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BREAKING: Beto 2020 campaign memo found in El Paso coffee shop!

April 01, 2019
 Nathan Nipper

An astute fan of the Glenn Beck Program recently found a curious document that was apparently left on a corner table of an El Paso coffee shop. Upon closer examination of the coffee-stained pages, the fan was rather surprised to discover it was a Beto campaign memo containing the rough draft of a communication from Beto to the nation explaining his campaign for president. The pages contained plenty of red ink – obviously whichever campaign adviser reviewed the communication wanted a lot of changes. They didn't mince words either, writing " Must discuss ASAP!" in red at the top of the first page. On page three, when Beto apparently planned to address the time he broke into the University of Texas at El Paso campus, the adviser bluntly wrote, "What? No." in the margin. Below is the full text of Beto's draft:

America! You may've heard – I'm running for president. That's right, I'm throwing my sombrero in the ring so to speak. And man, is it going to be fun. The road trip of my dreams. Just me, my guitar, and the open road. And a small group of traveling fans (some refer to them as the "press corps").

So, for those who don't know me yet – are you living in a cave? JK. Of course you've heard of me. You've also probably heard, thanks to some of my conservative compadres, that "Beto" is not my given name. That is true. But my truth is that I self-identify as Beto. Because Beto is the only name that fully encapsulates who I am – a millionaire, cultural appropriating Gen X-er with an open mind and an even opener heart. Just a sincere dude with an unfulfilled rock star fantasy, massive father-pleasing-baggage, and a generous helping of political opportunism and white, male, Ivy League privilege. F***, did I just over-share? I have a tendency to over-share. I also have a tendency to say f*** a lot. LOL.

You may've heard I'm married to the only daughter of a Texas real estate billionaire. That is also true. I can read between the lines, I hear the snarky whispers – did he marry for love or money? And I say, it's the 21st century, why can't we marry for both? I believe in an America where anyone can get married for the love of money.

Yes, like everyone, I've got a few skeletons in my closet. So, let's air the dirty laundry. During my Senate campaign last year, I aired my dirty laundry all the time on Facebook Lives from Laundromats all across Texas. But seriously, about that DWI when I was 26 – I honestly prefer to think of it as "Driving With Intent… to have a good time." People say I crashed into a truck and tried to flee the scene. But "hit and run" implies baseball, and I was never much of a baseball player. But I did row crew at Columbia. Not many guys with Hispanic first names can lay claim to that.

The truth is, I like beer. But not as much as that Kavanaugh guy, am I right? Let's talk about the truck that was in my path that night. Think about what that guy was likely dealing with – minimum wage job, probably barely afforded the gas that had him on the interstate. Imagine if he had had a living wage. Imagine an America where he could've afforded a faster car to get out of the way of my youthful driving, or maybe one of those fancy ones with side-view mirror blind spot warnings. Shouldn't we want side-view mirror warning lights for all? See, this is the kind of constructive conversation I want to have with you in Beto's Beanbag Bungalow.

I know we're going to become fast pals, America. Because I'm just one of you. We're just a couple bros, or, make that one bro and one lady, or one bro and a bro who identifies as a lady. Or whatever floats your boat because I want you to know I am totally down with that. But for the purposes of my scenario here, we're just a couple bros – you and me, America – kicked back on a couple of beanbags, sipping on craft beers from a local craft brewery, just hanging out in my bungalow. Think of Beto's Beanbag Bungalow as a metaphorical safe space where we can just be bros and figure out life together. We can talk through the tough issues facing our great land, and then decide where we stand based on consensus, quality polling, and wise counsel

from trusted friends at a handful of reputable national media outlets. And canvassing. Lots and lots of neighborhood canvassing. Because I don't know what I'm talking about most of the time, and neither do you. We don't have all the answers. But as long as we can agree to agree on the national legalization of pot, then the sky's the limit on what we can figure out together.

Take immigration for example. I can identify with border fence jumpers, because I too had to hop a fence once for a prank. And exactly like illegal immigrants who get unfairly arrested by evil ICE agents, I was apprehended by campus police just because I jumped the fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. Once I told them I wasn't actually a student there, that I'd actually been out of college for a few years, and once I told them my dad was a county judge, they were totally cool with it. Why can't we just be cool like that with our border crossers? We just need to find out who they really are, and who their dad is, and it'll be all good in the hood so to speak.

As for some of the other really hard issues of our time, critics say I avoid firm stances. But a lot of critics are just closet musicians who never got to rock out on a real stage. I've got plenty of stances…

Am I for or against a border wall? Sure.

Green New Deal or the status quo? Absolutely.

Socialism or capitalism? I'm actually for merging with Canada and Mexico to form the United States of Camerico.

Abortion? Yes, as long as it's the woman's choice.

