There is one place in America leading the whole world towards freedom

March 11, 2015

Writer

It's easy to see the problems in the world. The Islamic State beheading and burning people alive in the Middle East. Russia evolving more and more into a totalitarian state. Here at home, scandals distract from a government that wants to regulate every aspect of your life. But there is one place where entrepreneurs and inventors are creating a path towards freedom: Silicon Valley.

Below is a transcript of this segment:

I want to talk to you a little bit about something that I think is really hard for me to explain and hard for me to at this point even articulate, because I am a babe in the woods on this, but I feel like I was…remember when I was at the beginning of finding the progressive movement, and I’m like, “I’m telling you, there’s something with Woodrow Wilson”? I’m telling you on the good way there is something big happening in Silicon Valley. I was there last week, and the innovators that are there are some of the only people that I believe are creating a path towards freedom.

Even with the government doing their best to get their dirty little hands on the Internet with net neutrality and everything else, innovation, I believe, is going to be too rapid for the government to keep up with. What’s interesting is that this is one of the few places in America where the people that you meet are optimistic about the future. That scared the crap out of me. Sorry, I thought there was a gun.

Silicon Valley is an interesting place where if you go to LA or to New York or Washington, D.C., everybody knows it’s over. If you go into your office or your factory or radio stations are like this now, television stations are like this now, places where people are being fired and let off, you just feel like it’s over, it’s over.

You go to even universities, and you just know that’s not the future. It’s over. So, where’s the optimism? Well, the optimism isn’t there because (a) we’re being told we suck. We’re being told that it’s over. We no longer believe that better days are in front of us, but the things that are coming will truly blow your mind. We just don’t recognize them yet.

The world of tomorrow is here now. There are going to be potential problems. There might be 100 years…I hope it’s 10 to 15, 20 years, but there might be 100 years of real grinding here to change, but the NSA doesn’t win in the end. The hackers win in the end.

Technology will always be one step ahead, and it is amazing to me that the top innovators in America, the people who are actually seeing over the horizon, are not more well-known to the American public. If you go back 100 years to the last time this really happened, it was Edison’s day. Everybody knew Edison. Everybody knew what he was working. Everybody was excited. Some people thought it was nonsense, but people were generally excited. We had big expositions. We had the Chicago World’s Fair where we said to the world, “Come, look at what we’re doing.” People would travel for days to see it.

Last week, I was talking to a guy in Silicon Valley who is friends with, I think, the guy who is maybe a modern-day Edison, a guy named Elon Musk. He’s only done little things like PayPal and Tesla Motors. He is championing the electric car.

Now, the electric car is just the beginning because of the battery. He is also now saying we can build batteries for homes, totally different. He recently unveiled a model with dual engines in his car…pretty fast, pretty fast, pretty amazing. He founded SpaceX. He sued the government because Lockheed Martin and Boeing had a launch monopoly, and he thought SpaceX should be included in the contract bidding.

He’s seriously pursuing something called the Hyperloop which would revolutionize the speed in which we travel. He gathered a group of engineers and gave them stock options instead of money, and they went to work. Elon Musk, he recently Tweeted that he would be building a test track in Texas. The question is do people even know who Elon Musk is, our modern-day Edison or Tesla?

We hit the streets in New York to ask people, “Do you know who the Kardashians are, and do you know who Elon Musk is? Watch.

VIDEO

W: So, when you think of famous people in America, what names come to mind?

W: Kim Kardashian, unfortunately, Kanye West. I might as well just add him in there.

W: Who comes to mind? Shoot, Tom Hanks comes to mind. Who else?

M: George Clooney comes to mind.

W: Like actors and actresses or the president, Hillary Clinton.

M: Oh my gosh, movie stars, I guess.

M: Taylor Swift.

W: I was going to say Brad Pitt.

W: Do you know who Elon Musk is?

M: No.

W: No.

M: The name rings a bell with me, but no.

M: No, never, never.

W: Yes, his face looks very familiar. Who is he?

W: Say it again.

W: Elon Musk.

W: No, I’m sorry. Oh, okay, I think I may have seen him on a talk show.

W: On a talk show?

W: Maybe.

W: Have you ever heard of Elon Musk? Wait, do you want to see his photo?

W: Oh yeah, he’s the Tesla guy.

One person, he’s the Tesla guy. Yes. I don’t know if Elon Musk is Edison or, you know, Tesla or the guy that’s going to break through in the end, but what I do know is he is one of the big guys knocking on the door, and Americans should be watching and cheering and gathering hope, helping people like this further their innovation.

