Boris Johnson just won a huge election in the UK, giving conservatives a victory bigger than that of Margaret Thatcher and equal to that of post-WWII Winston Churchill. He defeat the left's candidate, anti-semite Jeremy Corbyn, and it's a big message not only from Brexit supporters overseas, but to Democrats here at home as well. Why? Because though Boris Johnson is a bit more calculated than Donald Trump, both world leaders still have a lot in common. And for British voters -- even those who support remaining in the EU -- to give Johnson the kind of victory they did, it means they're tired of government ignoring the will of the people. They defeated the "Elizabeth Warren" of the UK, and that sentiment isn't one just felt in the UK. It could signal a coming, big victory for Donald Trump in 2020 too.

Bill O'Reilly tells Glenn the most important story on which ALL Americans should focus their attention is the recent Inspector General report that sheds light on how corrupt the FBI acted during their efforts to keep President Trump out of the White House in 2016. O'Reilly explains the Bonner Group: a group of activists, led by George Soros, working in and around D.C. agencies who were likely given "implied" directions to "get" Donald Trump. But who was it at the top giving those directions, and where do Americans go from here?

Glenn sits down to have a conversation with Dave Rubin who is a free-thinking classical liberal and hosts The Rubin Report. Coming from a left-leaning progressive background, Dave shares how he ultimately became fed up with the mainstream media narrative and popularity of click-bait news. Dave also shares how a person shouldn't concern themselves with choosing a side but rather embracing their status as an individual. Glenn and Dave also explore how the modern left has lost its way to political correctness and groupthink at a dangerous level which has greatly distracted from the original American dream of the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A whale in a raincoat turns to a starfish.

“Why do you need a raincoat when we're surrounded by water?" asks the starfish.

The whale laughs, “Water? I don't see any water."

We are the starfish in this situation. There's something suspicious happening. We can sense it. But it's often hard to prove. The media tells us that we're delusional. That all this Ukraine business is a conspiracy theory.

Only it's not.

And we have proof.

Something wasn't right. Something smelled fishy.

I was talking about Biden's shady connection to Ukraine months before anyone else. (Perhaps you watched our candidate profile on Joe Biden from April of this year.)

My team and I knew, even then, that something wasn't right. Something smelled fishy.

Then we discovered the truth. We couldn't believe it. The evidence kept piling on. And, thanks to cavalier journalists like John Solomon at the Hill, many of the documents and recordings and videos rose to the surface.

Yet, for the most part, the media ignored this glaring story, a story full of shady dealings and deep corruption, corruption that went all the way to the Oval Office. So why weren't the media leaping to cover it? Why were journalists so focused on Biden's creepy issues with personal space, and not the unexplained loss of $1.3 billion? That's roughly the GDP of Gambia.

We made it our mission to expose the truth.

When the news broke about the Trump impeachment, we were ready. Here I am in September, explaining the Ukraine scandal:

The misdeeds that took place with Ukraine are far more serious than one of Trump's phone calls. This runs deep.

If there's any semblance of justice left, this scandal will go down as the Watergate of our time. Sort of. Because, despite what the media insists, the guilty parties are all attached to the Obama Administration.

We refuse to stand by and remain silent.

We've spent many days and nights working on this, on bringing you the truth. And we've tried to make it as approachable as possible. Because it's enough to make your head spin.

Our months of grueling research paid off. People loved our special, Ukraine: The Democrats' Russia.

It exploded. Went viral. For that week, it was all over social media. People were talking about it.

"We punish a man for his ignorance if he is thought to be responsible for his ignorance."

The special is there for you. But, as I said in the special, the important part of this whole debacle is education. In the words of Aristotle, “We punish a man for his ignorance if he is thought to be responsible for his ignorance."

We are all responsible for our ignorance. Anymore, with all the information in the world available to us at all times, there is no excuse.

I get it. All of this Ukraine business is daunting and complex. All the more reason to understand its intricacies.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to see the sequence of events that led up to Trump's phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. What better way than to give you an interactive chalkboard?

Explore the timeline at your own pace. The truth is in your hands. You have all the power now.

FEB 2014

New President in Ukraine

It all began with the appointment of a new President in Ukraine. Petro Porochenko.

The pro-Russian regime in Ukraine officially collapsed as President Yanukovych was forced to flee to Russia. After three months of demonstrations, the protesters seized control of Kiev, and new elections for the brand new government were set up for just a few months later.

This would lay the foundation for systematic corruption by the Democrats.

Within a couple years, the Obama Administration will become the biggest advocate for the new regime in Ukraine, and high-level Democrat political influencers will take root in Ukraine. This is just a few of the many:

• Greg Craig: former Obama White House counsel
• Tad Devine: Chief Strategist for Bernie Sanders
• Tony Podesta: Brother to John Podesta
• Mark Penn: Chief Strategist for Hillary Clinton
• John Alazone: Obama campaign pollster
• Joel Benenson: the Obama campaign LEAD pollster

An overwhelming show of force in a country with crucial ties to one of our enemies. But it evolved into so much more than that.

Here's Obama meeting with Porochenko later that year:

MAR 2014

Obama Makes Biden Point-man in Ukraine

Then-President Obama wanted to prove his devotion to Ukraine. So he appointed then-Vice President Joe Biden to be the new point-man in the country.

Here's what author Peter Schweizer had to say about this decision:

APR 2014

Biden Flies to Ukraine, Hunter Tags Along

As I pointed out in our Candidate profile on Biden, April 2014 was a crucial moment in the Ukraine scandal.

In April 2014, roughly a month after the Russian invasion, Devon Archer visited Joe Biden at the White House. Remember, Archer is one of Hunter Biden's two partners in Rosemont Seneca. We don't know what the meeting was about — maybe they were just exchanging cookie recipes. But five days later, Joe Biden landed in Kiev for high-level meetings with Ukrainian government officials.

He brought with him specific plans for a program to assist the Ukrainian natural gas industry, as well as details of over $1 billion in U.S. assistance and loans. Part of the energy portion of the program reads:

U.S. technical experts will ... help Ukraine develop a public-private investment initiative to increase conventional gas production from existing fields to boost domestic energy supply.

MAY 2014

Hunter Biden, Devon Archer Become Burisma Board Members

The day after Biden arrived in Ukraine, Devon Archer was named to the board of Burisma, the gas company run by Kolomoisky, the oligarch who was banned from entering the U.S.

In 2016, Foreign Policy magazine reported:

No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden.

Three weeks later, Hunter Biden also joined Burisma's board.

And he's still on the board. Burisma announced these appointments publicly. U.S. media reported on it. Check out these headlines:

• Biden's Son, Kerry Family Friend Join Ukrainian Gas Producer's Board (The Wall Street Journal)
• Ukraine gas producer appoints Biden's son to board (CNBC)

This wasn't a secret. But no one really noticed or cared, because hey — this was the Obama White House.

This was a pattern with Biden. Whether it was meetings with foreign leaders in Washington, or traveling to foreign capitals, business opportunities and deals magically materialized for Hunter Biden's company. Need proof? Just take a glance at this interview with Joe and Hunter Biden in Popular Mechanics.

NOV 2014

U.S. Aid to Ukraine Increases

The Obama Administration ratcheted up their monetary support of Ukraine. U.S. aid to Ukraine included:

• $1 billion sovereign loan guarantee
• $320 million in general assistance
• $118 million in equipment and training for their security forces
• $20 million for law enforcement reform
• And a fleet of advisors in banking, politics, energy, media, and human rights.

APR 2015

Obama Admin. Mandates Setup of NACB

In April 2015, the Obama Administration helped set up — actually they mandated it through the IMF — the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, whose purpose was to seek out and eradicate government corruption.

A man named Artem Sytnyk was tapped to be the first Director of the Bureau.

The following month, George Soros released the following strategy memo for dealing with Ukraine.

A year later, the Anti-Corruption Bureau signed an official Memorandum of Understanding with the FBI, giving the Obama Administration a direct line into whatever dark secrets the Ukrainians might dig up.

??? 2015

Owner of Burisma Loses $1.8 Billion from the U.S.

What's the most money you ever lost? And I mean lost. Not misplaced. Or spent. Or were swindled out of. Or had picket-pocketed. I mean lost. You had the money and it vanished.

For most of us, the answer is probably under $100. Maybe you lost a $20 bill at the State Fair.

I'm going to take a guess and say that absolutely none of you have lost a billion dollars.

A billion. The number one followed by 9 zeros. 1,000,000,000. The total value of Apple, the most valuable brand in the world.

It seems that putting a Ukrainian oligarch in charge of $1.8 billion isn't a great idea.