Medicare for all? I prefer to call it Medicare for y'all, because I'm set for life. Just kidding. Of course I want free health care for all minorities.

Enough of the boring policy stuff. A little bit about my personal interests – like my terrific wife Amy, and our three kids that she raises: Ulysses, Molly and Henry. One of my campaign goals is to figure out replacement Hispanic names for each of them by the time I take office. Currently I'm leaning toward "Ariana", "Umberto", "Macarena", and "Hernando" respectively. I'm open to suggestions.

I think you already know about my taste in punk music. I also like shredding parking lots on my skateboard. In fact, as president, my first Executive Order would be ripping out the White House bowling alley and replacing it with some sweet skate ramps. I want to do things that will bring America together and I think America would agree that a skate park inside the White House would be totally dope. You can expect to see a lot of changes like that in the Beto White House.

I think you already know about my taste in punk music. I also like shredding parking lots on my skateboard.

One of my top priorities as president will be an annex to the West Wing that will serve as a rehab center for squirrels. Let me explain. During my debate last fall with Ted Cruz, I mentioned the time I went with my daughter to visit a blind squirrel that was in rehab. That

was an epic father/daughter/squirrel moment – so pure, raw, and real. There are so many squirrels on the White House grounds. And, to our nation's shame, we have yet to earmark a single dime in federal spending to help preserve these helpless creatures. They're not anywhere close to being endangered, but try telling that to the millennial squirrels who can see climate disaster on the horizon. Well, those who can see that is. That's why I want to establish our nation's first Center for Blind Squirrels, or CBS.

With their boundless energy and uncanny ability to save acorns for the future, squirrels remind me of you, America. Squirrels rely on the tree, and the tree is like the federal government. When it's healthy and strong, and not hampered by climate change, it provides everything we need for an abundant life. The squirrels don't have a care in the world, just scampering around the tree, enjoying all the entitlements that the tree incurs massive debt to provide. In fact, if I'm elected president, in my first hundred days I will direct Congress to change the national symbol of the U.S. from an eagle – which no one ever gets to see in the wild anyway – to the squirrel, which is in virtually every American's backyard. That way, every citizen will have a constant reminder of who we are as Americans – nimble, skittish, and utterly dependent on the tree.

Remember, all squirrels are welcome at the Bungalow… pull up a beanbag! Just check your convictions at the door. Because convictions are kind of like handguns. They can be super dangerous. So, they're best left with the safety on and locked in a gun safe. Or never purchased at all. You get the picture.

America, as I embark on this ultimate historic campaign road trip, I can only make you one absolute promise from the bottom of my heart… I will Facebook Live the whole thing.

In conclusion, to borrow a line from that cinematic classic from our BFFs across the pond, Notting Hill: "I'm just a boy – Beto – standing in front of a girl/boy/non-binary-America, asking him/her/it to love him."

America, as I embark on this ultimate historic campaign road trip, I can only make you one absolute promise from the bottom of my heart… I will Facebook Live the whole thing. From my morning bed-head and brushing my teeth, to my post-Whataburger bathroom trips, to my late-night-slow-burn air drum solos behind the steering wheel of my SUV, to my wife tucking me in at night with my favorite bedtime story – Dealing Death and Drugs: The Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico by Beto O'Rourke – it's going to be all Beto, all the time. At least until I gracefully bow out of the race to become Joe Biden's running mate and pretend like this wasn't the plan all along.

[NOTE: The preceding Memo was a parody written by MRA writer Nathan Nipper – not Beto O'Rourke. April Fools!]

A contested Democratic convention could lead to the ONE candidate who could beat Trump, says Michael Medved

Paul Morigi / Stringer/ Getty

On Wednesday's TV show, Glenn Beck sat down with radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic, Michael Medved.

Michael had an interesting prediction for the 2020 election outcome: a brokered convention by the DNC will usher in former First Lady Michelle Obama to run against President Donald Trump.

Watch the video below to hear why he's making this surprising forecast:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

FLASHPOINT? Virginia Gov. Northam declares state of emergency to ban firearms ahead of gun-rights rally


Zach Gibson / Stringer

On Thursday's "Glenn Beck Radio Program," BlazeTV's White House correspondent Jon Miller described the current situation in Virginia after Gov. Ralph Northam (D) declared a state of emergency and banned people carrying guns at Capitol Square just days before a pro-Second-Amendment rally scheduled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Jon told Glenn that Gov. Northam and the Virginia Legislature are "trying to deprive the people of their Second Amendment rights" but the citizens of Virginia are "rising up" to defend their constitutional rights.

"I do think this is the flashpoint," Jon said. "They [Virginia lawmakers] are saying, 'You cannot exercise your rights ... and instead of trying to de-escalate the situation, we are putting pressure. We're trying to escalate it and we're trying to enrage the citizenry even more'."

