Glenn Beck: Obama thinks you are stupid

GLENN: I want to play a little bit of audio here from Barack Obama. What he said yesterday about the Tea Party movement. Not only does this guy stick a knife in your chest, but he can't ever resist twisting it.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I've been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

PAT: Oh. (Screaming.)

GLENN: Here is a large portion of the United States. I mean, the Tea Parties are not perceived in a bad way on their message, although Tea Parties, may I make a suggestion? I think the -- I think what you need to stop -- what you need to stop doing is carrying the message of taxes and government. If you think about yourself, let's say you're going -- you're on the bus. You're going to work. You're sitting on the bus and somebody would say, Hey, I'm for lower taxes and less government and there you are on the bus with a bunch of people who don't really pay attention to an awful lot of stuff. What does that mean to them, especially when you know 47% of the population, they don't, they don't pay taxes. Lower taxes? No. I'm fine. I'm not paying any taxes. Less government? Yeah, I guess. But, I mean, I get stuff from them. We don't -- we shouldn't be saying less government, lower taxes. We should be saying more choices, more freedom, bigger paychecks, because that involves everybody. More freedom, more choices, bigger paychecks. That's what we're for, because that's what Barack Obama does. That's what the left does. They control the language. They watch their language very carefully. We're only talking to maybe 50% of the country when we say lower taxes. And he -- look at what he's saying. Look what seas saying. I've lowered taxes for 95% of the American people. Is there any way that's true?

PAT: No.

GLENN: I'm just trying to figure out how he can make that claim other than the press doesn't hold his feet to the fire for anything.

PAT: He lowered withholding and a lot of those people we found out weren't paying taxes, anyhow. So, I don't know how he lowered their taxes unless they actually paid no taxes and then got additional money at the end of the year, which is possible. I don't put anything past this administration, but what 15 million people found out yesterday was even the with holding scam that they were running cost them money this time.

GLENN: Right. And what about the taxes that are buried in the new health care bill?

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: The health care bill is burying taxes.

PAT: The cigarette tax.

GLENN: Cigarette tax.

PAT: They're pushing -- and thank you, Lindsey Graham, pushing a 15¢ gasoline tax, trying to start up the cap and tax again.

GLENN: Run from your church that talks about social justice in the way that Jeremiah Wright does and run from any candidate that talks like Lindsey Graham. Left, right, doesn't matter.

 

This week, Glenn showed a deeply disturbing video of a presentation during the World Economic Forum Davos Summit promoting brain-tracking technology and how it can be integrated into our daily lives—like the workplace.

The presentation begins by showing this dystopian-like video showing how brain-tracking tech can be used in the workplace, like your employer zapping your brain waves when they detect you are daydreaming about a fellow employee or rewarding you with a bonus after tracking your productivity through your brainwaves.

The video is presented by Nita Robinson, professor of law and philosophy at Duke, who makes a chilling announcement: "Is it a future you're ready for? You may be surprised to learn that it's a future that's already arrived. Everything that you just saw in that video is based on technology that is already here today."

This technology includes brain-tracking EEG and artificial intelligence, which translates brain waves into data that is then decoded by wearable technology that is like a "Fitbit for your brain." As Robinson says, "What you think, what you feel, it's all just data that, in large patterns, can be decoded using artificial intelligence."

How effective is this technology? At the moment, these "brain FitBits" can determine "emotional states, [...] decode faces that you're seeing in your mind [...] simple shapes, numbers, your pin number to your bank account..."

...your pin number? Your privacy is no longer safe, even inside your brain.

Who owns this technology is where the issue becomes particularly troubling. Facebook's parent company, Meta, acquired brain-tracking tech company, Control Labs, in 2019, because, according to Robinson, "major tech companies are investing and helping to make these devices universally applicable in the way in which we interact with the rest of our technology." Microsoft is also creating an AI generator for website development. You can input the type of website you want to create for your business, and the AI spits out 10+ website templates to choose from.

Lastly, as Glenn says, Buzzfeed's stock is skyrocketing after its announcement that they are going to be using AI and ChatGBT to write their stories instead of real people, raising concerns that the increased use of AI technology will replace humans out of many industries, including creative positions like researching and writing.

