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.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

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

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

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

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

me liking tweets celebrating the assassination of the united healthcare ceo pic.twitter.com/N41w51ZuZR
— 🔻 (@pegasustits) December 5, 2024

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

A liberal TikToker is selling a t-shirt that glorifies the recent assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in NYC.
“deny , defend, depose” was reported to have been on the shell casings. pic.twitter.com/IWpHYkx2lF
— SteveSant66 🇺🇸 (@SSant66) December 8, 2024

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.

Glenn's Show Prep