We should be excited about what is over the horizon, but instead we’re too busy watching Kim Kardashian. We’re too busy quite honestly arguing about Republicans, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. I don’t want that future. Either one of those, I don’t want that future.

We don’t understand the times in which we live. Edison and the people who lived then, most people had some clue. Elon Musk understands. He’s made a car now that is faster than a Ferrari, an American car. He likens the experience to having your own roller coaster. It’s a full G of lateral acceleration. Why aren’t we heralding somebody…while the car industry is collapsing in America, here’s a guy who’s completely reinventing it, and nobody’s talking about.

We are living in a time where tomorrowland is here right now. I want to give you an example. We’ve been talking about self-driving cars for a while, and it’s almost like a flying car to most people. It was really to me until I test drove a Mercedes GL. It’s their family van thing.

As I’m driving this thing, I try to go into the other lane. I put the blinker on, and it has something called “blind spot assist.” I don’t know what that was. I try to get into the other lane, and the car won’t let me. Why? Because I dismissed the mirror, and the car, “blind spot.” I dismissed it, but the car didn’t, and the car was right. It protected me from myself.

Now, as I did that and I drove this thing, and you can set it so it tells you exactly how far you want to be from the car in front, and then it slows and stops. It’s on the freeway, you exit, it’ll slow down. It stops at the light. I mean, it’s amazing. That’s the car that’s out today. I started talking about this with the guys, you know, that we were talking to about Tesla last week, and they said that’s nothing.

You know, the new Tesla, right now, the new Tesla, when you pull up to your house, it asks you “garage one or garage two?” After a while, it knows which garage you park in, and so it just opens the garage door for you. The one that’s on the drawing board now, when you get up in the morning, you know, some people have those cool cars where you can start them. You know, it’s cold, and so you just, you know, BOOP, and it starts your car. The new Tesla, you can do that, it will open the garage and drive the car to the front door to pick you up.

This morning, I get in, and a friend in the high-tech industry sends me, and this is a couple of months old, a video of the Mercedes concept car. What I’m about to show you is not a computer-generated image. This is a real car. All of the interior is real. What’s on the doors is real. It’s actually not a 3-D computer drawing. It debuted on the streets of Las Vegas.

It is a self-driving car. You get into it, you sit in it and use the touchscreens or sleep or talk with other people. It’s like riding around in a living room. I don’t know about you, but that seems like 1,000,000 miles away.

As I’m talking to one of the guys in Silicon Valley, again, this is only on cars, as I’m talking to him about cars, he asks me, he said, “So, are you going to buy that Mercedes? Are you going to buy one of those self-driving cars?” I said, “No, I’m going to wait until the 2020. I’ll just drive my car.” I’ll wait for the 2020 to come out, because I think the 2020, and I’m thinking will be the closest to self-driving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He said, “You buy the 2020, it will be the last car you buy that you can actually drive yourself.”

Gang, that’s four years away. You buy a new car today, a GM will be that way in four years. The technology is starting to compound, and it’s going to outpace your imagination and the good news is outpace those trying to control us. Now, there’s all kinds of things to talk about with self-driving cars—are you actually free if the car drives yourself? I get it. I get it, but what I want to tell you tonight is I thought for a while we were headed towards an industrial revolution. I’ve said that for years that we’re headed for an industrial revolution. It’s just going to be in a 10- or 15-year period. I’ve told you recently we’re at the beginning of that now, and so all of this upheaval is going to be pretty remarkable.

I’d like to amend that after I spent my time in Silicon Valley last week. I don’t believe we’re headed for an industrial revolution. I believe we are headed into a second Renaissance. Now, there are two paths that we can choose. We can, you know, either choose the light or the dark. We can choose freedom that embraces a completely new mentality on that future that is coming, and we can all play a role in it, and we can all learn different things.

Remember, it was the Gutenberg press, it was the press that actually helped everybody see the future and start to think differently because they could have access to books. Two thirds of the world is not connected yet to the Internet, but it’s about to be, and it’s our access to ideas and to people and to things, to books now through the Internet, that is going to give us another Renaissance.

Now, some are going to desperately try to hang onto the status quo just like the leaders did then. I mean, it went into an inquisition and everything else. They locked people in the towers because they didn’t want to lose their control, but in the end, those people broke free. They beat those who were trying to hold onto the status quo. If we do that, if we understand that we are headed towards something more akin to the Renaissance should we choose, we will look back on these days not as the good old days—oh geez.

