The Left's censorship of conservatives has now kicked into high gear. Google has placed at least 21 videos from Prager University, an educational non-profit designed to tell young people about conservative issues of interest, in restricted mode, preventing young people from seeing them. Meanwhile, Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley investment guru who spoke at the Republican National Convention, has faced calls to oust him from the board of Facebook. The New York Times reported just yesterday, "The news last week that Mr. Thiel was giving $1.25 million to the Republicans' campaign is provoking outrage, and tech executives who work with the billionaire investors are being forced to explain why they plan to continue to do business with him." To his credit, Mark Zuckerberg, who is a hardcore Democrat, defended Thiel. The right has been using its market power to fight the left by turning off the TV with regard to the NFL. Conservatives can do this more broadly and more specifically by using harsh tactics. It's harsh, and nasty, but necessary in a world built by the left and rigged to the detriment of those who disagree. The Democrats are toast, and the only thing left can do is to make the pain of mutually assured destruction feel the full force of it. Ben Shapiro's take on the Left's assault on the Trump administration. Ben Shapiro is a writer, editor, and regular contributor to the Daily Wire. His articles can be found at The Daily Wire, and he is a regular contributor at The Weekly Standard. His work is widely syndicated in The Hill, The Financial Times, The Huffington Post, and The Globe and Mail, and is widely read by conservative critics everywhere. His latest book, The Daily Beast. His new book is out now. His newest novel is out in paperback, The Devil Next Door, which is out on Amazon, The Dark Side of the Internet, is out! Click here to buy a copy of The Devil's Playbook. If you're interested in investing in precious metals? Then you can get a free 16-page guide that tells you how you can protect your retirement account, 401k, savings account and savings account, and invest in a portfolio of precious metals like Bitcoin, Treasuries, silver, and precious metals, among other precious metals. You won't have to pay any taxes on your savings account. You'll get access to all the info you need to keep up to keep track of your account and access all of that! The world's best investment options, plus access to everything else!
00:00:00.000The left's censorship of conservatives has now kicked into high gear.
00:00:03.000Google has placed at least 21 videos from Prager University, an educational non-profit designed to tell young people about conservative issues of interest, in restricted mode, preventing young people from seeing them.
00:00:13.000Google admitted that they, quote, take into consideration what the intent of the video is, meaning they're happy to shut down anyone who presents political positions they just don't like.
00:00:23.000Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley investment guru who spoke at the RNC, has faced serious backlash.
00:00:28.000Calls to oust him from the board of Facebook have grown over the past few weeks.
00:00:31.000The New York Times reported just yesterday, quote, The news last week that Mr. Thiel was giving $1.25 million to the Republicans' campaign is provoking outrage, and tech executives who work with the billionaire investors are being forced to explain why they plan to continue to do business with him, unquote.
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00:03:53.000We begin today with the collapse of Obamacare.
00:03:57.000So the Democrats, the craziness surrounding Trump-Clinton has overshadowed everything in the world.
00:04:02.000But the Democrats are truly collapsing.
00:04:09.000Now the Democrats are panicking a little bit because they realize there's a backlash and Obamacare isn't popular.
00:04:15.000But Obamacare was always designed to do this.
00:04:17.000See, the regime of Obamacare was the idea that we were going to fine basically young, healthy people into buying insurance, and they'd pay really, really expensive insurance that they don't need in order to redistribute that insurance coverage to old people who are already sick and have pre-existing conditions.
00:04:32.000That was the basic notion behind Obamacare, that young people who are earning an income were going to pay for older people and poorer people.
00:04:41.000And Medicaid was going to be expanded in the states.
00:04:43.000The federal government would pick up a lot of the requirements at the beginning, but sooner or later the states would take over this expanded Medicaid burden so that poor people could join Medicaid for free, and that would count as Obamacare.
00:04:56.000Well, a lot of the states said, we're not expanding Medicaid, you can't force us to do that, and we're not going to do that, and you can all go stick it.
00:05:03.000What that's meant is skyrocketing premiums for young people, skyrocketing premiums for a lot of people who want a better plan because their doctor's no longer covered under the new Obamacare plans.
00:05:12.000It's meant that a lot of services are covered now that don't have to be.
00:05:15.000Like, for example, I believe that under the new Obamacare rules, every person is eligible to receive a breast pump.
00:05:20.000Which works great for my wife since she's nursing.
00:05:22.000It doesn't work as well for me since I'm not.
00:05:24.000But Obamacare is filled with these kind of stupidities.
00:05:27.000The idea was that they were going to destroy the insurance industry where it stands.
00:05:32.000So they get the insurance industry on board.
00:05:34.000The insurance industry says Obamacare is wondrous.
00:05:39.000They'd have to raise the rates because it turns out that you can't keep the rates low while you're paying for people with pre-existing conditions.
00:05:45.000And then the next step would be, OK, we need a government option.
00:05:47.000Well, now we're reaching the point where people on the left are saying, now we get to go to the inevitable next step.
00:05:52.000It's government option time because obviously the insurance markets can't keep up with all these new requirements we've put on them because they're evil and greedy.
00:05:59.000Not because the requirements are stupid, but because they're evil and greedy.
00:06:03.000So now Obama's trying to make that case, and he accidentally makes the worst case for Obamacare in history.
00:06:09.000When one of these companies comes out with a new smartphone and it has a few bugs, what do they do?
00:06:38.000What he's saying, he just compared Obamacare to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which has been exploding, literally melting down and bursting into flames.
00:06:54.000What he's actually arguing for, however, is that we should all, instead of worrying about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, we should stick it up to our face, burn off our skin, and then we should replace it with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, government-sponsored edition.
00:07:07.000Look, there's nothing worth defending in Obamacare.
