Yes we live in perilous times, but living in this era gives us the opportunity to become the best version of ourselves

"May you live in interesting times" it seems, is actually not an ancient Chinese saying, blessing or curse. The strongest match one can find to its origins comes from the Yorkshire Post in 1936:

Sir Austen Chamberlain, addressing the annual meeting of Birmingham Unionist Association last night, spoke of the "grave injury" to collective security by Germany's violation of the Treaty of Locarno.

Sir Austen, who referred to himself as "a very old Parliamentarian," said:

It is not so long ago that a member of the Diplomatic Body in London, who had spent some years of his service in China, told me that there was a Chinese curse which took the form of saying, 'May you live in interesting times.' There is no doubt that the curse has fallen on us. We move from one crisis to another. We suffer one disturbance and shock after another.

I like the quote, Chinese or English, as it gives us a correct or new perspective on strife, should we care to view our struggles as neither blessing nor curse. My father taught this to me as a small child. But I only really learned it in one of the darkest chapters of my life. Alcoholism and divorce. There is nothing that life can hand to you that is in itself bad. It all depends on what you do with it. Will you allow it to change you in destructive ways through anger, bitterness and despair? Or will you allow it, whatever it is, to strengthen you through enlightenment, correction, humility?

There is nothing that life can hand to you that is in itself bad. It all depends on what you do with it.

We have a desperate need for humility in our society from DC to Hollywood. Everyone left and right is convinced that either they are or their side is absolutely right. And if someone on their side strays from the pack, then they must be "a traitor to the race, party or cause". They are wrong and we remain right. Scientific atheists "know that there is no God" even though almost everything they now believe or "know" in science now proves that the scientists that came before them were wrong. How can those whose field has been built on enhancing, evolving, or outright proving that others and their theories were wrong, be so certain? If those who should be the least certain of final truth are now calling heretic for those who disagree, we are indeed living in interesting times.

But it isn't a "them" problem even though that is what the world is currently trying to sell each of us. It is instead a simple "us" issue. Perhaps we don't see it because we are so busy staging, filtering, or enhancing the colors on our Facebook or Instagram pics that we can no longer recognize or even like the simple truth about us and what our life really is. Much of our life is a lie. We have been marketed to since we were born, told that we are not complete unless we wear, consume, own, vacation at or buy product 1 or 2. It has gone so far as telling us that not only are we not good enough if we don't have all of that, but now, we cannot even be a part of the great new society unless we believe and champion (product, politician or party) A, B or C. Opinions have become products.

Now, however, we are in the next and perhaps final stage. We ourselves are the product. Companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube no longer see us as the customer, but what we do, think and believe are now commodities. If you cannot fill this line in: "I am ____________ , Someone will always be there to fill it in for you. Buy this makeup to use the word beautiful. This label to let others know "I AM cool, or in style," or even "I AM rich.'

Buy Democrat to be "compassionate," "smarter than others," or "science-minded." It doesn't matter if you really are any of those things in reality, the label is all you need. Buy Republican if you want to be patriotic, support our troops or for family values. We now buy and believe labels and always judge a book by its cover. Buy the label "Christian" and you can love any life you want but you now can use religion to excuse either yours or anyone else's behaviors. Buy the label progressive and you believe in science even though you deny it in basic biology.

Even labels that were never for sale like "courage" come with a price tag, and its price keeps going lower and lower. Now, this once time revered label can be yours for simply saying things out loud to a room full of people who agree with you and will all cheer when you say it.

Labels and words are experiencing a fire sale and it seems "everything must go."

What comes next is always tough.

Heaven knows the proper price to attach to something so celestial as freedom. — Thomas Payne.

Each generation, except for the last, has had to earn and renew their freedom. They did not buy or sell the label the "greatest generation." In fact, it wasn't even them that came up with that title. It was the "boomers." At the time, there were no labels - they just saw themselves as people, as Americans. They saw the crisis not as anyone's fault, but rather as their turn to stand and do the right thing. It is what they did with their "crisis" that made others bestow the "greatest generation" title on them, and only years later.

We are living in a time of great crisis, not much different or of smaller scale than the great struggles of the past. All of the labels we think we have now, will fall away. Those that we have bought will become worthless and every new label will be purchased with blood, sweat, tears and courage.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump are neither the problem nor the solution. They are a symptom.

What we will face, in the end, will not be smaller than what many of our grandparents or great grandparents faced in the World Wars. No less frightening than the global economic unrest of the 1930's. Nor will it be any greater. It will just be ours. And just like the generations past, it will be our choice on whether or not we survive. What a blessing. The boomers feasted off the crisis of their parents and never truly had to choose life or death, freedom or slavery. They never had to push themselves as a group beyond what humans thought possible to achieve something as valuable as freedom.