Glenn noted how Gov. Northam initially blamed the threat of violence from Antifa for his decision to ban weapons but quickly changed his narrative to blame "white supremacists" to vilify the people who are standing up for the Second Amendment and the Constitution.

"What he's doing is, he's making all all the law-abiding citizens of Virginia into white supremacists," Glenn said.

"Sadly, that's exactly right," Jon replied. "And I think he knows exactly what he's doing."

Watch the video to catch more of the conversation below:

Use code BECK to save $10 on one year of BlazeTV.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

Ryan: Trump Louisiana Finale

Photo by Jim Dale

Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

At the end of Trump rallies, I would throw on my Carhartt jacket, sneak out of the press area, then blend in with everyone as they left, filing out through swinging doors.

Often, someone held the door open for me. Just 30 minutes earlier, the same person had most likely had most likely hissed at me for being a journalist. And now they were Sunday smiles and "Oh, yes, thank you, sir" like some redneck concierge.

People flooded out of the arena with the stupidity of a fire drill mishap, desperate to survive.

The air smacked you as soon as you crossed the threshold, back into Louisiana. And the lawn was a wasteland of camping chairs and coolers and shopping bags and to-go containers and soda cans and articles of clothing and even a few tents.

In Monroe, in the dark, the Trump supporters bobbled over mounds of waste like elephants trying to tiptoe. And the trash was as neutral to them as concrete or grass. They plodded over it because it, an object, had somehow gotten in their way.

It did not matter that they were responsible for this wreckage.Out in the sharp-edged moonlight, rally-goers hooted and yapped and boogied and danced, and the bbq food truck was all smoke and paper plates.

They were even more pumped than they had been before the rally, like 6,000 eight year olds who'd been chugging Mountain Dew for hours. Which made Donald Trump the father, the trooper, God of the Underworld, Mr. Elite, Sheriff on high horse, the AR-15 sticker of the family.

Ritualistic mayhem, all at once. And, there in Louisiana, Trump's supporters had gotten a taste of it. They were all so happy. It bordered on rage.

Still, I could not imagine their view of America. Worse, after a day of strange hostilities, I did not care.

My highest priority, my job as a reporter, was to care. To understand them and the world that they inhabit. But I did not give a damn and I never wanted to come back.

Worst of all, I would be back. In less than a week.

Was this how dogs felt on the 4th of July? Hunched in a corner while everyone else gets drunk and launches wailing light into the sky? configurations of blue and red and white.

It was 10:00 p.m. and we'd been traveling since 11:00 a.m., and we still had 5 hours to go and all I wanted was a home, my home, any home, just not here, in the cold sweat of this nowhere. Grey-mangled sky. No evidence of planes or satellites or any proof of modern-day. Just century-old bridges that trains shuffled over one clack at a time.

And casinos, all spangles and neon like the 1960s in Las Vegas. Kitchy and dumb, too tacky for lighthearted gambling. And only in the nicer cities, like Shreveport, which is not nice at all.

And swamp. Black water that rarely shimmered. Inhabited by gadflies and leeches and not one single fish that was pretty.

Full of alligators, and other killing types. The storks gnawing on frogs, the vultures never hungry. The coyotes with nobody to stop them and so much land to themselves. The roaches in the wild, like tiny wildebeests.

Then, the occasional deer carcass on the side of the road, eyes splayed as if distracted, tongue out, relaxed but empty. The diseased willows like skeletons in hairnets. The owls that never quit staring. A million facets of wilderness that would outlive us all.

Because Nature has poise. It thrives and is original.

Because silence is impossible. Even in an anechoic chamber, perfectly soundproofed, you can hear your own heartbeat, steady as a drum. A never-ending war.

I put "Headache" by Grouper on repeat as we glided west. We were deadlocked to asphalt, rubber over tarface.

And I thought about lines from a Rita Dove poem titled "I have been a stranger in a strange land"

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,
pretending he could organize
what was clearly someone else's chaos.

Wasn't that exactly what I was doing? Looking for an impossible answer, examining every single accident, eager for meaning? telling myself, "If it happens and matters the next year, in America, I want to be there, or to know what it means. I owe it to whoever cares to listen."

Humans are collectors and I had gone overboard.

Because maybe this wasn't even my home. These landmarks, what did they mean? Was I obvious here? When I smiled, did I trick them into believing that I felt some vague sense of approval? Or did my expressions betray me?

Out in all that garbage-streaked emptiness — despite the occasional burst of passing halogen — I couldn't tell if everything we encountered was haunted or just old, derelict, broken, useless. One never-ending landfill.

