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Michelle Malkin shares incredible stories of American ingenuity

May 20, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Firebrand conservative and #1 New York Times bestselling author, Michelle Malkin tells the riveting stories of the relentless thinkers and inventors who made America what it is today in her new book, Who Built That. She joined Glenn on TV Tuesday night to share just a few stories of American ingenuity that should inspire anyone looking to blaze their own trail.

Glenn: I want you to go out and buy Michelle Malkin’s new book, Who Built That. It is cut from your cloth. If you’re a fan of this show, this is cut from the same cloth, really great stories that you didn’t know. I’m bummed that she beat me to the Nikola Tesla story. That’s one story I haven’t told, but now she’s told it in expert fashion. Would you please tell, because I love this, and most people don’t know what Tesla did when he went to Colorado Springs. It’s my understanding, Michelle, he freaked everybody out.

Michelle: He freaked everyone out, and he pretty much shorted the entire electrical generation system in Colorado Springs.

Glenn: For like a week.

Michelle: Yes, for the whole week. In fact, he was able to re-create lightning that was seen 30 miles outside of Colorado Springs, all the way up to Woodland Park. I mean, we’re talking up at 7,000, 8,000 feet altitude. So, I definitely felt like I had a hometown kinship with him as well because I’ve made Colorado Springs the home of our family for the last eight years now and actually went out to the little spot in Memorial Park where he had his little laboratory.

You know, it’s quite a shame, Glenn, that there is nothing more than a small historical marker. There’s no Tesla museum in the United States. There’s one in his hometown in Eastern Europe, but you know, among your audience and among many of my geeky scientific engineering type fans, he’s very well-known. You told his story in one of your books, and people know it that way, but the actual scientific breakthroughs and the incredible entrepreneurial partnership and friendship that he forged with George Westinghouse is almost entirely absent in the public schools today. It is a disgrace really, and that’s why I wrote the book, to fill in that vacuum.

Glenn: I will tell you this, I’m going to send your book to a professor who teaches history at Yale, because when I wrote my chapter on Tesla, he said it was the best chapter on Tesla that he had ever read and now makes it part of the course because no one has told the truth on him. So, I’m going to send your book so he also has that, because Tesla was—not only are we still present in his day, I think he saw this technology, you know, in some form or another that is now coming out, so we’re still present in his day, but also, the relationship that he had with Westinghouse that you highlight gave me hope because here’s a guy who was so far ahead. The government shuts them down because of collusion and corruption with Edison, and he loses everything. It’s a good guy, a good capitalist, one who believes in doing the right thing, that saves him.

Michelle: Yes, that’s right. I think restoring the reputation of ethical capitalism in this country is so important. It’s been so corrupted. You see so many of these big government cronies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce types who are so willing to jump into bed with the AFL-CIO and Barack Obama and the White House and all of these crony government contracts and venture socialism that’s overtaken Washington DC.

Well, there was a time, and of course, our kids don’t learn this nearly enough, when there were people of character, men of great character like George Westinghouse, who understood the value of protecting individual and intellectual property rights. That’s how that relationship was forged, because George Westinghouse knew that Nikola Tesla had something of value and that together they could team up and they were stronger as an entrepreneurial partnership.

That’s how the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls was built, and I talk about that story. There was a prototype that was done in Colorado, of all places, Telluride, Colorado, and believe it or not, Oberlin College, which is my alma mater and is known as one of the craziest places on earth, the berserk-ley of the Midwest, actually produced the entrepreneur Lucien Hall, who created the prototype of the hydroelectric plant that went on to become Niagara Falls—amazing confluence of all of these individuals. I think it’s these friendships and alliances that really were magical to me.

Glenn: I think they’re happening again. I have to tell you, Michelle, we are two of the biggest geeks. I don’t know if anybody in the audience is loving this as much as I am, but we are just geeking out on these guys. Let me see, show me the Maglite. I was going to say the bottle cap, but show me the Maglite because I don’t want to run out of time. This is important that you talk about this, but you talk about this story in the book, which is fantastic, but it’s important to put it into context that the future has been harmed again by the federal government. Explain.

Michelle: Yeah, so the first chapter is about Anthony Maglica, the 84-year-old, spry entrepreneur who came here from a tiny little island off of Croatia called Zlarin, came here with nothing during the Depression but the hunger to make something of himself. He drove across the country in his beat-up Studebaker. He pushed his car up the Rocky Mountains and out West, settled in Ontario, California, and came up with a design for this beautiful, just aesthetically streamlined Maglite flashlight which is an iconic symbol. He is the torchbearer of the American dream, and in fact, there was an Apple Computer official who once said that they strove to become the Maglite of computers.