The crisis we are just now beginning to see is a blessing our parents never received. Each of us will have to pick between black and white, slavery or freedom, good or evil, and life or death. We will all know in the years to come who we really are, if we chose carefully or if we simply allowed ourselves to become. We can become, through this struggle, exactly who we were born to be. Our best and highest selves.

If each of us were honest and began to see this struggle in the proper light, we would admit that it is the softness of our foundations that have caused these struggles. Barack Obama and Donald Trump are neither the problem nor the solution. They are a symptom. Look all around you. No matter whom you voted for, you will admit that the country, and perhaps the entire world over, is sick.

We are all feeling it and each of our political doctors are seeing the same symptoms and prescribing the opposite medicine. Each of us, as patients, all so desperate to cure what is killing us, become more and more vested in our own "doctor's cure." Our doctor is right and yours is wrong! At the same times each doctor knows that he or she has everything to lose if his patients begin to seek another opinion, diagnosis or remedy. It is their best interest to keep their patients busy looking at the other side. Meanwhile, none of us stop and ask if the diagnosis is even correct. I guess we are just too busy fighting for what our doctor said.

I am not sure about you, but when I am sick or in pain, I am usually at my worst interpersonally. We all snap at others. We act as our lesser selves. When I am sick, fearful or angry, it is almost always followed by a time where I begin conversations with, "I am so sorry for what I said or did, I was just having a really bad day."

We are all having a really very bad, most difficult day. Everyday, it seems.

While it is true that there are difficulties and dangers that lie ahead of us, we must not assume that we will lay down and watch our country go to ruin. Many, if not most of those who voted for democrats and those who voted for republican have much in common with those who voted for neither. While parties and politicians try to convince us otherwise, and many of us may have believed it or even engaged in this "warfare," it is becoming more and more clear that our neighbors are not our enemies.

While it is true that there are difficulties and dangers that lie ahead of us, we must not assume that we will lay down and watch our country go to ruin.

If you are finding this a difficult concept to reconcile, simply ponder what our ancestors came here for, be it three months or three centuries ago. To make a better life, in a country that would allow you to follow your dream, work hard and keep what you built so your children could live a better life than you did and achieve even more than you did. That opportunity came not from this land, or even its people, but rather from its mission statement: "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." While that mission statement was and always be aspirational, it has never been fully achieved. It is shaped and given the best chance to succeed when it is protected by the guardrails of the constitution and bill of rights. It is indeed our laws, which come from our American Thesis, that has created the modern world. It is indeed why people still die trying to get on this side of our border.

Is it too much of a stretch to believe that you and I are not alone in our doubt of our doctors? Are we the only ones left that think our neighbor, who knows how sick we all are, really wants everyone who disagrees with their doctor to die? Maybe they have seen flaws in their practitioner as we have. Maybe if we stop spending all our time looking at what is wrong with "them" and what's wrong with America, we can begin to see the things that are right and good.

Perhaps we are not as sick as some of these doctors tell us we are. Perhaps they are more akin to bad, crooked chiropractors that have done more damage to our spine than good and will bilk us for every dime week after week until we finally say no or are broke. We haven't wanted to listen to our friends, or those who tell us differently, because we feel the fool.

Perhaps we are beyond help and only have months to live, but, I don't think it needs to be this way. If we are going down, I want to go down with my friends and family around me. All of them, even those who told me not to listen to my doctor or the one I angrily chased away because I just knew they were wrong.

It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and light fires. It is harder always to put them out.

It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and light fires. It is harder always to put them out. Easy to lose friends and harder to make them. In the end, our founding documents are just an idea. I think a really good idea. One that says we can and should all be who we choose to be and live the life we build for ourselves with dignity and security.

But that idea fails if no one remembers it or believes in it.

I still do.

I am not a doctor but I think our illness is all in our heads. We have been convinced by those who suffer from some sort of societal Munchausen by proxy, that we are fatally ill and will only survive because of them. I think they need us to be sick and I for one think we as a people have had enough bed rest.

Once we choose to see things the way they are, coupled with who we always strived to be — our best selves — we will be fine and perhaps stronger than ever. I believe if we can once again see the best in each other — put our past in the past, and our strife and crisis in the right light — down the road, some other generation will name this one — I believe it will be good.

But one thing is sure, it will not be one we choose but rather the label we earned.

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.