Is America building a "virtual Berlin Wall"? Glenn talks to Overstock.com CEO about business under a progressive administration

Glenn: I had an e-mail from a friend last night who said that they were in an argument with somebody over “economic patriotism,” the idea of loyalty oaths, and he said I proudly stood beside you the whole time on this one because that’s not a solution to anything good. The idea of loyalty oaths and being patriotic by staying in a country is a way for us to build a virtual Berlin Wall. When a country says you’ve got to stay here, you’re forced to stay here or we’re going to penalize you or destroy you, that is in effect a Berlin Wall, and that’s not American principles.

We have Patrick Byrne here. He is from Overstock.com, rather outspoken. Thought I would pick your brain on this because I think that what everybody is looking at, it bothers me, and it’s always bothered me when the right has done it. If you go back and look at all of my sets, I’ve never had a flag on the set. I don’t like flag-waving. And we’re talking about economic patriotism, and we’re not talking about solving the real solutions.

So tell me, we have the highest income taxes in the world now for corporate income tax, but we also have other problems. I think we’re starting to look unstable to the rest of the world even though we are still probably the most stable or going instable. What should we be doing?

Patrick: As far as?

Glenn: Keep people here, to keep companies here?

Patrick: Well, you know, you’re a businessman. I’m a businessman. I’d love to be able to raise my prices and say no one can leave, no one can defect. This country was built on exactly the opposite principle, that we were going to have the most competitive environment. And you know, now our corporate tax rates are basically 40% federal and state, and we’re up against people who are taxing at 15%.

And it’s just natural, people, you know, you raise the price of something, people buy less of it. People forget that taxes are not, you know, chiseled on stone and come down from the gods. Taxes are just the name for the price that government charges for their services. And when you raise your prices, people buy less of your service, and that includes the government. So they’ve made it really uncompetitive for multinational companies to stay. It’s becoming more and more irrational.

Glenn: They will try to say that companies don’t have a responsibility to their shareholders, they have a responsibility to their country.

Patrick: This whole talk frankly of economic patriotism scares me. I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but it’s nut-job talk. And loyalty oaths, I see Jonathan Alter did some story about –

Glenn: It’s crazy.

Patrick: The actual intellectual roots of this stuff is in Benito Mussolini. That’s where that –

Glenn: Can I tell you something? I know this sounds horrible to say, we just talked about it, that is what the FDR administration said. With the blue eagle, they said it is fascistic. That’s before we thought Mussolini was a bad guy, and they’ve erased all of that now. But that’s on the record, it’s fascistic to do that. That’s not in line with our principles.

Patrick: Well, people forget the far left and the far right meet at the bottom. Benito Mussolini was a hard left socialist in Italy. He was a prominent, not just prominent, he was one of the leaders of the, he was part of the Marxist communist takeover of the socialist party, and then he came out of World War II still a hard left socialist but decided, you know, he came up with this new theory that included nationalism, a very nationalistic version of socialism. But he was very popular in the United States in the 1920s and 30s. You probably know that Cole Porter song, 'You’re the Top'.

Glenn: Yeah.

Patrick: If you look up the lyrics, it includes you’re the top, you’re the great Houdini, you’re the top, you’re my Mussolini. And Mussolini was very well-regarded in this country until 1935 when he invaded Ethiopia. And FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, consciously modeled the New Deal and the National Recovery Act on the state corporatism that Benito Mussolini was arguing for.

I know this all sounds so weird to Americans now, but go back, and there’s a book by David Boaz at the Cato Institute about the link, the deep intellectual link and the influence that Mussolini had not only on Hitler, of course, but Roosevelt.

Glenn: I will tell you, you know, what frightens me is we look at what’s happening here, communism was a global takeover, you know, the international communists. Fascistic tendency was a national, but it was both socialism, both socialism –

Patrick: Well, Nazi-ism, it’s an abbreviation for National Socialism.

Glenn: Right, so you have that. We’re looking now at a world that in some ways is parallel. We had to pick, do we like the fascist or do we like the communist? We picked, well, we like the communist better, so we’ll get into bed with a communist to defeat the fascist. That’s World War II. We’re now looking in the Middle East, we like Saudi Arabia better than we like Iran, but they both want to control with a religious ideology that we reject, but yet we’re going to get in bed with one of them. We have to be careful on what our values are.

