute. Hang on.

I heard that several F-35s were taken out. That's not true?

JONATHAN: That is absolutely categorically not true.

There wasn't a single plane hit. Not a single hangar or bunker, and not a single runway.

There were some -- one of the Air Force bases. I'm not going to say the name.

But one of the Air Force bases was hit.

It's only been -- no damage to the Israeli Air Force's capability to continue to operate.

And as our enemies know. The Israeli Air Force continues to operate, in Beirut. In other parts of the Middle East.

In southern Lebanon, over Gaza.

And so the Iranian propaganda, of having 90 percent of their targets, were hit.

Absolutely false. And not -- again, proved the enduring return on investment here.

Many years of investing. US and Israel. Doing that together.

And for the second time in the -- the moment of truth. Air defenses were almost airtight.

And they saved lots and lots and lots of lives in Israel.

GLENN: I have to tell you. I don't know if you're a religious man or not.

But I am

200 missiles being launched. Ballistic missiles.

Coming in and going into Israel.

And for no one to be killed, and you're -- and your Air Force and your military bases. Not to be destroyed.

Is an extraordinary miracle, I think.

JONATHAN: I would agree. And you don't have to be fearing in every way, to recognize that something special happened again, yesterday.

This is the second time that the Iranians unleashed massive firepower.

And it appeared to be able to understand what we're talking about. The missiles are as big as school buses. And they fired 200 of them. Each one of them with hundreds of pounds, about half a ton of explosives in the warheads.

We're talking about very serious weapons.

Large explosives.

My family, we were in the bomb shelter.

My son, he was on the bus. And then ran to a shelter.

And it was really a scene out of a movie. With explosions.

And interceptions, in Tel Aviv. And as you said, the fact that no substantial damage. And no loss of life. Yeah, many would say. And probably I would agree, that this was a miracle.

Air defenses, IDF, and a miracle.

GLENN: I have to tell you, I watched those missiles come in live. But, you know, obviously, from the other side of the planet. And I thought, what must that be like?

You know, I thought of missile launches here, going outbound, or coming in.

Something very few people in the world have seen what happened yesterday.

It must have been terrifying for the average person.

Seeing everything. The sky just lit up with fire.

JONATHAN: Yes. The sky lit up with fire.

And each of you the -- in the air. You know, that they're attached to hundreds of pounds of explosives.

They're lethal. And that they're aimed at the Israeli cities.

And there are explosions all around.

Lots of noise.

You know, we have. Just like in the US.

You have the Amber Alerts. System on your phones.

Israeli defense establishment did the same thing.

And issued like a push notification on all the phones.

Even those who didn't have an app. Download it. And millions of Israelis.

Very strong alarms on their phones.

Call them to immediately go to shelter.

And that's what millions of Israelis did.
And that's also what thankfully led to the fact that even though, some of the missiles exploded in populated areas in Israel, nobody was hurt. Because Israelis were disciplined. And went into bomb shelters.

And nobody was caught out in the open.

GLENN: So is Benjamin Netanyahu, do you think going to respond to this?

Will he strike Iran? And is there any fear that they are going to cut off the oil pathways? Are you there? Go ahead.

JONATHAN: Yeah. When we look forward -- can you hear me? Can you hear me?

GLENN: Yes.

JONATHAN: All right. So when we look forward here, I think two things will determine what will happen next. One is Israel's endgame. Seek to achieve. Because there are a lot of things when it comes to the Iranian regime. And I will clarify. And the second thing that is very important, is how well will Israel coordinate with the United States of America, and what will the level of support be in a global repeat.

Now, regarding the first part. Israel can go for regime targets, leaders, and personnel. Infrastructure that is part of the Islamic regime.

Israel can go for military and economic targets. But this is the places whereby the Iranian regime, the export of oil. And whereby, they make money.

Which is used to fund their activities. All of the terror organizations, in Israel.

And the third option, which, of course, many are eyeing and thinking about is Iran's nuclear military facility.

The research facility, the storage facilities, and many others. These are three distinctly different types of -- and what Israel wants to achieve.

Does Israel want to bring down the regime? Does it only want to hurt the Iranians from attacking Israel again?

Will Israel be told not to do anything significant by the Americans?

And, of course, remind everybody, last time that Iran attacked on the 13th or 14th of April, Israel wanted to retaliate in a much stronger way.

But refrained from doing so under America first. And instead, Israel attempted in continuing in finishing the job in Gaza and Hamas.

I don't think that we're going to see that today. And I think we are going to see in the coming days, a strong Israeli response. It may be aimed at the regime. It may be aimed at their nuclear facilities.

But I think it's absolutely important, is that Israel and the United States of America are coordinated, and I hope American leaders will see this current situation, a threat to Israel. And an opportunity to really do more in a week, than what has been accomplished in ten years of failed diplomacy. When it comes to stopping Iran from going nuclear.

I really think there will be an opportunity.

GLENN: Yeah. I think that will be good. As long as there are calls from both sides, yesterday.

That America needs to send more troops over. I think we already have 40,000 that we've sent over.

We don't want to be in another war.

This one could go global.

I think Israel is showing the world, don't screw with us.

You guys are doing a great job.

And I support that.

I just -- I just don't want to see us, enflame things by including ourself, in the actual strikes.

But support --

JONATHAN: I agree with you. And I wouldn't want -- I wouldn't want the single American service men in harm's way. And I don't think that anybody needs to be fighting Israel's war.

And I think that Israel, in its history, has many times, done the heavy lifting for the rest of the Western world. Whether it's been keeling with Iraqi dictators, or with Syria, or with many others.

And Israel is -- the only thing Israel has is military support. Supplies. And, of course, political and diplomatic support. I don't think that Israel's needs or wants. Any American service members to be in harm's way. And I would just say a tremendous gratitude to American service men.

Against them. Deployed in the Red Sea. Among the -- on the US Navy ships.

And in the air.

Done tremendous work in intercepting Israeli missiles. Very professional.

And super important.

And I hope they remain safe. And I hope that they can have the diplomatic -- and military to help them to do what they need to do in order to defend itself.

GLENN: Well, we here support you on whatever you have to do to defend yourself.

I support you, I should say.

And I think there are millions of Americans that are listening, that feel the same way.

Jonathan. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

You bet. Lieutenant colonel, Jonathan Conricus. Former Israeli defense spokesperson. The only thing that you should be really looking for is escalation.

But most importantly, as he was talking about. Red Sea. When you get into the straits over there, just off the shores of Iran.

If they start going after our Navy ships, or they try to close those straits down.

That is the world's flow of oil. And we will get involved in that.

And that will become very, very -- very, very dangerous.

Because this one will -- this one will not be a partial war.

This one will include, I believe bombings in our streets.

I believe we are close to terrorist activity. Foreign terrorist activity. In our own streets.

Orchestrated by Iran.

And a lot of others, who are here, and want to destroy us.

So we -- especially during this election season, we all need to be good Americans, together.

Not Republicans. Democrats, but good Americans.

And start paying attention to these issues. So we can start taking care of our own self first. So we survive this time period.

Glenn's Show Prep

After Las Vegas, Can We Take a Moment to Agree Not to Politicize Tragedy?

Glenn Beck Makes the MORAL Case for Mass Deportation | Glenn TV | Ep 383

Did Arizona register 98,000 ILLEGALS to vote? AZ Justice sets the record STRAIGHT

Transcript

FEMA is RUNNING OUT of money for hurricane victims, but gave BILLIONS to ILLEGALS?!

Transcript

Israel stopped a SECOND Iranian strike. Will Netanyahu retaliate?

Transcript