Well, in March 2016, this is exactly what happened. Oh, and it wasn't one billion dollars. Actually, it was $1.8 billion. I forgot about that extra $800 million.

Lesson of the story: It seems that putting a Ukrainian oligarch in charge of $1.8 billion isn't a great idea. An oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky, head of Burisma — the largest private natural gas company in Ukraine.

As pointed out in an article for Ukranian newspaper Kyiv Post:

Court filings reveal that Kolomoisky was divvying up and fighting over the rusting U.S. steel mills with other Ukrainian oligarchs — in the same way that they fought over Ukraine's Soviet-built industrial plants in the 1990s and 2000s. One deal, involving Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, bled into the sale of a Warren, Ohio steel mill.

JUN 2015

Trump Announces Presidential Run

I can picture it so clearly. Trump descending the golden escalator as “Keep Rockin' in the Free World" played loudly in the background.

At the time, most people shrugged Trump off and focused on other candidates. He would prove to be a far more formidable opponent than anyone expected.

LATE 2015

Research: Alexandra Chalupa

Donald Trump was already surging in the polls. Still not a word about the Russia meddling. There was nothing out on Manafort yet. There was no Steele Dossier. George Papadapolous wasn't on the campaign yet. There was no FISA request for Carter Page.

Yet, an American lawyer named Alexandra Chalupa — the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants — began doing opposition research on Trump. And her employer had a lot of influence in Ukraine. Her employer? None other than the Democrat National Committee.

The DNC paid her over seventy-one thousand dollars for her work during the 2016 election alone, but her work with the DNC goes all the way back to 2004.

In January 2016, Chalupa approached an official at the DNC and told them, regarding Trump's campaign:

I felt there was a Russia connection.

Chalupa concentrated most of her research on Paul Manafort and his work with the — now exiled — President of Ukraine (Yanukovich). Interestingly enough, all of her energy was focused on Manafort and NOT on his partners in helping get the Russian backed Yanukovych re-elected. Those partners were Tony Podesta and Tad Devine. I guess the fact that both Podesta and Devine were Democrats made everything ok ... just not for Manafort.

The same month Chalupa was telling the DNC that there was a Russia connection between Manafort and Trump, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian prosecutors to the White House.

Here's a hacked DNC email, that was released on Wikileaks, between Chalupa and the former DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda. In that email, Chalupa checks in, reporting that she will speak at the Library of Congress specifically about Manafort.

Source: WikiLeaks

Source: WikiLeaks

MAR 2016

Biden Replaces Shokin with Lutsenko

During a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Vice President Joe Biden made his now infamous statement about his role in getting Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired, bragging that he had withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine.

"I looked at them and said: 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," he said.

At the time, Shokin was investigating a Ukrainian company that Biden's son was involved with. Biden has claimed that what he did was based purely on Shokin's corrupt conduct, and nothing to do with his son's business dealings.

Here's a sworn statement of from Shokin:

This intimidation by the Obama administration was also used against Shokin's succesor, Yuriy Lutsenko. Here's his statement to the Hill detailing corruption from Obama-appointed Marie Yovanovitch to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine:

Here's the kicker:

The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine, and Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors. I assume Burisma, which was connected with gas extraction, had the support of the Vice President Joe Biden because his son was on the Board of Directors.

Shokin detailed Obama's systematic control of Ukraine, noting that Obama was “telling the heads of the Ukraine law-enforcement system how to investigate and whom to investigate."

Shokin had another unforgivable sin on his record. He had launched an investigation on the actions of an NGO called the Anti Corruption Action Centre.

Shokin alleged that the NGO might have improperly diverted, or even embezzled, millions of dollars. So why would this be an unforgivable sin to Obama and Biden?

See for yourself (scroll down to the finances section of their website and mouse over 2016 to see the funders).

Source: Screenshot from Anti Corruption Action Centre website

If you look at the top two financiers for that year, the top two are the International Renaissance Foundation and the U.S. Government. The International Renaissance Foundation is yet another group headed by ... George Soros.

MAR 2016

Bank Loses $2.2M and $1.8B in IMF Loans

James Stafford, a journalist who covers the energy industry wrote:

Burisma fails to pass the most basic due diligence check. Its registration documents are impossible to run down. It publishes no asset information or financial records, nor does it release any audited financial statements. The complete lack of transparency means that anyone interested — including potential investors — must rely solely on press releases about Burisma's future plans and intentions.

Here's part one of my chalkboard exposé on the underhanded deals that took place in Ukraine.

After Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board, the company's owner, Kolomoisky was suddenly taken off the U.S.' entry-ban list. Kolomoisky's ban wasn't the only thing that disappeared. Remember that $1.8 billion loan the U.S. promised to Ukraine?

Most of that money flowed through PrivatBank, Ukraine's largest bank, owned by who else? Kolomoisky. $1.8 billion simply vanished.

Where did it go? A Ukrainian watchdog group traced the money by researching a series of court decisions. Basically, the billion dollars from the U.S. was laundered through Kolomoisky's network of offshore entities.

Ultimately, the Ukrainian government took control of Kolomoisky's bank, but the $1.8 billion was never recovered.

MAR 2016

Chalupa Begins to Work Directly with Ukraine Embassy

Around the time Manafort joined the Trump campaign, Chalupa began working with embassy staff to raise the alarm bells regarding Manafort to the Ukrainian president. She said the embassy "worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions."

In other words, the Ukrainian Embassy, right here in the United States, was working directly with a DNC operative to damage a Republican candidate for president to influence the U.S. election.

Chalupa and the DNC deny this, but a Ukrainian Embassy political officer who worked there at the time, stated that the Ukrainians were working with Chalupa.

They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa.

At the end of March, 2016, the Ukranian Head of a Department of the Prosecutor General's Office met with representatives of the BlueStar Strategies. Here's a translated memo of that meeting:

APR 2016

Pillow Talk with the Ohrs

Bruce Ohr led a double life. He worked for the Department of Justice associate deputy attorney general, but he also played a part in starting the Russian meddling accusations against Trump.

As I mentioned earlier, the DNC and the Clinton Campaign hired Fusion GPS to write the Steele Dossier, which was supposed to crush Trump. Then Fusion GPS hired Bruce Ohr's wife Nellie Ohr, a Russian specialist, to “research" Donald Trump.

(Check out these reports from the FBI's investigation into Ohr.)

Trump has been pretty open about his opinion of Ohr.

MAY 2016

Isikoff Memo: Chalupa Embassy Press

Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff has been probing around this whole time, and in 2018, he compiled all his findings in his book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.

Within a few months, Federal authorities would use this article by Isikoff for a FISA warrant application in order to justify surveillance of Carter Page.

In late May, these State Department memos were sent, revealing contacts between George Soros' firm and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

JUN 2016

FBI & National Anti-Corruption Bureau

Remember the Ukranian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NACB)? The supposed anti-corruption agency created with the help of Obama and the DNC. It hadn't even been in operation for a year when the FBI instituted a “Memorandum of Understanding" between the FBI and the NACB.

As noted on the NABU website:

This document establishes the parties' joint work on crimes related to international money laundering, international asset recovery, and Ukrainian high-level officials' bribery and corruption.

In the words of then the FBI Acting Deputy Assistant Director Mathew S. Moon:

If, for instance, your criminal proceeding has the accordant proceedings in the US, you [NABU] can give us the numbers of the bank accounts and it will be the reason for us to issue a notice of suspicion for a person and receive the necessary information much faster.

Another important legal proceeding that will receive very little attention is Citizens United v. The U.S. Department of State. Here is an FBI agent's affidavit in Citizens United FOIA lawsuit, including the declaration of Michael Seidel:

The FBI will play a crucial role in this whole thing. As recently as July of 2019, members of Congress were sounding the alarm about questionable activity:

JUN 2016

Obama Appoints New Ambassador

Without much ado, then-President Barack Obama appointed Marie Yovanovitch to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. Yovanovitch is a big supporter of Artyom Sytnik, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

The following State Department memos reveal that, a few weeks before Obama appointed Yovanovitch, George Soros and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland discussed Ukraine:

JUN 2016

Manafort Sentenced

In June of 2016, with the election just months away, Donald Trump fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and promoted Manafort to the position. Suddenly, Manafort was in charge of Trump's entire campaign.

Around that same time, Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power sent this email reacting to Donald Trump UN plan:

Half-a-year later, Power gave this speech about Russia:

And here she is discussion the Russia Trump speech in an email:

LATE 2016

No Visas for Ukrainian Prosecutors

The Deputy Director for Ukraine's Prosecutor General's International Cooperation Department stated that she didn't grant his delegation visas to travel to the United States. They wanted to come to deliver information to the U.S. Attorney General evidence of Ukraine's misdeeds during the 2016 election.