Well, he hasn’t just come up with one patent, but 200 patents. He hasn’t taken a vacation in ten years. When I went to his headquarters, he showed me a lab where he was developing revolutionary incandescent light bulb technology. He had planned to hire hundreds of more workers to work on these innovations and bring them to market, but it was thanks to the federal lightbulb ban that he had to shut that completely down. It cost jobs. Who knows what else he could’ve come up with? And yet, he perseveres. He told me he will never give up, not until the day that he’s no longer on this earth, to try and improve his products and bring people things that they want and need.

That’s what the American dream is about. It’s not something that is decreed in Washington DC, and it’s these kind of people that make America a great place. He hasn’t given up hope, so neither will I.

Glenn: The amazing thing, Michelle, is most people don’t even know where food comes from anymore. They don’t even know how to grow food. We live in a society and say oh, it’s always been this way. It’s never been this way. In the history of man, it’s never been this way—the things that we have, the abilities that we have, the things that we can do. And what I love about your book is it goes to little things like toilet paper, which we talked about on the radio. You don’t think of toilet paper. To think that this is something that really came from here in America. Take America out of the world, we’re still wiping ourselves with wool or something else gross. But also, you go into bottle caps. Tell me about bottle caps and seals.

Michelle: So, the design of the bottle cap hasn’t changed since the turn of the century, and yet, the amount of intellectual capital that it took to come up with something so simple is absolutely amazing. William Painter was the creator of the modern-day bottle cap as well as many other pieces of technology that revolutionized the food and beverage packaging industry. His company is still in existence today, Crown Cork and Seal—there he is—a $9 billion business. I have included in the chapter on the bottle cap all of his patent drawings, his patent schematics, and the descriptions that it took. He never stopped perfecting this little piece of mundane technology that we absolutely take for granted.

Glenn: Think of this, $9 billion, $9 billion, in bottle caps. People just don’t have any clue. To me, this is the American dream, that you can have an idea. Before America, you had an idea, and the Lord of the Manor could take your idea and just make it. So, you could never get out of poverty. You were always a Serf. Now, because of the patent, again, an American idea, but even that is changing.

Michelle: It is, and it is just another extension of Obama’s radical transformation of America. You know, the idea of intellectual property rights was so revolutionary, and it’s something that’s embedded in our Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, but very few people in the mainstream American public outside of the sphere of law where they actually pay attention to these things realize that in 2011, Obama radically transformed and upended the idea that the inventor should be the one who’s rewarded, the one who was first to invent, rather than the one who’s first to file.

So, they passed something. Obama and the Congress rammed it through with very little debate in the mainstream public because it really is one of those kind of arcane things and globalized and harmonized American patent law with the rest of the world, in other words, abandoning those first constitutional principles that our Founding Fathers knew guaranteed success.

Glenn: Can I tell you something Michelle? And I hope I didn’t misstate what you believe in the last break when I said that you and I both, I mean, we’ll slug it out until the very end, but we both feel really impressed. There is something equally as important as uncovering the filth of restoring the truth and telling the stories of who we are and where we came from, because if we lose that, it doesn’t matter if we’ve uncovered the filth. If we don’t know who we are, we will chart a course that will take us back into slavery. Correct?

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. We definitely have an urgency and kinship there. The reason I wrote the book is not just to preach to the choir, but for children.

Glenn: Yes, so here’s the one thing, and I’ve only got a minute. There are a lot of libertarian kids who are saying we don’t need the patent. Everything should be free. That’s insane. That’s insane. Don’t you think?

Michelle: Yeah, I don’t agree with that, and I feel that conclusion comes from a lack of understanding of the need to have the fuel of interest for the fire of progress. Those were the words that Abraham Lincoln used, and it’s been a bedrock of American constitutional principles as well as entrepreneurialism that you should be able to profit from the fruits of your labor and the fruits of your mind.

Glenn: Michelle, if I called in sick, would you come in and host at least one show, maybe two, and just tell some of these stories and really take us through the book? Would you be willing to do that?

Michelle: I would love to. I’m there.

Glenn: Okay, I’m just a huge fan of Michelle Malkin. I know the audience is as well. Go out and buy this book today. You can find it now at GlennBeck.com/Malkin, or you can find it wherever books are sold, Who Built That by Michelle Malkin.

The Bubba Effect erupts as America’s power brokers go rogue

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.