Patrick: They’re both anti-liberal. Believe it or not, you know, as you know, what you and I are are actually liberals, classical liberals. That’s the correct Milton Friedman, Thomas Jefferson, that’s classical liberalism, the idea that you don’t have an over-powerful state. Now, the word liberal got hijacked in the 1930s and 40s and has come to mean in the United States just the opposite, but in Europe, liberal is still used to mean what we are.

Glenn: Correct.

Patrick: But you’re absolutely correct. It’s a part of history that is neglected, but the deep intellectual connection and common roots of the fascistic tradition and the socialist or communist tradition, and when I hear talk of economic patriotism, I’m hearing Mussolini. The whole corporatism philosophy that he preached used terms like that.

Glenn: In that particular article by Jon Alter, he mentioned, you know, even McCarthyism, that the GOP should be, you know, looking at McCarthyism. No, we shouldn’t be. Nobody should be. And I don’t think the GOP would be all that different than the Democrats. They’d just take it in a different direction, but they would both be…the Patriot Act, wrap yourself in the flag, and you can get away with just about anything.

Patrick: I can’t believe some of this stuff is happening in our country, that we’re seeing that the discourse has taken this turn really in the last 20 years and that there aren’t more people understanding, you know, the historical roots of what it is we’re doing.

Glenn: But don’t you think that, and it’s like this with, I mean, how many times has communism tried and been failed? Everybody says well okay, yeah, but Mussolini went bad, yeah, but, you know, Stalin went bad. And so it’s always it’s not going to be that way, because people want to believe in a utopia. They want to believe that that stuff would work, that we could all live like it, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Patrick: There’s a great quote from Adam Smith about how the man of systems, what he calls meaning a heavy ideologue, people who have like systems they want to impose on society, they seem to imagine society like it’s a great chessboard and that they can just move the pieces around. They forget that in the case of humans, those pieces have their own internal motivations, and they want to, you know, they can’t just be shuffled around like pieces on a chessboard.

And so these heavy ideological approaches, really they look very similar to me. And the liberal, the traditional classical liberal or what’s sometimes called libertarianism now, they’re pretty related, was the idea that no, we won’t have this overpowering government that’s demanding. We’ll form a government that serves us, not that we serve it. Anybody who is talking about economic patriotism is taking as their background assumption that it’s our function to serve the government rather than forgetting, you know, or they forget that no, we’re the primary –

Glenn: So the government comes to you and says we need you to sign this loyalty oath.

Patrick: I won’t sign a loyalty oath.

Glenn: They threaten to close you down, whatever pressure they would have to, you ever sign a loyalty oath?

Patrick: Never, never, never. No, I would laugh them out of the office.

Glenn: Does that make you un-American?

Patrick: No, I think I’m patriotic. I remember what the organizing principles of our republic are, and they include that, you know, we form, Milton Friedman had a great saying on this. Remember John F. Kennedy said something about in his inaugural address ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Milton Friedman, greatest friend of freedom in the 20th century, said that that would be, something like that could never be said in a state that still understood what freedom was because in our tradition we are, you know, we’re the primary actors, but we form this entity, the government, in order to secure our freedom.

So that’s like a plumber, you’ve hired a plumber to come and do something, the plumber does a lousy job, costs a lot of money, and when you try to criticize him says hey, don’t ask what I can do for you, ask what you can do for me. You’d say this plumber had gotten too big for his britches.

Glenn: Can I tell you a better way of saying it then…not that, that’s a great explanation, I mean but to change what John F. Kennedy said? Because I think what most people think is don’t keep taking, let’s figure out what we can do for each other, not the country but each other. It’s more of the idea of Ben Franklin, there is a God, he’s going to judge us, best way to serve him is to serve our fellow man. That’s the American religion. That’s the American ethic, let’s help each other.

Patrick: And to do that we needed government, and we needed limited government that’s going to perform certain functions we can’t do individually. We can’t defend our borders individually. You know, you don’t want to be your own policemen and court system.

So you need a government to do things, but let’s remember, it’s just this entity that we created, and to have it say oh no, you don’t understand, you’re supposed to be, you know, happy to pay us 40% of your income, corporate America, and if you don’t, you’re not patriotic, you have forgotten that you serve us.

That betrays that this worldview has gotten so skewed that they think, they’ve just gotten big for their britches. They’re like the plumber who’s saying, you know, don’t ask what you can do for me, ask what I can do for you.

Glenn: Thank you very much.

Patrick: Oh, thank you, Glenn.

 

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

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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!

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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.