This evidence included:

• Sworn statements from Ukrainian officials admitting that their agency tried to influence the 2016 election. (This must be whistleblowers inside the Anti-Corruption Bureau regarding the Manafort “Ledger.")
• Contacts between Democrat figures in Washington and Ukrainian officials involved in gathering dirt on Donald Trump. (This is probably the DNC, Chalupa and the Ukraine Embassy.)
• Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to Hunter Biden.
• Records showing Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Shokin.
• Correspondence that proves the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Ukraine interfered in criminal cases on Ukrainain soil.
• Disbursements of as much as $7 billion that may have been misappropriated and taken out of the country.

Two other important events happened in late 2016. Obama appointed a new Ambassador in Ukraine, and the Manafort “Black Ledger" was released by Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Bureau.

But the Presidential election was in full swing. It took up all the time and space in the news. So these two crucial moments passed by mostly unseen.

A member of the Ukrainian Parliament named Leshchenko and the Anti-Corruption Bureau Director, Sytnik — who had just signed a memorandum of understanding with the FBI just a month prior — jointly released pages in the Ledger that showed illegal payments given to Paul Manafort.

Were the Ukrainians trying to influence the election? Check out this article from the Financial Times.

(If you're unable to access the article, the headline is a good summary of it: “Ukraine's leaders campaign against 'pro-Putin' Trump")

The article actually states direct quotes from the Member of Parliament (Leshchenko) that disclosed Manafort's name in the ledger:

A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy. For me it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is a pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world.

In other words, the Ukrainian government actively tried to sink Donald Trump's campaign for President.

NOV 2016

Trump Wins the Election

November 8, 2016. The day everything changed.

The day that shattered so many news anchors and Hillary supporters. It wasn't supposed to happen. According to the media, Trump wasn't supposed to win. But he did.

Hillary was so upset that she refused to concede.

From that moment, Democrats made up their mind. They decided that they were going to get Trump out of office however they could. No rules. Anything goes.

Within hours of Trump's win, journalists were calling for his impeachment.

He was still months away from being sworn in, barely into his first day in his Presidential legacy, and the left wanted him out.

A Change.org petition to Congress titled “ Impeach Donald J. Trump" raised nearly $500,000.

Down the line, a former British intelligence Officer will compile a dossier — a 35-page compilation of 16 reports supposedly offering evidence of conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government — an accusation that will haunt Trump for years. But it ultimately proved to be a dud.

Most importantly, it was the DNC and the Clinton Campaign that contracted Steele to write the dossier.

Steele leaked the dossier to journalist Michael Isikoff, who had been working with DNC-operative Alexandra Chalupa. Isikoff wrote an article for Yahoo News detailing parts of the Steele Dossier.

Note that the email was sent in May 2016, exactly one month after the DNC hired Fusion GPS to work on the dossier.

The last line of this email is significant:

... there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of.

The FBI used the leak as corroborating evidence to justify a FISA warrant for Carter Page.

Here is the FBI Human Source Validation Report on Christopher Steele:

JUL 2017

First Mention of Ukraine by White House

Then-Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders first mentioned Democrat corruption in Ukraine during an off-camera briefing on July 12, 2017, alleging that the DNC had colluded with the Ukrainian Government and targeted people within the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Sanders said:

I think if there's been any evidence of collusion in 2016 that's come out at all or been discussed that's actually happened, it would be between the DNC and the Ukrainian government. I don't often quote the New York Times, but even one of their reporters tweeted earlier today that — why this example provides evidence of collusion: "Cooperation was between DNC officials and officials from the Ukrainian government, not just some associate."

Ukrainian actions to coordinate with the DNC was actually successful, unlike anything shown by Don Jr.'s emails. Information passed to the DNC from the Ukrainian government directly targeted members of the Trump campaign in an attempt to undermine it. And that was just Ukraine. The other big news was the foreign intelligence dossier that the President's political opponents funded and disseminated widely, and was based on discredited opposition research from foreign intelligence sources. The only collusion I've seen, and that's certainly been proven, would be between those people.

Then, President Trump mentioned Ukraine on Twitter:

Later that month, Senator Chuck Grassley wrote a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, outlining shady activity among the Ukrainians, the DNC, and Alexandra Chalupa.

Nothing ever came of it.

OCT 2017

Two Ukrainians Found Guilty, Secret Audio Released

Ukraninan People's Deputy Borislav Rosenblatt filed a claim charging both Leshchenko and Sytnik with interfering in the U.S. election by publicly disclosing the information on Manafort. The Ukrainian court agreed. After Leshchenko appealed the decision, Rosenblatt leaked the audio recording.

In April of 2019, former Prosecutor General Lutsenko gave an interview with the Ukrainian media. In that interview he makes a stunning comment:

I don't know how, but the Americans got an audio recording of Mr. Sytnik's conversation: he is resting with his family and friends and discussing how he would like to help Hillary.

Sytnik is the Director of the Bureau that the Obama Administration mandated they set up. He then made public information directly to influence the U.S. election.

Here's that audio:

We'd rushed around looking for a Ukrainian translator. It was pure chaos here at the studios. But we knew it was important. Eventually, we got it. And we were absolutely floored. We had our smoking gun.

Mercury Radio Arts Inc | October 02, 2019 | Transcript by TransPerfect

KOLYA: Did they … those Russians … help him? Your people?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: I think they did.

KOLYA: Oh, did they?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: Yep. I helped him, too. Not him, but Hilary. I helped her.

KOLYA: Yeah, right. Then her position tottered, right.

ARTYOM SYTNYK: Well, this is how they write about it. Right.

IVAN: Hilary's humanitarian aid [INDISCERNIBLE] America?

KOLYA: Well, I am about … the commentaries. At that time, we were not in [INDISCERNIBLE].

IVAN: No, there it was …

ARTYOM SYTNYK: Trump … His purely inner problem … issue… They dominate over the external matters. While Hilary … she is – how shall I put it? She belongs to the cohort of politicians who comprise the hegemony in the US. Both in the US and in the entire world. Right. For us, it is …sort of … better. For the Americans … what Trump is doing is better for them.

KOLYA: Well, we have lots of those American experts here now... [INDISCERNIBLE].

ARTYOM SYTNYK: A woman. Masha.

KOLYA: How do you find her?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: They don't keep any different people.

KOLYA: They - who?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: As our Ambassador in Germany once told me… He said: in order to get to the Ambassador's post to a foreign country in Germany – it seems easier to win the Noble Prize, than to get the position of Ambassador.

ARTYOM SYTNYK: There is a very tough selection process there. Unlike in our country. See, we sent Lytvyn to … so to say… Now the entire borer is open. We sent him to the position of the Ambassador. And then he disappeared there.

KOLYA: Well, not quite so… It was done via the system, of course…

IVAN: Come on, what are you talking about?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: Well, there, you see. Why Hilary lost the elections? I was in charge of investigation of their “black accounting" records.

ARTYOM SYTNYK: We made the Manafort's data available to general public.

KOLYA: So what?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: He was imprisoned. Manafort then was the head of the Supreme Headquarter of Trump. Right. Then he was dismissed, too. Including due to the “black accounting". After that, he was sentenced to 80 years of imprisonment term. How about Trump? He did not give a shit. They have their system working there, and it works smoothly.

KOLYA: Everybody works smoothly there.

ARTYOM SYTNYK: And when they carried out the elections. A week before the elections, FBI reopened the investigation in respect of Hilary. So her rating dropped for 7%, and that is why Trump managed to win the elections at a pinch. I am still unable to understand why he is fighting with FBI? They try to catch him on the hand. If it were not the FBI, he would not have won the elections. They torpedoed Hilary's rating for 7 %.

KOLYA: I say... Is FBI - ФБР?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: Yes. Of course, it is a solid structure there.

KOLYA: The solid one, right?

ARTYOM SYTNYK: You bet! A real stronghold!

APR 2018

Mueller Report Finds Nothing

The Mueller Report. I'm sure you remember exactly where you were the day it was released.

In December of 2016, exactly a month after Trump was elected President, academic Joseph Mifsud, with links to Trump advisor George Papadopoulos, sent this:

Here's an email from Mifsud to Papadopoulos:

And another, from February 2017, to the FBI:

Mifsud regularly attended meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, which often included Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here's Mifsud's deposition testimony on Vladimir Putin:

Several months later, in June, Mueller charged Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian political operative, with alleged ties to Russian Intelligence and a Manafort business partner, with witness tampering. Kilimnik was once described as “Manafort's Manafort," his contact in Kiev.