Right now, we’re all thinking, “Man, America’s never going to get better than this.” No, let’s change our attitude. We’ll look back on these days possibly as the Dark Ages, but there is a second path, and I showed it to you last night. It’s this board, the road to World War III. There is no freedom on this board. There is no driving car. There is no Internet on this board unless the Internet is used to cobble together the disenfranchised youth or used by hard Fascists to clamp down or cyber warfare.

Last week, when I met the thought leaders and libertarians in Silicon Valley, I wanted to live in their world. Even if 80% of what they think is coming is wrong, I want to live in the 20%. It’s a very bright future, but it still is up to us to chart a course that way, and it is up to us to be able to understand that freedom is the basic building block. It is up to us to look to the leaders who are changing things and herald them and make them our champions, if you will, make sure that we’re out there rooting for them.

Washington Post EXPOSED: How Watergate editors almost published a fake Pulitzer Prize-winning story

Episode 6 of Glenn’s new history podcast series The Beck Story releases this Saturday.

This latest installment explores the history of Left-wing bias in mainstream media. Like every episode of this series, episode 6 is jam-packed with historical detail, but you can’t squeeze in every story, so some inevitably get cut from the final version. Part of this episode involves the late Ben Bradlee, who was the legendary editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee is legendary mostly because of the Watergate investigation that was conducted on his watch by two young reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Bradlee, Woodward, and Bernstein became celebrities after the release of the book and movie based on their investigation called All the President’s Men.

But there is another true story about the Washington Post that you probably won’t see any time soon at a theater near you.

In 1980, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee wanted to expand the Post’s readership in the black community. The paper made an effort to hire more minority journalists, like Janet Cooke, a black female reporter from Ohio. Cooke was an aggressive reporter and a good writer. She was a fast-rising star on a staff already full of stars. The Post had a very competitive environment and Cooke desperately wanted to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Readers were hooked. And outraged.

When Cooke was asked to work on a story about the D.C. area’s growing heroin problem, she saw her chance to win that Pulitzer. As she interviewed people in black neighborhoods that were hardest hit by the heroin epidemic, she was appalled to learn that even some children were heroin addicts. When she learned about an eight-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy, she knew she had her hook. His heartbreaking story would surely be her ticket to a Pulitzer.

Cooke wrote her feature story, titling it, “Jimmy’s World.” It blew away her editors at the Post, including Bob Woodward, who by then was Assistant Managing Editor. “Jimmy’s World” would be a front-page story:

'Jimmy is 8 years old and a third-generation heroin addict,' Cooke’s story began, 'a precocious little boy with sandy hair, velvety brown eyes and needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin brown arms. He nestles in a large, beige reclining chair in the living room of his comfortably furnished home in Southeast Washington. There is an almost cherubic expression on his small, round face as he talks about life – clothes, money, the Baltimore Orioles and heroin. He has been an addict since the age of 5.'

Readers were hooked. And outraged. The mayor’s office instructed the police to immediately search for Jimmy and get him medical treatment. But no one was able to locate Jimmy. Cooke wasn’t surprised. She told her editors at the Post that she had only been able to interview Jimmy and his mother by promising them anonymity. She also revealed that the mother’s boyfriend had threatened Cooke’s life if the police discovered Jimmy’s whereabouts.

A few months later, Cooke’s hard work paid off and her dream came true – her story was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Cooke had to submit some autobiographical information to the Prize committee, but there was a slight snag. The committee contacted the Post when they couldn’t verify that Cooke had graduated magna cum laude from Vassar College. Turns out she only attended Vassar her freshman year. She actually graduated from the University of Toledo with a B.A. degree, not with a master’s degree as she told the Pulitzer committee.

Cooke’s editors summoned her for an explanation. Unfortunately for Cooke and the Washington Post, her resume flubs were the least of her lies. After hours of grilling, Cooke finally confessed that “Jimmy’s World” was entirely made up. Jimmy did not exist.

The Pulitzer committee withdrew its prize and Cooke resigned in shame. The Washington Post, the paper that uncovered Watergate – the biggest political scandal in American history – failed to even vet Cooke’s resume. Then it published a front-page, Pulitzer Prize-winning feature story that was 100 percent made up.

Remarkably, neither Ben Bradlee nor Bob Woodward resigned over the incident. It was a different time, but also, the halo of All the President’s Men probably saved them.

Don’t miss the first five episodes of The Beck Story, which are available now. And look for Episode 6 this Saturday, wherever you get your podcasts.