While all of these companies are profiting and will continue to profit off of technology that is displacing human employees from their industries, Glenn warns that companies that don't integrate AI into their workspace will pay a huge price:

I have no problem using devices, but I will not replace people with machines. Now that's going to put anybody who does that in the opposite position as Buzzfeed. You'll have a hard time making money because you refuse to lose our humanity.

Companies will soon have to choose between these cutting-edge and often cost-saving technologies to preserve their human employees' roles. Individuals will also have to choose between integrating this technology, which will save time and effort in the short term but at the cost of their privacy and liberty in the long term. As Glenn says, "If you think this is something on the horizon [...] you are sadly mistaken." This technology is already here, and we have to assess how we will respond and how it becomes more integrated into our daily lives.

Glenn has already taken a stand:

I will tell you that everything we do is made by hand. We will NOT sell out and have our shows written by machines. We will do our own research and dig deep.

How will you respond?

9 SHOCKING figures revealing Biden's REAL State of the Union

Alexey Furman / Stringer, Brandon Bell / Staff, FREDERIC J. BROWN / Contributor, Mario Tama / Staff, Pool / Pool | Getty Images

Many predict that Biden will make his case for re-election during his annual State of the Union address tonight. Would you want another term of Biden's policies? Most people, including Democrats, say they don't.

Here are 9 figures from Biden's performance thus far that show the REAL state of the union—you probably won't hear about these tonight.

1. Nobody thinks Biden's doing a good job—not even Democrats

Glenn discussed the recent polls showing that Biden doesn't have many on his team who want him back in office in 2024.

According to a joint Washington Post/ABC poll, 4 in 10 Americans say they've gotten worse financially since Biden became President, the most in ABC News/Washington Post polls dating back 37 years.

Biden's disapproval ratings aren't only driven by Republicans. Nearly 6 in 10 Democratic-aligned adults don't want Biden to be nominated as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 election.

2. Proxy war with Russia

The U.S. has given Ukraine an estimated $68 billion in total aid in 2022, to aid in their defensive front against Russia. Now, we are caving to Ukraine's demands for even more sophisticated weapons to take on a more offensive approach. We are no longer an aid partner—we are an active participant in a proxy war against Russia.

As Glenn recently discussed on his radio program, after the U.S. agreed to give tanks to Ukrainian troops, we are giving Russia more reason to retaliate against the U.S. for supplying weapons that are used offensively, rather than defensively, against Russian troops. If the U.S. caves to Ukraine's most recent demands for fighter jets, it will be hard to defend that the U.S. isn't engaging in the new offensive against Russia juxtaposed to Ukraine's initially defensive stance.

Is war with Russia in the U.S.'s best interests? An increasing number of Americans are saying: no. Moreover, many Americans view the increasing aid to Ukraine as a betrayal of the struggles they are facing at home, many of which were created and exacerbated during the Biden administration.

3. The ever-expanding federal deficit

Biden continues to attempt to take credit for narrowing the federal deficit. This is simply a lie.

Biden simply slightly reduced deficit spending from the exorbitant COVID-era emergency spending from 2020. In reality, his multi-trillion-dollar agenda contributed to the federal deficit.

The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Biden expanded the federal deficit "by $4.8 trillion through administrative actions and legislation." According to the Treasury Department, the government "spent $1.38 trillion more than it collected, resulting in a deficit"and that "this year's deficit contributed to a national debt of $31.42 trillion through December 2022."

4. The worst border crisis in U.S. history

The Biden administration continues to break its own records in illegal border crossings, contributing to the worst border crisis in U.S. history.

December 2022 alone saw a monthly historic record of 251,000 illegal border crossings, breaking May 2022's record-setting number of 224,370. In total, the fiscal year 2022 witnessed a historic record of 2.4 million illegal border crossings. In comparison, Ellis Island's busiest year in 1907 saw 1,004,756 migrant arrivals, less than half of the rate seen in 2022.