MAY 2018

Trump Boots U.S. Ambassador

President Trump recalled Obama-appointed Marie Yovanovitch from her post as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

In October of 2019, Yovanovitch will give a closed-door testimony before the House Committees on Oversight and Reform, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence. Here is her opening statement.

She wrote:

Understanding Ukraine's recent history, including the significant tension between those who seek to transform the country and those who wish to continue profiting from the old ways, is of critical importance to understanding the events you asked me here today to describe. Many of those events — and the false narratives that emerged from them — resulted from an unfortunate alliance between Ukrainians who continue to operate within a corrupt system, and Americans who either did not understand that corrupt system, or who may have chosen, for their own purposes, to ignore it.

JUL 2019

Donald Trump Makes Phone Call to Volodymyr Zelenskiy

Then, the fateful phone call. If you haven't heard or read the call transcript yet, here's my reenactment of it:

President Donald J. Trump has released a declassified, un-redacted transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from July 25th, 2019.

The media swiftly and uniformly sided with the unknown whistleblower.

Even when Trump responded, they stuck to their guns.

After months of resisting calls for impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her support for an impeachment inquiry.

Here's a notice of suspicion signed by the Ukraine general prosecutor on March 28, 2019, announcing the opening of a new investigation against Burisma Holdings Founder Zolchevsky:

Here's Ambassador Kurt Volker, Former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, giving testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on October 3, 2019:

In yet another bizarre twist, the man who beat Poroshenko in the Ukraine Presidential election this year was Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian.

OCT 2019

What's Next?

Which brings us to now. What's next, you ask?

Well, you've seen all the evidence. What do you think? Do we have a case or what?

Without a doubt.

But that's not enough. It's not enough to know the truth. Not anymore.

So now, we've got to get the facts out there, in the open, so that everyone can see them, and decide for themselves. It's imperative that we reveal the truth. To shrug this off would be a disservice to our nation.

Good luck and godspeed.

There's a big difference between professional wrestling and the news but sometimes you'd think the mainstream media didn't know it! Author, Ryan Holiday joined Glenn on TV Wednesday and broke it down in layman's terms for the MSM and explains how the 'Twitterfication' of the news process has killed complexity and nuance.

The IG report is out and the findings are still shocking even though not surprising. The abuse by the 'Deep State' is so horrendous, is it time to actually consider overhauling the system? Utah Senator Mike Lee joined Glenn on radio Thursday and he was not happy.

Transgender, New York Times writer Jennifer Boylan recently wrote an op-ed declaring the Christmas classic, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, as the queerest holiday special yet. Why? Well, all the outcasts are sent to live on an island...which has definitely never occurred in American history before. Are you as confused about this declaration as Glenn and Stu?

Senator Mitch McConnell reportedly urged President Trump to NOT make the Senate hearings into a "circus." But Glenn's advice for the president is exactly the opposite. President Trump is skilled at bringing crowds and eyeballs to certain issues, so he must do everything he can to make sure every American is watching that Senate hearing...even if it means bringing sword swallowers into the Capitol and making it a TRUE circus!

According to reports from TIME Magazine, a top Ukraine official now disputes key claims made by Democrat witnesses in their testimony, completely blowing apart their Trump impeachment narrative. Andriy Yermak, top aid to Ukraine's President Zelensky, says U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, did NOT inform him of a quid pro quo promise when the two spoke in Warsaw last fall (a key factor to Democrat claims of presidential corruption). Instead, Andriy says the two men briefly met by the escalator after a meeting between President Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence, and they both agreed the meeting between the two world leaders went very well. So...who's lying?

Can you imagine if the GOP unmasked private citizens and hacked phone records of an opponent? The left would have FREAKED! He doesn't want to talk about abuse of power because his actions would have to be under a microscope not even he could handle. Want a crash course in corruption? Watch this clip.

Democrats have officially filed their articles impeachment against President Trump, and they're accusing him of both abusing his presidential powers AND obstructing Congress. But how can the president obstruct Congress, when the Constitutional separation of powers were designed for him to do that very thing? Even Obama's DOJ said that the president and his advisors have immunity from appearing in front of a congressional committee. If the Democrats get their way and the Republicans do not truly open up everything, and they don't investigate the whistleblower, the collusion with the Democrats...if we don't undercover all of this, the Republic is deeply, deeply hurt. Because the government has three roles: providing a common defense, promoting the general welfare, and promoting domestic tranquility and right now they're doing exactly the opposite of two of those.

During a recent interview between Senator Ted Cruz and Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, NBC staff behind the scenes could be heard laughing when Cruz had the AUDACITY to suggest both that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election AND that there's evidence to prove it. Cruz addresses that interview now, saying that Chuck Todd -- and the media -- are hysterical. He says they're completely panicking at the Democrats' losing impeachment narrative, and that it's hilarious watching them try to recover.

Why has it taken the Dems this long to file articles of impeachment? Could it possibly be there is nothing there?! Watch this clip to see Glenn make the case for reasonable doubt all over the place.

Yes we have a past. Everyone has a past. But we are the only ones who can't let go and move on. It's time to learn our lesson and get out of bed with dictators around the world. North Korea is proving it's time to admit that Donald Trump just might know what he's doing.

During the Glenn Beck Podcast season finale, Glenn sat down with the former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. During their conversation, Haley discussed both the tragic, race-fueled shooting that occurred during her time in office, and her decision process in removing the flag from South Carolina statehouse grounds. But Media Matters, the group funded by George Soros, decided to completely twist her comments instead. They used manipulative headlines to try and convince Americans that Haley said the Confederate Flag was one that represented service and sacrifice. But did they even listen to Haley's full comment before taking a tiny soundbite completely out of context? Here's a hint: no. No they didn't.

John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

*

In De Animus, Aristotle argues that there are three levels of Being.

Level One contains plants, which are only capable of the nutritive faculty.

Level Two contains non-human animals, who as well as the nutritive faculty have perception and motivation.

Level Three, is occupied solely by Man, who is, on a good day, capable of all of the above. But also imbued with language, always seeking a presence that explains, that embodies an answer like the answer we contain but are unable to decode.

Which appears to be the great joke. Quite possibly orchestrated by the fourth level of Being, the one above us.

*

God is many things, one of which is America.

God is North Carolina, every kind of jungle, a blend of different populations and dialects and Civil War baggage.

Texas and Oklahoma, with red morning birds at QuikTrip's that take up a city block, thriving like the towns in Lonesome Dove.

Maryland. Wild in parts, European in others, and the crabcakes at Kingfishers Seafood Bar & Grill on Solomon's Island.

The divisively photogenic Kansas, stock cars on lawns with swingsets.

Oregon, in the forests. Or in cities, at bookstores, at crosswalks with the occasional wet-asphalt syringe.

*

"The most sublime act is to set another before you." William Blake, Proverbs of Hell.
*

As Aristotle said, beyond the metaphysics of it all, there's action, motion. Motion is life. Life is motion. Everything, always. But that motion only leads to greater motion if there is a language in place to survive it. It is realized through language.

Language — communication — forms everything we know. It validates our world, our justification for dibs on the universe.

*

With this series, I'm trying to capture everything.

Election, yes. American politics, yes. Obviously.

But, deeper, why does any of it matter? Or, better yet, how does it explain or reflect the truths of existence?

I'm trying to answer a real nag of a question: "what is destroying us, as a nation, as a species, in 2019 and 2020?" And, more important, what can make us better?

Have you ever listened to Willie Nelson's version of "Both Sides, Now"? It's like that.

Have you ever played that video game "Everything"? You can play as everything ever imagined. Even the unimaginable. And occasionally recordings of Alan Watts lectures play in the background.

*

Outside Shreveport, Louisiana, weaving through forest and rivers, en route to Trump's second Louisiana rally in a week.

I went to the first one, in Monroe, with my friend, journalist Jade Byers, and the second, in Bossier City, with my friend, journalist James Dale.

A mile west of the border, we faced the cinema shade that comes with a storm.

The morning was dark. Foggy. Like Ireland but the mist was heavier. And the towns were too far apart.

The first rainy day in weeks. Not too long after Daylight Saving Time, so the world felt darker.

Rain changes everything. We had gotten serious. And the Election Series playlist was blaring. Our conversation ranged tremendous depths. So, naturally, we talked about God.

Who or what decides the storyline of our lives? Of life? What engulfing shape surrounds us?

For now, there is no divine figure ignited by clouds answering these questions, not literally, not since the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And especially not after the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

There is the sky, in all of its vastness, full of shapes and lines and colors and birds that are real-life dinosaurs who survived the last extinction. And the earth, with every secret playing out like a disjointed puzzle. And the oceans. And fire.