UPDATED: 5 Democrats who have endorsed Kamala (and one who hasn't)

Zach Gibson / Stringer, Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

With Biden removed from the 2024 election and only a month to find a replacement before the DNC, Democrats continue to fall in line and back Vice President Kamala Harris to headline the party's ticket. Her proximity and familiarity with the Biden campaign along with an endorsement from Biden sets Harris up to step into Biden's shoes and preserve the momentum from his campaign.

Glenn doesn't think Kamala Harris is likely to survive as the assumed Democratic nominee, and once the DNC starts, anything could happen. Plenty of powerful and important Democrats have rallied around Harris over the last few days, but there have been some crucial exemptions. Here are five democrats that have thrown their name behind Harris, and two SHOCKING names that didn't...

Sen. Dick Durbin: ENDORSED

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

High-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin officially put in his support for Harris in a statement that came out the day after Biden stepped down: “I’m proud to endorse my former Senate colleague and good friend, Vice President Kamala Harris . . . our nation needs to continue moving forward with unity and not MAGA chaos. Vice President Harris was a critical partner in building the Biden record over the past four years . . . Count me in with Kamala Harris for President.”

Michigan Gov. Whitmer: ENDORSED

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

The Monday after Biden stepped down from the presidential VP hopeful, Gretchen Whitmer released the following statement on X: “Today, I am fired up to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States [...] In Vice President Harris, Michigan voters have a presidential candidate they can count on to focus on lowering their costs, restoring their freedoms, bringing jobs and supply chains back home from overseas, and building an economy that works for working people.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ENDORSED

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

Mere hours after Joe Biden made his announcement, AOC hopped on X and made the following post showing her support: "Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States. I pledge my full support to ensure her victory in November. Now more than ever, it is crucial that our party and country swiftly unite to defeat Donald Trump and the threat to American democracy. Let’s get to work."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: ENDORSED

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Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is arguably one of the most influential democrats, backed Harris's campaign with the following statement given the day after Biden's decision: “I have full confidence she will lead us to victory in November . . . My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal, and political.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: ENDORSED

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Massasschesets Senator Elizabeth Warren was quick to endorse Kamala, releasing the following statement shortly after Harris placed her presidential bid: "I endorse Kamala Harris for President. She is a proven fighter who has been a national leader in safeguarding consumers and protecting access to abortion. As a former prosecutor, she can press a forceful case against allowing Donald Trump to regain the White House. We have many talented people in our party, but Vice President Harris is the person who was chosen by the voters to succeed Joe Biden if needed. She can unite our party, take on Donald Trump, and win in November."

UPDATED: Former President Barack Obama: ENDORSED

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Former President Barack Obama wasted no time releasing the following statement which glaringly omits any support for Harris or any other candidate. Instead, he suggests someone will be chosen at the DNC in August: "We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden's vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond."

UPDATED: On Friday, July 26th Barack and Michelle Obama officially threw their support behind Harris over a phone call with the current VP:

“We called to say, Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.”

The fact that it took nearly a week for the former president to endorse Kamala, along with his original statement, gives the endorsement a begrudging tone.

Prominent Democratic Donor John Morgan: DID NOT ENDORSE

AP Photo/John Raoux

Prominent and wealthy Florida lawyer and democrat donor John Morgan was clearly very pessimistic about Kamala's odds aginst Trump when he gave the following statement: “You have to be enthusiastic or hoping for a political appointment to be asking friends for money. I am neither. It’s others turn now . . . The donors holding the 90 million can release those funds in the morning. It’s all yours. You can keep my million. And good luck . . . [Harris] would not be my first choice, but it’s a done deal.”

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

PATRICK T. FALLON / Contributor | Getty Images

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It occurred just after 6:10 p.m. while Trump was delivering his speech.

Here are the details of the “official” story. The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He used an AR-15 rifle and managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building unnoticed. The Secret Service's counter-response team responded swiftly, according to "the facts," killing Crooks and preventing further harm.

Did it though? That’s what the official story says, so far, but calling this a mere lapse in security by Secret Service doesn't add up. There are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

If Trump had been killed on Saturday, we would be in a civil war today. We would have seen for the first time the president's brains splattered on live television, and because of the details of this, I have a hard time thinking it wouldn't have been viewed as JFK 2.0.

How does someone sneak a rifle onto the rally grounds? How does someone even know that that building is there? How is it that Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting so weird and pacing in front of the metal detectors, and no one seemed to notice? People tried to follow him, but, oops, he got away.

How could the kid possibly even think that the highest ground at the venue wouldn't be watched? If I were Crooks, my first guess would be, "That’s the one place I shouldn't crawl up to with a rifle because there's most definitely going to be Secret Service there." Why wasn't anyone there? Why wasn't anyone watching it? Nobody except the shooter decided that the highest ground with the best view of the rally would be the greatest vulnerability to Trump’s safety.

