Best of the Programs | 1/22/26

What It Covers

Glenn Beck examines Virginia's proposed progressive tax system targeting earners over $600,000 while giving federal employees tax breaks, Hawaii's Supreme Court case citing 1865 black codes to justify gun restrictions, and Minnesota protests defending individuals arrested in what Beck describes as America's largest fraud case involving taxpayer money.

Key Questions Answered

• •Progressive Tax Constitutional Problem: Virginia proposes tax brackets targeting income over $600,000 while reducing taxes for federal employees. This violates the founders' principle that taxation should judge actions, not outcomes. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton warned against laws dividing citizens into different classes. The federal government operated without income tax until 1913 using tariffs, avoiding the inequality created when government claims different shares of different citizens' labor based on achievement rather than behavior.
• •Black Codes Legal Strategy: Hawaii defends gun carry restrictions by citing 1865 Louisiana black codes designed to disarm freed slaves and leave them vulnerable to the Klan. Supreme Court justices Gorsuch, Alito, and Kavanaugh reject this reasoning, stating that laws rooted in oppression cannot justify limiting constitutional rights. The court distinguishes between legitimate mainstream understanding of rights versus isolated, shameful historical examples that violated constitutional principles from their inception.
• •Rights Versus Permission Framework: Hawaii's legal argument asserts gun owners need property owner permission to exercise Second Amendment rights in stores, restaurants, and churches. This transforms constitutional rights from inherent freedoms into permissions requiring approval. The Supreme Court examines whether rights exist before government or only after permission is granted, with justices emphasizing that deeply rooted tradition must be broadly accepted and widely recognized, not isolated in racist statutes.
• •Minnesota Fraud Case Context: Democratic-aligned NGOs and labor unions, including nurses unions, organize economic blackouts demanding cessation of ICE actions in Minnesota. Beck identifies this as response to arrests in what he characterizes as potentially America's biggest fraud case, where activist Nekima Armstrong allegedly took over one million dollars from an anti-poverty nonprofit. He argues protesters ignore crimes committed while focusing exclusively on federal enforcement actions.
• •Barabbas Trap Pattern: Beck identifies a historical pattern where crowds choose revolutionary shortcuts over principled change when hatred of authority overrides moral judgment. He warns that refusing to evaluate situations case-by-case, demanding evidence separately for each claim, and treating all government badges as tyranny creates blindness that protects actual criminals. This moral inversion makes societies governable only by fear because they forget how to govern themselves by truth.