Then there is us, unsure how to handle it all, unsure what to say.

"God," any variation, is the most powerful and encompassing word.

It is the word what we say when all other words fail. For any number of reasons. Because, always, here we are, moving forward.

e.e. cummings wrote:

when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man.

---------------------------

That concludes "Field of Dreams," part one of my 2020 election series. Thank you for reading. I'll pick back up again mid-January with a unique angle leading into the Iowa Caucuses. For any updates, check out my Twitter.

Bill O'Reilly is a man of strong opinions and he didn't disappoint on radio Friday. His thoughts on impeachment, the Horrowitz Report and election 2020 were some of his strongest opinions yet. Watch this clip to hear just how important and powerful he believes this upcoming election will be to the history of our country.

In 1979, the people fought to overthrow the Shah but now they are fighting against the Islamic government. The Iranian Revolutionary guard are rounding up the smaller groups and are just executing them and then charging their families for the bullets. Watch this clip to hear Glenn's plea for prayer and peace.

Rarely has there been a politician as honest, bold, and humble as Nikki Haley. A true role model, she never wanted to be a politician. But as governor, she led South Carolina through one of its worst tragedies. And as ambassador to the U.N., she used her famous "taking names" approach to reclaim America's strong reputation of leadership. One of the only Trump officials to leave without a tweet, she wasn't always a Trump fan. But by simply speaking the truth, the two quickly gained a strong trust. Nikki Haley details how she saw firsthand the Deep State's attempts to circumvent Trump, as well Trump's true support for Israel and "soft words, but strong actions" approach to Russia and China. And as for her own future, she's not done yet.

Glenn has been working tirelessly over the past couple of years to create a 'Restoring' event that he feels called to put on. So many miracles have happened to bring us so close to making it happen but some significant barriers have popped up and we need your help. We have the next 10-12 days do plead with God to make it happen and if it does happen, it will be all due to Him. We are not asking for anything but prayers and they are vitally needed, so please consider helping us plead for the miracles that are so desperately needed.

God bless!

This impeachment process has been the most disingenuous process in modern history so of course, it proceeds with the most insincere announcement of all time. Nancy Pelosi quoted all the rich, dead white men the left continuously despises to tell us all what we knew what would happen from the beginning. Despite flimsy evidence and shoddy testimony, they are moving forward with articles of impeachment.

If you watch this clip, make sure to get your duct tape ready!

This fall, I saw Kamala Harris 15-odd times, and wrote five stories about her, because she was on fire. By the time I finished the stories, she had begun a nosedive that finally made contact a few days ago with the suspension of her 2020 presidential bid. I've released one of the stories already, an account of what was one of the most magical moments in my reporting, this is the second. May the other three rest easy.

Acrobats leapt around the padded floors of world-renowned Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, an affluent suburb of Des Moines that once belonged to the Sac Tribe.

Half-a-mile away, Kamala Harris was rousing a crowd.

Photo by Sean Ryan

People of all ages had jammed into this marble-floor rotunda, the colonnaded hub of Valley Southwoods Freshman High School. Something like the Ancient Greek agora, the open area where everyone gathered.

Harris is a lifelong performer. As a girl, she sang in the church choir. As a teenager, she traveled to different community centers, to talent shows and fundraisers, as part of a six-person dance troupe.

Now, she is not a dancer so much as a boxer or a chess player or, better yet, a big game hunter with a collection of heads, the newest of which is, oddly, her own.

*
She doddled across the makeshift stage, between a pillar inscribed with the word "Gratitude" and one that said "Attitude."

At one point, her microphone went out like a mic-drop, and she shouted, "Next question" then everybody laughed.

Then the next microphone went out. So she spoke without a microphone, with a determined look that said "All right, Kamala, prove to them you can think quickly, in a charming, down-to-earth way."

People got quiet, leaned forward. Occasionally they laughed in unison. Sometimes they clapped.

Within two minutes she had a new microphone, but by then people had grown accustomed to her softer voice.

She grinned vigorously. She was the dangling punchline that people skipped the joke for.

*

They were like worshippers and she was their pagoda. She spoke facing a pillar that said Loyalty.

In the parking lot, her purple-dominant bus with the words "FOR THE PEOPLE" emblazoned along one side, and "HARRIS" on the other. Above it all, a trenching blue radiated the sky, dappled here and there with cottonballs, feathered topiaries. It was barely 80 degrees.

Photo by Sean Ryan

"We need a new Commander in Chief," she shouted, in the crowded high school. Everybody loved that one. The confidence. The certainty. The boldness. The wild and soft look to her eyes. Almost bravado. Almost arrogance. Maybe it was the look of a leader. Quite possibly the stare of Mark Antony or Napoleon Bonaparte, Che Guevara or Margaret Thatcher, Cleopatra or Queen Victoria. The nestled glare of power, real power, bolstered by the natural ability to make it hers.

Then the crowd started chanting.

Ka!

Mall!

Ah!

Ka!

Mall!

Ah!

*

As she does in nearly every speech, Harris talked about her "3a.m. agenda." It's an important question, one that every candidate ought to be asking. What keeps us up at night, as people, as ordinary Americans?

Photo by Sean Ryan

Between thoughts she stopped, pointed to her husband. "Hi, Doug," smiling.

And the people cheered!

The tear-jerker of her stump speech was about how her first grade teacher believed in her. Believed in her so much that she attended Harris' high school graduation.

Every time she said the line about believing in children, people cooed. Several women put their hands over their hearts and sighed.

Photo by Sean Ryan

It helps that's she was saying this at a high school. If she stuck to education maybe people would forget the slew of tiny controversies she's attracted over the years.

Then they laughed when she followed it with the quip about how we were maybe not as special as we thought.
Sometimes she laughed along with them.

"We need action," she often said. "We need action. We need action."

Then she said, "we don't lack ideas." Then she did the thing where she complimented her fellow candidates. Then she talked about what she will do as President. Then she said, "it's time to act."

The high school graduation rate in Iowa is 88 percent, 17 percent above the national average. Iowa also boasts the nation's highest literacy rate.

Photo by Sean Ryan

"In the America we believe in," she said, and people listened deeply. She repeated the phrase like it was a line in a Walt Whitman poem. "In the America we believe in … In the America we believe in …" It was one of the most compelling parts of a compelling stump speech.

Her eyes got misty, and she said, "By our very nature, we are aspirational."

When she spoke, she incited deep emotions within the audience. Her audience. Nobody was keeping quiet. Not after that rally. They only spoke when Harris was not speaking, as if maybe she knew what they wanted to say.

Photo by Sean Ryan

She apportioned blame to Trump himself. She's called Trump a "predator," citing her work prosecuting sexual deviants as proof of her expertise in handling those types.

"He didn't pull the trigger," she said. "But he certainly tweeted out the ammunition."

She was calling Trump a racist before the rest of the candidates had caught onto the punchiness of the accusation.

Kamala Harris Calls Donald Trump A Racist, Calls for Decriminalization of Sex Work www.youtube.com

Now, she was fired up. Unlike the day before, she was yelling her points. All her quiet voice was gone. The Kamala aggressiveness fully on display.

*

The other words on pillars around the circular room:

Self Control

Respect

Compassion

Empathy

Courage.

Photo by Sean Ryan

*

Harris had given a spectacular performance. Her fourth rally that day. And immediately after, she would be speaking at Jasper Winery, where she'd display yet more of her prowess. So underhanded and petty, vicious and caustic, combative and clever. It was a joy to watch, like a good boxing match.

White button-up shirts, khaki jeans, and black Converse All-Stars with black laces. A stamped golden necklace.
She slowly paced the stage with somber control.

*

The day before, in Fort Dodge, Iowa, she was a different person, mostly.

"Hi, what's your name," she asked. Then she turned, smiling, "I feel like Oprah."

Photo by Sean Ryan

Kamala Harris, who turned 55 in October, made tiny silly quips like this all the time.

It was 5:00 p.m., and Harris had started late because her tour bus maxes at 55 mph, and everywhere she goes, people want her time.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Now, a fresh crowd had gathered in the band room of Fort Dodge Middle School. Mostly middle-aged. In t-shirts or blouses and cargo shorts or khakis or jeans. Packed room, all seats taken, people slanting along the walls.

Harris often refers to children as "our babies." At the middle school, in a room full of teachers and patient-eyed children, she leaned on the phrase even harder than usual.

*

During the Q&A, a kid in a Washington Redskins Jersey raised his hand. Harris quickly seized on the opportunity.