Moreover, a handy ladder just happened to be there. Are we supposed to believe that nobody in the Secret Service, none of the drones, none of the things we pay millions of dollars for caught him? How did he get a ladder there? If the ladder was there, was it always there? Why was the ladder there? Secret Service welds manhole covers closed when a president drives down a road. How was there a ladder sitting around, ready to climb up to the highest ground at the venue, and the Secret Service failed to take it away?

There is plenty of video of eyewitnesses yelling that there was a guy with a rifle climbing up on a ladder to the roof for at least 120 seconds before the first shot was fired. Why were the police looking for him while Secret Service wasn't? Why did the sniper have him in his sights for over a minute before he took a shot? Why did a cop climb up the ladder to look around? When Thomas Matthew Cooks pointed a gun at him, he then ducked and came down off the ladder. Did he call anyone to warn that this young man had a rifle within range of the president?

How is it the Secret Service has a female bodyguard who doesn't even reach Trump's nipples? How was she going to guard the president's body with hers? How is it another female Secret Service agent pulled her gun out a good four minutes too late, then looked around, apparently not knowing what to do? She then couldn't even get the pistol back into the holster because she's a Melissa McCarthy body double. I don't think it's a good idea to have Melissa McCarthy guarding the president.

Here’s the critical question now: Who trusts the FBI with the shooter’s computer? Will his hard drive get filed with the Nashville manifesto? How is it that the Secret Service almost didn't have snipers at all but decided to supply them only one day before the rally because all the local resources were going to be put on Jill Biden? I want Jill Biden safe, of course. I want Jill Biden to have what the first lady should have for security, but you can’t hire a few extra guys to make sure our candidates are safe?

How is it that we have a Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, whose experience is literally guarding two liters of Squirt and spicy Doritos? Did you know that's her background? She's in charge of the United States Secret Service, and her last job was as the head of security for Pepsi.

This is a game, and that's what makes this sick. This is a joke. There are people in our country who thought it was OK to post themselves screaming about the shooter’s incompetence: “How do you miss that shot?” Do you realize how close we came to another JFK? If the president hadn't turned his head at the exact moment he did, it would have gone into the center of his head, and we would be a different country today.

Now, Joe Biden is also saying that we shouldn't make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. Well, I think we can assume one thing: He wanted to kill the Republican presidential candidate. Can we agree on that at least? Can we assume that much?

How can the media even think of blaming Trump for the rhetoric when the Democrats and the media constantly call him literally worse than Hitler who must be stopped at all costs?

These questions need to be answered if we want to know the truth behind what could have been one of the most consequential days in U.S. history. Yet, the FBI has its hands clasped on all the sources that could point to the truth. There must be an independent investigation to get to the bottom of these glaring “mistakes.”

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Kevin Dietsch / Staff, Chip Somodevilla / Staff, Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Image

It feels like all of the tension that has been building over the last four years has finally burst to the surface over the past month. Many predicted 2024 was going to be one of the most important and tumultuous elections in our lifetimes, but the last two weeks will go down in the history books. And it's not over yet.

The Democratic National Convention is in August, and while Kamala seems to be the likely candidate to replace Biden, anything could happen in Chicago. And if Biden is too old to campaign, isn't he too old to be president? Glenn doesn't think he'll make it as President through January, but who knows?

There is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the current political landscape. Trump came out of the attempted assassination, and the RNC is looking stronger than ever, but who knows what tricks the Democrats have up their sleeves? Let us know your predictions in the poll below:

Glenn's Show Prep

There is one place in America leading the whole world towards freedom

Washington Post EXPOSED: How Watergate editors almost published a fake Pulitzer Prize-winning story

Readers were hooked. And outraged.

UPDATED: 5 Democrats who have endorsed Kamala (and one who hasn't)

Sen. Dick Durbin: ENDORSED

Michigan Gov. Whitmer: ENDORSED

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ENDORSED

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: ENDORSED

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: ENDORSED

UPDATED: Former President Barack Obama: ENDORSED

Prominent Democratic Donor John Morgan: DID NOT ENDORSE

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Is Trump going to win the election?

Did the assassination attempt increase Trump's chances at winning in November?

Did Trump's pick of J.D. Vance help his odds?

Did the Trump-Biden debate in June help Trump's chances?

Did Biden's resignation from the election hand Trump a victory in November?

Do the Democrats have any chance of winning this election?