Around those parts, they'd made everything into junk. Homes. Roads. Glass. Nature. Life itself, they made into junk.

I cringed as we passed yet another deer carcass mounded on the side of the road.

As written in Job 35:11,

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?

Nobody. Look at nature and you feel something powerful. Look at an animal, in all of its untamable majesty, and you capture a deep love, all swept up in the power of creation. But, here, all I saw were poor creatures who people had slammed into and kept driving. Driving to where? For what reason? What exactly was so important that they left a trail of dead animals behind them?

So I crossed myself dolorously and said an "Our Father" and recited a stanza from Charles Bukowski's "The Laughing Heart"

you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.

Out here, nothing but darkness. Needing some light, by God. Give me something better than a Moon that hides like an underfed coward.

Jade told me about some of the more traumatic things she'd seen while working at the State Fair.

"Bro, they pull roaches out of the iced lemonade jugs and act like nothing happened."

"All right but what about the corn dogs?"

"You do not want to know, little bro."

She looked around in the quiet. "Back in the day, the Louisiana Congress refused to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21," she said. "They didn't want to lose all that drunk gambler money. So the federal government cut off funding to highways."

We glided through moon-pale landscape for an hour before I realized what she had meant. That there weren't any light poles or billboards along the road. Nothing to guide us or distract us. Just us, alone. And it felt like outer space had collapsed, swallowed us like jellybeans.

Like two teenagers playing a prank on the universe.

In the cozy Subaru Crosstrek, in the old wild night, brimming with the uncertainty of life and the nonchalance of failure, we paraded ourselves back to Dallas. Alive in the river silence that follows us everywhere.

New installments come Mondays and Thursdays. Next, the Iowa caucuses. Check out my Twitter. Email me at kryan@blazemedia.com

Amid election security concerns, states should look to blockchain

Wikimedia Commons

The Iowa primary is just around the corner, and concerns of election interference from the last presidential election still loom. Back in 2016, The Associated Press found that a majority of U.S. elections systems still use Windows 7 as an operating system, making them highly susceptible to bugs and errors. And last year, a Mississippi voter tried multiple times to vote for the candidate of his choice, but the system continuously switched his vote to the other candidate. It's pretty clear: America's voting systems desperately need an update.

That's where blockchain voting comes in.

Blockchain voting is a record-keeping system that's 100% verifiable and nearly impossible to hack. Blockchain, the newest innovation in cybersecurity, is set to grow into a $20 billion industry by 2025. Its genius is in its decentralized nature, distributing information throughout a network of computers, requiring would-be hackers to infiltrate a much larger system. Infiltrating multiple access points spread across many computers requires a significant amount of computing power, which often costs more than hackers expect to get in return.

Blockchain voting wouldn't allow for many weak spots. For instance, Voatz, arguably the leading mobile voting platform, requires a person to take a picture of their government-issued ID and a picture of themselves before voting (a feature, of course, not present in vote-by-mail, where the only form of identity verification is a handwritten signature, which is easily forgeable). Voters select their choices and hit submit. They then receive an immediate receipt of their choices via email, another security feature not present in vote-by-mail, or even in-person voting. And because the system operates on blockchain technology, it's nearly impossible to tamper with.

Votes are then tabulated, and the election results are published, providing a paper trail, which is a top priority for elections security experts.

The benefits of blockchain voting can't be dismissed. Folks can cast their vote from the comfort of their homes, offices, etc., vastly increasing the number of people who can participate in the electoral process. Two to three-hour lines at polling places, which often deter voters, would become significantly diminished.

Even outside of the voting increase, the upsides are manifold. Thanks to the photo identification requirements, voter fraud—whether real or merely suspected—would be eliminated. The environment would win, too, since we'd no longer be wasting paper on mail-in ballots. Moreover, the financial burden on election offices would be alleviated, because there's decreased staff time spent on the election, saving the taxpayer money.

From Oregon to West Virginia, elections offices have already implemented blockchain voting, and the results have been highly positive. For example, the city of Denver utilized mobile voting for overseas voters in their 2019 municipal elections. The system was secure and free of technical errors, and participants reported that it was very user-friendly. Utah County used the same system for their 2019 primary and general elections. An independent audit revealed that every vote that was cast on the app was counted and counted correctly. These successful test cases are laying the groundwork for even larger expansions of the program in 2020.

With this vital switch, our elections become significantly more secure, accurate, and efficient. But right now, our election infrastructure is a sitting duck for manipulation. Our current lack of election integrity undermines the results of both local and national elections, fans the flames of partisanship, and zaps voter confidence in the democratic system. While there's never a silver bullet or quick fix to those kinds of things, blockchain voting would push us much closer to a solution than anything else.

Chris Harelson is the Executive Director at Prosperity Council and a Young Voices contributor.