"I'm a rising 5th grader," the boy said. People laughed because it's funny when kids say stupid things with an elegant timbre. He did not laugh, because most kids don't realize how cruel life can be so we adults needlaughter. He asked, could Harris imagine what school was like for him, with all these shootings and mass shooting drills and all that fear all the time?

Photo by Sean Ryan

Consensus was, "Ouch" and "Our country? It's in trouble." Then the entire room turned to Harris. She had the messiah look. Yet another of Harris' looks that deeply spooked my dad.

"I was from you to me away from her," he said. "To the side of the stage. And I swear that she had a tear at the edge of her eye the whole time. She could have let it fall at any moment."

She's telegenic, photogenic. In 2013, then-President Obama took heat for describing Harris as "best-looking attorney general in the country." She knows how to turn a phrase. She knows how to go viral. If anything, she has mastered these talents a little too well. At times it's like she's an actress, the way she can control her affect and emotions, aware of each shifting muscle and arched smile.

*

The boy in the Redskins jersey gawked at Harris as she told him that she had answers to his heart-rending question.

Politically, Harris showed an incredible amount of charm. She played the role of mother. Because that's the job she was vying for. The ultimate big momma. The lady in charge. The matriarch of the world.

Photo by Sean Ryan

"We judge a society by how it treats its children," she said.

She is good with kids. Doesn't have any of her own. Two step-kids. They call her their "Momala."

*

A row bass drums stacked on cabinets looked like a herd of wooly mammoths, facing the table behind a row of ferns. The acoustics in that room were perfect. Designed to capture every musical sound in its purest form.

Photo by Sean Ryan

This environment lended itself perfectly to any pauses and music. It was sultry in that middle school bandroom, about 86 degrees. Made hotter by the studio lights facing the table and the media with all their cameras and recorders and laptops. The floor was a snake pit of extension cords and outlets and cables. At both sides of the room, skyhook light-rigs like you see on movie sets.

The room cooled down within a few minutes of Harris's opening lines.

On the wall, laminated posters advised us to "Be Kind. Be Responsible. Be Safe. Be Respectful." Each imperative had a long-winded explanation. If you went to school in America you know the kind of wacky font the poster had, and the background full of neon shapes right out of the 1980s. How did advice so often turn into that? Into trite, uncool attempts at what? inspiration? Weren't these the same truisms and half-phrases that politicians used? A good thing, overall, this desire to improve the world. But was there a reason that the posters were rarely updated?

"Be Kind," we tell children on repeat. "Be Responsible, Be Safe, Be Respectful." And here was this kid asking about mass shooting drills.

*

Harris was far more composed in person than during, say, the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings. You remember those? That was long, long ago, maybe a year. The hearings were where most people first encountered Harris, captivated or annoyed by her dramatic and at times ruthless performances.

Photo by Sean Ryan

This is part of her divide. Her duality. Commentators often hint at it, but they struggle to capture its allure. In person, you can feel it. A shawoman in punk rock sneakers. For some reason, she reminded me of the character Circe, from Homer's Odyssey,who turns Odysseus' men to swine and, well, does other stuff.

Elected to Senate in 2016, she has approached her job on the Senate Judiciary Committee with the same toughness that made her a formidable prosecutor. And she operates with that belligerent style.

Like when she roasted former Attorney General Jeff Sessions so ruthlessly that he got flustered.

Many on the left label her a cop, as pointed out by the Atlantic in the article "When Kamala was a Top Cop."

More subtly, the New Yorker described her as a law-and-order Democrat. Another way to say it is that she has a lot of experience at the highest levels of law enforcement in the country. Rebecca Young, a senior trial attorney in the San Francisco public defender's office, told the New Yorker, "Much of what [Harris] says is driven by political expediency, and that's why it becomes difficult to trust. We know she advocated for high bails around guns, drugs — around everything, frankly, but misdemeanors."
Tulsi Gabbard went straight for the jugular during the second Democratic debate:

Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president. But I'm deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. She blocked evidence -- she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.

She was referring to comments that Harris made during February, 2019 appearance on "The Breakfast Club" radio show.

"What were you listening to when you was high?" Charlamagne Tha God asked her. "What was on? What song was on?"

"Was it Snoop?" DJ Envy asked.

"Yeah, definitely Snoop," Harris laughed. "Tupac for sure."

This itself has provoked controversy. If Harris graduated in 1989Snoop Dogg's debut, "Doggystyle," came out in 1993. Tupac's "2Pacalypse Now" came out in 1991.

After the backlash, Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy appeared on MSNBC to defend Harris

I mean, we wanted to humanize her, not just talk about politics, talk about what she likes, what she does," DJ Envy said. "And I asked what she listens to and she said she listens to Snoop Dogg and Tupac at the same time my co-host was still talking about the marijuana and it was just a funny exchange but she was actually answering me and people took it that she was answering Charlamagne and said she was lying, which was not true.

Problem was, as a D.A., however, Harris had been staunchly against marijuana legalization.

Harris' father — who emigrated from Jamaica for graduate school — also took issue with the Breakfast Club interview.

Specifically, her answer to the question about does she smoke pot. "Half my family's from Jamaica," she said. "Are you kidding me?"

*

The woman who introduced Harris said, "My biggest motivation around Senator Harris is that she genuinely cares about people. And not to say that we all don't care about people. But she cares about people in such a way that is gonna move this country forward."

I was learning that, almost every time, the person who introduced the candidates overdoes the whole "I trust this candidate because they truly care about people."

Harris wore the affect of a careful listener. When she asked a question she'd lower the mic onto the table. Then she'd follow up with a well-crafted answer. Stories that got to the point. Numbered arguments.

Strategic or not, it was admirable. Here she was, a Senator running for the Presidency, and she's asking local special ed teachers questions. Not the other way around.

Although her body language would decline as the campaign continues, it was obvious that she was well-trained in her physical cues, like all the candidates. Except Marianne Williamson. It's the hands. And the affect. And Bernie, of course. Because he doesn't seem to care about surface appearances.

And Yang, sort of. He has body language that isn't political in the slightest, most often with charming effect. Like how, in the Spin Room after the Houston debate, anytime someone interviewed him, he shook their hand. He also flings his arms around like the rapper YG, or many of the other L.A. gangsta rappers from the 1990s. Stiff, yet incredibly confident.

Harris is mostly quiet about her father. He, in turn, has dealt a couple of very public attacks on Harris' character and her lineage, including an article he posted on Jamaica Global Online, claiming that her paternal grandfather owned slaves in Jamaica.

Summers, she and Maya visited their father in Palo Alto, California, home to Stanford University and part of Silicon Valley. The neighbors' children weren't allowed to play with Harris and Maya because they were black.

*

Her mother's family was a member of the Brahmin class, at the top of the caste system. Both of her parents are academics, so she grew up around activists and academics. As she artfully pointed out during the second Democratic Debate, she was bussed to kindergarten as a young girl.

During her Ft. Dodge speech, in the middle school band room, Harris didn't talk about Trump at all. She mentioned her fellow candidates. But she did it with civility, complimenting them. Maybe she took a potshot at Biden. Didn't matter. She was too relaxed for it to come across as offensive.

Photo by Sean Ryan

At several points, she had everyone's attention. Even the media. Even the bored men and women behind station-logoed cameras. In part because she tells a good story.

As soon as she finished, people suctioned toward Harris. They doted. They would have juggled claymores for a chance to say a few sentences to Harris, who kept asking her aides out the side of her mouth, "How's the bus situation? The bus ready?"

She had to jaunt 88 miles north to Clear Lake for Wing Ding at the Surf Ballroom, only able to go 55mph. But the line of people seemed barely to move at all. Seemed to be growing even, somehow. Harris hid a worried look. Smiled for the voters. Smiled for the selfies and the group shots and the jokes she's heard so many times before.

Across the street, a chubby 10-year-old-boy revved around his yard on a go-kart. He spilled into the road, laughing as he did donuts, sending exhaust and rubber into the air.

Next Monday is the final installment of "Field of Dreams," part one of my 2020 election series. I'll pick back up again mid-January, with a unique angle building into the Iowa Caucuses. For updates on any other work, check out my website and my Twitter. Send all ideas, corrections, notes, or hate-mail to kryan@mercurystudios.com. Thanks for reading.

Summer is ending and fall is in the air. Before you know it, Christmas will be here, a time when much of the world unites to celebrate the love of family, the generosity of the human spirit, and the birth of the Christ-child in Bethlehem.

For one night only at the Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, on December 7th, join internationally-acclaimed radio host and storyteller Glenn Beck as he walks you through tales of Christmas in the way that only he can. There will be laughs, and there might be a few tears. But at the end of the night, you'll leave with a warm feeling in your heart and a smile on your face.