5. Fentanyl

It comes as no surprise that Biden's border crisis has contributed to the opioid crisis that continues to take the lives of thousands of Americans. Last year, the DEA seized enough fentanyl to kill every American—more than 50 million fentanyl-laced pills and over 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.

More than 70,000 people died of overdoses from synthetic opioids like fentanyl alone in 2021, according to the CDC—a number representing two out of three of all fatal drug overdoses. That is more lives lost than the combined equivalent of U.S. military personnel killed during the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

6. Inflation

Inflation soared from just 1.4 percent when Biden took office in January 2021 to a 40-year record high of 9.1 percent in June 2022. In comparison, before Biden’s first year as President, the calendar-year inflation rate hadn’t topped 4 percent since 1991. 2022 closed with a slightly cooled inflation rate of 6.5 percent , which remains higher than at any point since 1982.

7. Skyrocketing Food Prices

Arguably the hardest-hit item on Americans' budgets is the grocery bill. In 2022, food prices increased by 9.9 percent, with items such as eggs rising 60 percent in 2022. Food-at-home prices increased by 11.4 percent, while food-away-from-home prices increased by 7.7 percent.

8. Children's learning deficits

Biden actively fought state governments and school districts that banned mask and distance-learning mandates. However, it was these very mandates that are linked to the dramatic drop in children meeting basic learning milestones during the pandemic. According to Brown University's sweeping study that surveyed 5.4 million American schoolchildren aged 3 to 8 years old, math and reading scores dropped significantly in 2021 while the gap between higher and lower-income students widened.

Though these statistics pertain to Biden's pandemic-era policies in 2021, it's important to note that these policies had a significant, if not irreversible impact on millions of children across the U.S., an impact that didn't disappear when the mandates did.

9. Suicide

Glenn recently drew attention to this sobering statistic: suicide across the U.S. increased 30 percent nationwide in 2022 and 53 percent amongst African Americans. Though controlling the mental health of America isn't in Biden's job description, it is nonetheless indicative of the "state of the union."

Tapping the brakes on transgenderism in 2023

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2022 was the year of the emperor’s new clothes—where we were supposed to pretend that someone like Lia Thomas is a woman, legitimately beating actual women in swimming competitions. This carpet-bombing of common sense won’t be letting up anytime soon. Just before the New Year, the World Boxing Council announced that it’s going to create a separate category for transgender boxers. The WBC president said:

…we are doing this because of safety and inclusion. We have been the leaders in rules for women’s boxing—so the dangers of a man fighting a woman will never happen because of what we are going to put in place.

After all the insanity you’ve been told to accept about transgender athletes in recent years, his statement is remarkable. He’s admitting what common sense people have been saying all along—that trans athletes identifying as women still carry natural physical advantages (from the fact that they’re actually male), and that those natural advantages could endanger biological women.

Trans athletes identifying as women still carry natural physical advantages.

The WBC president went on to say:

In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted regardless of gender change. There should be no gray area around this, and we want to go into it with transparency and the correct decisions. Woman to man or man to woman transgender change will never be allowed to fight a different gender by birth.

Maybe the WBC is on to something here. Maybe the only way to solve the stupidity of letting biological males play female sports is to create a separate transgender category in every sport. That would make competition fair again. However, the trans agenda will never accept this because it doesn’t validate their transition—in fact, it admits that these are not authentically female athletes.

There is some rare, good news on this front. In late December, the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted to uphold a Florida school-board policy that requires transgender students to use the bathroom of their biological sex. Of course, the Left won’t accept this, so this case will probably go to the Supreme Court sooner than later. You’re supposed to always believe the science, except when it comes to your own body parts.

You’re supposed to always believe the science, except when it comes to your own body parts.

And by the way, if the Left truly cared about unbiased science as it pertains to transgenderism, they’d listen to their favorite European country, Sweden. Sweden’s national board of health recently updated its guidelines on treating children with gender dysphoria. Unlike the Biden administration and the U.S. medical establishment right now, Sweden’s new emphasis is caution:

…the scientific data is INSUFFICIENT to assess the effects of puberty-inhibiting and gender-sensitive hormone therapy of children and young people.

