A Christmas story

A Christmas story.

I have had a milestone day.

Maybe it won't seem profound to you but it was to me.

I hesitate to share this with you because some will think that I am lifting myself up when indeed the opposite it true. I would not have felt what I felt today if I were the man I would want others to believe I am. (Which none of us are).

We are all flawed. Struggling and selfish. We strike out when we are afraid. We become ego maniacs when we fear we are not good enough. We become self righteous when we are far away from God. We become judgmental when we are the least likely to be asked to help judge others in the after life. When we close our minds to others it generally is because we are no longer curious (a bad sign) or when we are afraid that our point of view is right but we can't defend it.

I am many of those things and at times in my life I have been all of those things. Our job in life is to shed that natural man and become more Christlike.

Our next challenge in such a dark world is to SHARE our light. To not hide it under a bushel. Jesus didn't hide the healing. The apostles gave and healed and not only shared it, but wrote it down. Not for their glory but for His. To show others that joy, peace and comfort can be found.

Love will change the world. But it must be modeled. May I suggest you and I begin sharing our experiences?

I have promised The Lord, "show me miracles and I will proclaim them throughout the land." Not for my glory but for His.

Please, I beg you. Do the same thing. Let's reintroduce a good and great God to the world,

Our God is much bigger than we give Him credit for. We are worried about our jobs or our car payments. He cares and He will do those things, but let's let Him show is what He can do.

He is a God of grace, love, covenants and miracles.

This morning at six am, we got the kids up, dressed and ready to take on the snow covered mountains. We drove to a place two towns over. It was the local food bank. There, for a few hours, the kids, Tania and I, unloaded boxes, stocked shelves and helped bag groceries for those less fortunate than us.

It wasn't too long into our workday that I realized that if it wasn't for my ability to broadcast, my body would have given out and this would be the life I would be living with my children right now. There but for the grace of God go I.

About twenty minutes in, with people lined up out the door in the cold, a man looked up when I greeted him with Merry Christmas and with shock and disbelief he said to me:

"Are you ... Wait. You can't be. Are you Glenn beck?"

"Yes", I said feeling foolish. "Merry Christmas"

He looked down and said. "Wow, I never thought I would meet you here."

He paused and said perhaps to himself, "I never thought I would be here."

The gift of empathy. I felt him. I knew him. For a fraction of a second I was him and I loved him.

He had been successful and used to watch me on fox, but then lost his job and could no longer afford to watch, we caught up on things and he pushed his cart on through.

The newspaper came, looking for a Christmas story. I got down on bended knee and began to help my daughter restock shelves. It gave me a chance to bury my face until they left. I don't think they saw me. They will air the same story they air every year. In every town all over the world and no one will watch it.

I wasn't looking for a story. I was looking for a miracle. I found it. The kindness we saw. The moms with children. The gratitude. The great and powerful volunteers who treated us as if we really were making a difference on this one visit while they are there year round.

The people just like you and me, in situations they never thought possible. The people starving not for food but to no longer be invisible... Or maybe no longer wishing to be invisible.

Another man stopped me and simply said, "you are so much taller than I would have imagined. Why are you here?"

"My kids and you". I replied. He told me about how he was now raising his grand daughter as his own, this daughter just moved to New York City and left her baby. With a far away look in his eyes he pondered aloud, "how does a mother do that?"

It was a day full of heart felt questions and needed insight and answers. None of which provided by me.

It wasn't long before I truly understood: We may all be in that line someday. Sooner than we think and longer than we care to admit.

As I was restocking the chocolate syrup I heard a woman pick up a bag of 3 popcorn balls as if they were gold, frankincense or myrrh. I heard her ask herself with my back turned,

"The question is, can I keep these hidden until Christmas morning?" She had struck gold, an answered prayer, a simple gift for her Children which indeed was a profound gift to her from a Father who loves her.

I almost broke down and wept. I remember those days when I couldn't afford a simple gift from the shelves of cvs. I felt like a failure as a dad.

I wasn't. She isn't and if you are going through tough times, neither are you.

Hard times make us.

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This trip started out as service to others, as something I wanted my kids to do. They have so much and their life is unlike anyone else's that I know. I want them to understand what the rest of the world is like. I want to teach them compassion, charity, love and most importantly, empathy.

I want to teach myself those things as well.

I left richer than I was when I entered and as always, my kids asked if we could do that again. Yes. On the first and third Saturday of every month this happens. Not just at Christmas.

I heard a sermon from a friend of mine this am before the family was awake. It revolved around despair. How many are suffering? Rape, death, joblessness, war, hopelessness, drugs, loneliness.

How many times have we heard "where is God? How could he allow this happen? So much suffering.!"

Let me apologize. I am just finally beginning to get it. If you know me and still ask that question "where is God?" then I have failed my God and you.

If you know me and haven't seen compassion, hope, faith, and patience than I haven't been doing my part.

Where is God?

Acting through you if you will let him.

Brightening the world through you. If people don't see Him in us than we are not active enough. If we are taking credit than we are misguided.

I saw God today.

He was picking up a bag of popcorn balls, he was taking care of his daughters baby as his own and he was bringing joy to others who can't afford every meal, just like him, wearing a red shirt and red sweat pants and a home made Santa beard he had made from yarn.

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He is there every Saturday and has been for twelve years. He is a simple man who knows how to give away pallets of joy as if it just grew on trees.

Let's find our way to each other. Let's really look people in the eye when we say merry Christmas. Hold the gaze a little longer than normal to let the other person know "I see you" and that they are not invisible.

Tomorrow, I am going door to door as Santa. We have mapped out the route, checked it twice. My kids are elves. Let see who leaves with more gifts, us or those who we visit.

I am not a perfect guy. I was raised in a family that never tithed nor had enough money to give to charity. I am still learning how to be a better man, father, husband and neighbor. Perhaps you are too. May I suggest, you stop begging for answers and begin to seek miracles and as you prepare for those to happen, go be a miracle in someone else's life.

Today!

From the house over the river and through the woods, with the smoke billowing from the chimney and the brightest stars you have ever seen lighting the diamond snow in the front yard ... Goodnight America.

 

Is the U.N. plotting to control 30% of U.S. land by 2030?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A reliable conservative senator faces cancellation for listening to voters. But the real threat to public lands comes from the last president’s backdoor globalist agenda.

Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

  Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor | Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

MANAURE QUINTERO / Contributor | Getty Images

By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

  

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

   USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

   Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

 

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.