Reconnect to the true spirit of Christmas with Glenn Beck, in a storytelling tour de force that you won't soon forget.

Get tickets and learn more about the event here.

The general sale period will be Friday, August 16 at 10:00 AM MDT. Stay tuned to for updates. We look forward to sharing in the Christmas spirit with you!

Where's the warrant? What evidence did they have to get so much power in this investigation? The Dems continue to play by their own rulebook which apparently includes no rules! Not only did they get the records between Trump and Guliani, they also had records on his call with Devin Nunes. Watch this clip to hear Glenn's response to this extreme case of investigative overreach.

John Solomon's name is all over the latest Democrat report on Trump, Ukraine and impeachment — and for all the wrong reasons. Listen to his conversation on radio with Glenn Wednesday and hear how outrageous his treatment has been.

The left is claiming Glenn's attacks on Soros are based in anti-Semitism, mainly for calling him "The Puppet Master." But is investigating Soros anti-Semitic? Absolutely not, and while his use of "The Puppet Master" was not based on ethnicity, only actions, Glenn is dropping the term due to his respect of history and nothing else. Watch this clip to hear the evidence against Soros and his influence in the world today.

Justin Haskins from the Heartland Institute shares with Glenn and Stu the latest results from a poll during which Americans were asked several questions regarding socialism and the current politicians who support it (like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren). And while the results aren't hugely comforting, there are some good signs: most Americans are rejecting socialism, and at least 50 percent say they would reject a political candidate who identified as a socialist.

In this preview for the upcoming Glenn Beck Podcast season finale, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and Glenn discuss the phone call President Trump made with the president of Ukraine last July, whether or not Trump committed impeachable offenses, and if there should be an investigation into Joe Biden.

News organizations like CNN and Salon are working hard to completely shift the narrative surrounding what's going on in Ukraine. News "reports," like the one Glenn reads here, tries to convince Americans that the whole Ukraine scandal -- that Joe Biden worked to fire Ukraine prosecutors who were investigating his son, Hunter Biden, and Burisma -- has been debunked. But court documents filed by those prosecutors BEFORE they were fired by Biden tell quite a different story.

Two thousand people yipped and howled as Elizabeth Warren bounced onto the stage like it was a stairmaster and she was a gym rat.

Sold out. Maximum capacity. Whole place writhing, all 30,000 square feet, with tight rows of folding chairs like checkers on the dancefloor big as a Walgreens.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Under the disco ball that hung from the dark blue ceiling, the crowd screamed like Warren was Led Zeppelin and the year was 1970, when really she was a 70-year-old Senator and this was a fundraiser called Wing Ding, in Clear Lake, Iowa, at the Surf Ballroom, where Buddy Holly spent the last few cold hours of his life.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Warren did not stand behind the podium like Biden or Bernie Sanders.

She was a yoga grandma! A rapping pastor! A beat-boxing cop! An energetic manager! A cat who thinks it's a puppy!
It was like she needed to move around the stage and wave her arms and fire up the congregation or else the floor would belch into lava.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Iowa would work its magic on Warren. By the end of the weekend, she emerged as a top contender, a position she'd maintain with alacrity, then build on.

In her turquoise blazer and her shoes-that-meant-business, she strolled out to the edge of the stage and gave her speech like a natural-born specialist of hootenanny.

Only thing missing was The Who's "Teenage Wasteland," or, better yet, that "Sail away, sail away, sail away" song by Enya.
Warren was a car commercial, the kind directed at Millenials, with plastic indie rock and a phony "who gives a shit" vibe. She was expensive cheese from right around the corner. She was Nancy Sinatra, but without Lee Hazelwood.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Voice like a stack of hay catching fire, she made promises. She riled the crowd. And it was an odd sight, the way these meek folks attempted to get rowdy. The way they grimaced and writhed, it was like seeing the reclusive kid volunteer to be the mascot.

It was like they were trying to match the intensity of Trump rallies. No politician has been able to do that so far. The man fills arenas, for God's sake. And his supporters wait for hours outside hoping to get inside. Then he makes them wait. Let's the place get feverish.

Until people are so psyched that they literally cannot remain seated, and they stand their eagerly for thirty minutes, gasping every time a song ends with the hope it means he has arrived.

The Wing Dinger — God bless them — just didn't have that dragon energy, that ravenous devotion. Have you ever seen that show "Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job"? The people in the ballroom were hyperventilating and spazzing like characters from Tim & Eric. The whole occasion would have been a pickpocket's dream.

Variously, they bulged and shuffled and freestyled to themselves. Who gave the kids sugar cookies at the Baptist youth sleepover? You know they can't handle it, you know they get twitchy, so manic it's almost violent.

And that fed Warren, revved her manic engines.

Full speech: Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding www.youtube.com

If this had been the 1980s, I would have suspected everyone there had spent all day railing cocaine. And Warren would be the Sly Stone of the event, guarding the vault full of drugs.

If only she could have pulled out a guitar and played AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" or performed a duet with a cat on a keyboard. My dad and I had arrived late, and both of us struggled to relax our eyebrows because this scene was unbelievable. It must have been especially odd for my father, who emigrated from Ireland at 33.

And right now he was frowning because it was so loud in there.

As Warren shouted into a handheld mic, my dad turned to me, almost upset, "Who is she?" he asked, but before I could answer, he said, "I do not like that woman."

*

When Warren was 12 years old, her father suffered a debilitating heart attack.

He didn't die, but he wouldn't be able to work for years.

The medical bills got so bad that Warren'sfamily nearly lost their home. The car was repossessed. Those were gritty, emaciating days.

Her older brothers joined the military. Her mother got a minimum wage job at Sears. And, at 13, Warren started waiting tables.

She grew up in Oklahoma, where I myself was raised, so I can tell you that it is the Cinderella of States. My personal favorite. At night, the stars croon down over you like they are checking on their infant in its crib and you are that infant. Much like Iowans, people from Oklahoma tend to be kind, and patient, and wild like Americans ought to be.

*

When Warren was growing up, Oklahoma was a Blue State. Her family wasn't Republican. And, these days, Warren is considered a progressive.

But her worldview has evolved over the past few decades.

Photo by Sean Ryan

As a girl, she had seen the effects of bankruptcy firsthand. But her early conclusions led her to personal responsibility. After all, she had taken a job at 13 to help pay her dad's medical bills.

One of Warren's former students, told reporters that, "What changed [Warren's ideology] was the stories of ordinary people filing for bankruptcy. That speaks really well of her that she was presented with information contrary to her worldview and adopted it."
Before that, she leaned right, politically. Or, in the words of one of her best friends growing up, "Liz was a diehard conservative in those days."

Another friend called her an "ice-cold Republican."

A colleague at the University of Texas in Austin, where she worked in the early 1980s, said that "Liz was sometimes surprisingly anti-consumer in her attitude."

Another colleague said "I remember the first time I became aware of her as a political person and heard her speak, I almost fell off my chair. She's definitely changed. It's absolutely clear that something happened."

Until 1996, when she was 47 years old, Warren was a registered Republican.

And I do not mean this in a snarky way. Opposite. It's admirable when people undergo personal change. We have to. It's a matter of survival. A person who never evolves is blinded by hubris and destined to fail.

Longtime Warren collaborator Jay Westbrook has told reporters, "It drives me crazy when she's described as a radical left-winger.

She moved from being moderately conservative to being moderately liberal. When you look at consumer debt and what happens to consumers in America, you begin to think the capitalist machine is out of line."

At some point she got pregnant for the first time, setting in motion a series of events that may have involved discrimination, or may have been a fabrication she has since used in stump speeches as a heart-tugging anecdote.

As far as controversies go, it's as goofy and PG-rated as her onstage persona.

Who cares if she lied for the sake of a story and the benefit of victimhood? Trump lies constantly. Politicians lie constantly. It's part of the reason public trust in government has sunk lower than ever before.

No, it's not morally acceptable that politicians are habitually dishonest. But the outrage aimed at Warren isn't actually about that, is it?

*

Warren won state debate champion in high school. Shortly after graduating, at 19, she married Jim Warren, a mathematician who worked for IBM, then NASA.

The two dated when Elizabeth was 13 and Jim was 17. Warren chose marriage over a full-ride to the prestigious George Washington University.

Three years later, she gave birth to her first daughter. You can find the picture of her in the hospital bed, surrounded by white sheets, her eyes an oceanic blue, glowing as she holds her baby for the first time, a technicolor sash around her left shoulder.

She focused on being a mom for two years, then put herself through law school at Rutgers. At her graduation, she was eight months pregnant. Most airlines won't allow women so close to their due date.

After ten years of marriage and two children, her husband divorced her.