The Swedish guidelines also mention the prevalence of de-transition cases as another reason for tapping the brakes on sex-change surgeries for children.

Common sense apparently does still exist, even in places like Sweden. If only America would listen.

Glenn wants to dive deep into different philosophical topics this year. As CRT and woke curricula are demonizing the "western tradition," it is vitally important that we preserve the tradition that gave birth our nation and gives context to the culture we live in today. Here are the top 11 books to give you a crash course in the western philosophic tradition. If you don't have the time to read them, you can find an overview to each of the books below!

1. Plato's Republic

The first titan of Greek philosophy, Plato articulated the set of questions that would drive the future western philosophical tradition. The pre-eminent question among Greek philosophers was "what is the thing that explains everything." In philosophical lingo, this question is framed as "what is the logos or the good." Plato argued that reality could be explained in terms of the "forms." For example, when you see multiple examples of a "courageous" act, then, Plato would argue, there is such a thing as "courage." The form of "the good" is the form that gives meaning to all of reality. Humans use their rational minds to contemplate what is good and then align their desires to "the good" in order to pursue it.

2. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

The second titan of Greek philosophy was none other than Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. Aristotle deviated from his teacher's claims about "forms" and instead argued that every single thing has a purpose, a telos. For example, the telos of a chair is to provide a place for someone to sit. In the same way that a chair's purpose is to provide a place for someone to sit, Aristotle argues that the telos of human beings is to pursue happiness.

In the first page of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that every action is done for the sake of pursuing happiness, although, all too often, our actions are misplaced. We often pursue things we believe will make us happy when, in reality, they are fleeting, momentary pleasures that result in despair, heartbreak, or pain. Rather than conforming the world around us to fit our momentary desires, Aristotle argues that we achieve happiness by understanding the nature of the world around us and how we fit into it by actively cultivating virtues in order to make our soul "fit to be happy." Work and action, therefore, are not mere moral "to-do lists," but rather bring us fulfillment.

3. Augustine's City of God

If Plato is the first titan of ancient philosophy, then Augustine is the first titan of medieval philosophy. Medieval philosophy begins with the re-discovery of ancient philosophical texts that had been lost throughout the Roman Empire. As Christianity had taken root and spread across the western world, medieval philosophy integrated these newly-discovered texts into Christian theology. Augustine is the pre-eminent medieval Neo-platonic philosopher, incorporating Plato's philosophy into Christian theology.

Augustine claimed that God himself is the ultimate "form" or "the good" from which all of reality derives its meaning and existence. A thing is "good" insofar as it coalesces with the way God intended it to be. When a thing stays away from God's intention, it is "not good." From this, we get the Augustinian definition of "evil" as a "privation" or "absence of goodness," which ultimately corresponds to God's nature and character.

4. Aquinas' Summa Theologica

Just as Augustine incorporated Plato's philosophy into Christian theology, the second medieval titan, Thomas Aquinas, incorporated Aristotelian philosophy into Christian theology. Building from Aristotle, Aquinas argues that Christ is our happiness, the longing of every human heart and the object of every human action. Though we may think we are pursuing happiness outside of Christ, our this pursuit is misplaced and will result in fleeting pleasure and pain. True happiness and fulfillment, Aquinas argues, is found in Christ himself and the pursuit of his nature.

**Note: Aquinas' Summa is one of the largest works ever written and contains arguments about many different subjects--there are concise versions that will save you a lot of time!

5. Francis Bacon's Novem Organum

If medieval philosophy is defined by the incorporation of ancient philosophy into orthodox Christian theology, then the Enlightenment is defined as the rejection of both. English philosopher Francis Bacon kicked off the Enlightenment with a total rejection of the Aristotelian view of reality. The title of his book, the Novum Organum, or "the new order," is a deliberate tease of Aristotle's Organon, or "the order of things." Bacon's "new order" purports that, contrary to Aristotle, there is no inherent "nature" or "purpose" in reality. Rather, reality is something that we can conquer by means of knowledge and force, dissecting nature to its fundamental parts and reconstructing it into what we want. Bacon is considered the father of the scientific method, creating a testable means through which we can understand, break down and re-construct nature.