Warren hadn't expected it. One night, she asked her husband, "Do you want a divorce" and he said yes, even though she'd been asking in that, "Something's wrong but surely things aren't so bad" kind of way.

Imagine the enormity and disbelief she must have felt as her husband said he'd be leaving her. The kind of moment that gives a person vertigo.

Warren tried to revive the marriage, but her husband had given up. Before long he moved out, quit smoking, got super into dancing, then remarried.

Politicians tend to mention tragedies only as evidence for a policy stance. Or occasionally these stories will appear in a candidate profile. Or you can read the ice-cold Encyclopedia version.

I always wonder about the desperation people suffered in those moments that must have seemed so long, the quiet after bitter words or desperate outbursts. The enormity they must have felt.

In moments of trauma, we become intensely aware of the noises and smells and colors and momentos around us. What was the first object Warren noticed after hearing her husband say, "Yes"?

She has since said that she and Jim never really fought. That she didn't blame him for leaving. But that they just didn't work out. "I can't imagine anybody putting up with me over long periods. It's why I can never be cranky about Jim. I get it."

Still, a marriage has to be fairly bad for a couple with young children to divorce. But even an amicable divorce is devastating. It marks the death of a love that had once been good enough and deep enough for two people to bind themselves together, if only by law.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Now, Warren was a single mother. Surely, at times, that was lonesome. She must have felt moments of intense waywardness.

There must have been anxious nights, lonely mornings, swarming with memories about life as it was, all those plans for the future that must feel so naive in hindsight.

Warren's quirkiness has made her an easy piñata for her rivals.

But I just think about her, alone in a room, folding clothes or staring off, blinking and slouching there alone, and I feel disgust for politics as a bloodsport.

What do rancor or invective get us in the end? A winner who trounced a loser? What is the human cost? Not just for the people being targeted, but for the world as we'd like it.

Why isn't it enough to disagree with an opponent? Why does there have to be humiliation?

And if it's wrong from one politician, it's wrong from them all.

A person can't decry the abuse that President Trump faces — which is daunting in intensity and volume — then cheer him on when he's doing the same exact thing.

Somebody is going to have to take a slap or two to the face and not react, but it would accomplish far more than a vitriolic comeback.

At this point, three years into Trump's Presidency, there was no way to tell who started it and who was just reacting, so everyone involved in the fight was guilty.

In other words, people could no longer blame Trump for how the selfsame persona they had taken in response.

To quote Morrisey, "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind."

When the ram charges straight for you, all you have to do is take a step to the left or the right and off the angry bastard goes, headfirst into the ground. Do that a few times and you'll get more support than you might expect.

Which, I'm not saying to never fight. Conflict is healthy. Passivism can be worse than violence. To fight is to live honorably. But only if justice is the reason for fighting.

If the ram is coming at you because it wants to silence or control you, grit your teeth, chalk up your horns, lower your head, and go to battle. Courage and morality are vastly different than bravado and self-righteousness.

As Tolstoy wrote in his novel War and Peace, "If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."

*

Two years later, Warren married Bruce Mann, a law professor. They've been married ever since.

For nearly three decades, she taught law, mostly at Harvard.

Then, she shifted to politics. In 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed her to a congressional panel. Two years later, she became a special advisor to Barack Obama, who had selected her as special adviser to the Treasury secretary, but stopped short of nominating her as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Shortly after, she resigned. A month later, she announced her Congressional bid, which gained momentum after her speech at that year's Democratic National Convention.

In 2013, she was elected senior Senator of Massachusetts after beating Republican incumbent Scott Brown with 53 percent of the vote. She would go on to win a second term in 2018, this time with 60 percent.

Every candidate has a stain. Warren's happens to have led to mockery. For years, she claimed Native American heritage. For many of the right, it was yet another example of the left's allegiance to identity politics.

The left was more concerned with the way the issue come to attention to begin with, after remarks President Trump made during an event honoring Navajo code talkers. As has become the norm, many of the country's leading news outlets ran scathing anti-Trump op-eds that they labeled as hard news.

In other words, opinion was being packaged as fact. In other words, propaganda. Like the passive-aggressive tone of this Washington Post article.

Which is certainly not the right way to handle injustice. And is certainly not journalistically sound.

Once again, the media's blatant disdain of Trump only served to further empower him. Gave him more proof of fake news. And allowed him to justify, in the eyes of his followers, the repeated use of the Warren's nickname.

Worst of all, it widened the distance between the news media and the portion of the American public they'd long ago lost access to.

Likewise, conservative news outlets pounced with an air of, "See? I knew it all along?"

And responded with a different version of the same aggression used by the media. Outlets like FoxNews played up their masterful victim narrative, the idea that the mainstream media has a stranglehold on America, despite the fact that FoxNews has long been the dominant news source of the mainstream media they claim to be a victim of.

Photo by Sean Ryan

This feedback loop played out until Elizabeth Warren's genetics became a national conversation.

Last year Warren released a DNA test that revealed sher to be only between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native America. Fellow democratic candidate Corey Booker — a Senator from New Jersey — has more Native American DNA than Warren. And, unfortunately for Warren, the nickname that President Trump gave her gained more power.

During an interview on MSNBC, Warren said, "It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn't worked in the past, it isn't going to work out in the future."

In a bizarre twist, Warren's ex-husband was a pioneer in the field of genetics and helped make the technology accessible to the public when he co-founded FamilyTreeDNA, which sells genetic testing kits.

*

Across the street from the Surf Ballroom, 300 yards from the entrance, a Trump 2020 sign the size of a front door glared out, impossible to avoid.

Photo by Sean Ryan

It's a power play in line with Trump's own combat style — which, again, there's nothing wrong with a good fight, even if there is some dirty fighting, but why did it have to be all of the time? And why had everyone joined in on it?

*

Warren began her presidential campaign on Febraury 8, 2019, with a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, at the site of the 1912 Bread and Roses textile strike, a two-month-long standoff that led to 296 arrests.

Three people died, an Italian immigrant, who was shot in the chest. A Lithuanian immigrant who was beaten to death for wearing a pro-labor lapel pin. And a Syrian boy who was bayoneted in the spine.

The strike takes its name from a James Oppenheim poem.

"As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,For they are women's children, and we mother them again."

*

As Warren drove her speech to a close, Kamala Harris paced down the long ramp by the side of the stage, then walked through a curtain that divided the hallway from backstage, then into the crowded ballroom, immediately surrounded by cameras, lights, hands, selfies.

Ten feet behind the curtain, Joe Biden shifted at the side of the stage, chatting with several people in brand-new Biden 2020 shirts, and waiting to go on.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Each candidate had 10 minutes or so, which Biden, like most of the other candidates, would use to insult Trump and fumbled through his "President's words matter" speech, two days after his "poor kids are just as talented as white kids" comment, and I wondered if everyone else found the irony as hilarious as I did.

Now Warren was pounding her fist.

The already hysterical crowd became even more incensed with each of her words. It was the first moment I realized that Warren actually had a shot at winning the nomination.

*

Of all the towns we visited while in Iowa, Clear Lake was the most puzzling. It didn't feel like the rest of what we'd seen. It didn't resemble any other town in the country, far as I can say. Just a general ideal for "lovely American town."

Maybe Clint Eastwood's Carmel, California, or the wealthy part of Charlotte, North Carolina, or the gorgeous shaded Rice Village neighborhood of Houston, Texas.

Warren shuffled offstage and shook hands with Biden.

Then cue the Bruce Springsteen song. And somebody hurry up and push the button that activates Biden's facelift.

"The words that Presidents speak matter," said Biden. And some of the crowd were hearing him say it for the first time.

Warren gabbed with a lady in a floral dress backstage. They held hands like sisters. After a minute or so, she vanished backstage. Then the whole gig was finished. Closing time had come.

Andrew Yang hung out in the lobby after all the other candidates left. He took selfies. Talked policy. Behind him, young people in Yang 2020 shirts and hats that said "MATH" handed out Yang money.

He hugged. He laughed.

People puttered out of the Surf Ballroom in no sort of hurry, giddy in their candidate t-shirts, ready to effect change, to dethrone Trump.

The air had a gentle sway, tilted by a northern cold that felt winter-like, especially for August.

Right as the last big group of Wing Dingers walked out of the Surf Ballroom, a small car drove by, windows down, packed with young men who kept shouting, "Vote for Trump, baby!"

Then, stalled at a stop sign, the driver revved the engine and spun the tires, and as it sped off, one of the guys in the back seat shouted "Trump 2020, bitches."

New installments of this series on the 2020 elections come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter. Email me at kryan@mercurystudios.com