6. Descartes' Discourse on Method

Descartes is best known for his famous assertion, cogito ergo sum, or "I think, therefore, I am." In Discourse on Method, Descartes embarks on a rigorous endeavor to doubt anything that can be doubted. He postulates that all of reality can be doubted; however, the one thing that cannot be doubted, he concludes, is that there must be someonewho is doubting. Though we may think that we are in the matrix, we are thinking, therefore, we must exist.

Descartes's rigorous skepticism introduced a brand-new burden of truth. In order for something to be true, it must be beyond all reasonable doubt. Many continue to use Descartes' skepticism as a way to challenge religious belief. According to these modern-day skeptics, unless you can prove that God exists beyond any reasonable doubt, there is no way to actually know whether he exists. The severing of knowledge and faith is often attributed to Descartes.

7. David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature

Scottish philosopher David Hume took aim at both Plato and Aristotle. One of his most famous and consequential claims about human nature is, "reason is and always ought to be slave of the passions." This took direct aim at Plato's view of human nature. Plato argued that our reason or "rationality" should always rule our passions so that we will desire what is good. Hume flips this on its head, claiming that our reason is helplessly enslaved to our passions and will inevitably justify what we will already want. From this, Hume introduced a new articulation of moral relativism, claiming that humans are not able to choose between what is good and what is evil, but rather will choose what they want over what they don't.

8. Kant's Contemplation on the Metaphysics of Morals

Hume's moral relativism sparked panic within German philosopher Immanuel Kant. If we will inevitably do what we desire, how can we ever choose to do something good and moral for its own sake? We must, according to Kant, separate morality completely from the passions if it's to be saved. Kant, therefore, argues that duty is the highest good that man can aspire to. We do the right thing, not because we want to--on the contrary, we do the "right thing" because it's our duty to do so, especially when we don't want to. This breaks away from the Aristotelian notion that our happiness is inextricably intertwined with the pursuit of "the good."

9. Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

Nietzsche wasn't convinced by either Hume or Kant's efforts to retain some semblance of civility or relativistic moral standard. According to Nietzsche, if there is no such thing as transcendent morality, then "moral maxims" are reduced to meaningless words purported by the people in power. Morality, therefore, becomes a game of persuasion at best, coercion and force at worst. People are reduced to winners and losers, opressors and victims, and whoever comes out on top gets to impose their desired view of the world on the losers. Therefore, the goal of the individual is to cultivate the "will to power," to become the powerful "ubermensch" or "superhuman," or else you will be reduced to a victim susceptible to other people's coercion and oppression.

10. C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man

After the Enlightenment ends in a grand, destructive finale with Nietzsche, Christian philosophers in the 20th century attempt to pick up the pieces and resurrect the ancient and medieval philosophies that had been cast to the side. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis famously laments that mankind has become "men without chests." This is a direct reference to Plato's view of human nature--there is nothing linking our mind to our heart. Intellectually, we have dissected all of reality into its individual bits, stripping it of its holistic beauty, while also succumbing to our whims and passions with no notion of a transcendent moral law. Lewis calls for the re-marriage of our minds and our hearts, so that we will not only pursue what is good, but moreover, we will desire to do so.

11. Alasdair McIntyre's After Virtue

The latter part of the 20th century saw the resurgence of Aristotelian ethics after being largely dismissed over the past 400 years during the Enlightenment. Scottish Catholic philosopher Alasdair McIntyre was and continues to be one of the foremost leaders of this movement. In his magnum opus, After Virtue, McIntyre takes aim at the entire Enlightenment project itself and shows how it ultimately fails by its own standards. If reality is a mere power dynamic, as Nietzsche argues, and if morality is an act of persuasion and passion, as Hume purports, then we have no reason to take their views seriously. If all of reality is relative, then the statement "reality is relative" is itself relative. It becomes victim of the self-refutation of its own standards. Transcendent morality, he argues, must exist, because there must be some standard by which we judge reality and can say with determination, "this is good" and "this is evil."