00:07:11.000And now it's failing because Obama wanted it to fail, and he's embarrassed by it, so he's going to try and blame it on somebody else.
00:07:16.000Hillary Clinton is having trouble, too.
00:07:18.000Yesterday, she was at a press conference, or she was at some sort of event, and one of the reporters asked her about James O'Keefe and these allegations.
00:07:25.000That people were in her employ, were attempting to create violence at Trump rallies, and were participating in voter fraud.
00:07:33.000The guy standing behind her, by the way, is John Podesta, alpha male John Podesta.
00:07:38.000Here's Hillary Clinton, dressed in Christian Bale's outfit from Equilibrium.
00:07:42.000And here she's asked a tough question.
00:08:01.000And then Hillary tries to run off the plane while it's in the middle of a flight.
00:08:04.000So, I mean, they're all running from this.
00:08:07.000Now, to be fair, Trump is also running from questions.
00:08:10.000He was asked yesterday by a reporter, not about specific allegations, but about the idea that he's a sexist and a racist, and here's how Trump treated it.
00:08:26.000But in any case, Trump ran from some questions as well.
00:08:29.000All this was prelude to the Al Smith dinner.
00:08:32.000So, the Al Smith dinner is this routine they have in New York City every, I think they have it every year, I would assume, but every four years is when it gets publicized because the presidential nominees show up
00:08:59.000And demonstrating that there is a super elite in our country who hobnob with each other.
00:09:03.000You sort of get the same feeling from the Al Smith dinner, but at least they were attempting to raise money for charity.
00:09:08.000Normally at the Al Smith dinner, the idea is that the two candidates get up and they sort of softly rib each other while making self-deprecating jokes, right?
00:09:14.000It's supposed to be kind of a, yes, we're getting near the election, but we're all Americans and we can all laugh at ourselves and isn't this fun, right?
00:09:21.000It's sort of a respite from the normal political rigmarole.
00:09:25.000And in past days, it's easier to have good feelings about people on the other side when you feel like you have something in common with them.
00:09:31.000The reason that we watch comedies in theaters and you don't watch comedy movies alone is because when everybody is laughing, it creates a feeling of community.
00:09:38.000It's very hard to do comedy in a place where there's no feeling of community.
00:09:42.000Okay, so at the Al Smith dinner last night, after having destroyed the electoral cycle, and politics generally, and decency, and truth, and hope, Hillary and Trump turned to destroying comedy.
00:09:56.000And then they take it out back and shoot it like Old Yeller.
00:09:58.000So, Donald Trump starts off, and he starts off with some jokes that are sort of self-deprecating, nothing really strict.
00:10:06.000And as you'll see, you know what, let's call it Good Trump, Bad Trump, because this is Good Trump, Bad Trump, if we've got the theme.
00:10:17.000Oh yeah, everybody's excited about Good Trump, Bad Trump.
00:11:53.000You know, they say when you do this kind of an event, you always start out with a self-deprecating joke.
00:12:03.000Some people think this would be tough for me, but the truth is —
00:12:13.000Okay, this is the part of the event that I hate, is when we all pretend to like each other.
00:12:16.000But in any case, he does this routine, he says that, and you can see it's already getting awkward, right?
00:12:21.000It's starting to get awkward because people know that there's a lot of truth to what he's saying.
00:12:24.000They used to treat him nicely until he disagreed with them politically, and then they decided he was scum of the earth.
00:12:29.000And he continues to tell some funny jokes, and then the worm turns.
00:12:33.000There are a few more here that are sort of funny, self-deprecating, okay.
00:12:37.000And we'll continue with the good Trump, because some of these are pretty decent zingers.
00:12:43.000And even tonight, with all of the heated back and forth between my opponent and me at the debate last night, we have proven that we can actually be civil to each other.
00:13:00.000In fact, just before taking the dais, Hillary accidentally bumped into me, and she very civilly said, pardon me.
00:13:27.000And I very politely replied, let me talk to you about that after I get into office.
00:13:37.000Okay, so he continues along these lines, and he rips into the media.
00:13:43.000And again, all of this is fine and dandy.
00:13:48.000The best joke that he told of the night was the one about Melania Trump, if we can go to that one.
00:13:52.000So we'll skip one and go to the Melania Trump one.
00:17:43.000And all of the jokes were given to her in advance of the dinner by Donna Brazile, which is... Everyone knows, of course, Hillary's belief that it takes a village, which only makes sense, after all, in places like Haiti, where she's taken a number of them.
00:19:58.000But her jokes are a lot friendlier than Trump's at the beginning, and then she ratchets them up.
00:20:01.000So we'll play a few more of the friendly jokes, to be fair to Hillary Clinton, which is something that I don't know why we bother to do, but we do.
00:20:07.000And here she is kind of telling her more cutesy jokes.
00:20:11.000Now, I've got to say, there are a lot of friendly faces here in this room, people that I've been privileged to know and to work with.
00:20:19.000I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables.
00:20:24.000And you look so good in your tuxes, or as I refer to them, formal pantsuits.
00:20:34.000So she did a better job in her speech than he did of mixing it up.
00:20:38.000So Trump's first half of his routine here was all Trump just telling self-deprecating jokes.
00:20:43.000And the second half of the routine was, I'm going to take Hillary Clinton out into the woods somewhere and hit her with the blunt side of the axe.
00:20:50.000And then Hillary's was like, OK, I'm going to shiv you, and then I'm going to pat you on the back.
00:20:54.000And I'm going to shiv you, and then I'm going to pat you on the back.
00:20:55.000So there's sort of a more back and forth to her speech.
00:21:00.000She, uh, here's where she finally goes on attack against Donald Trump.
00:21:04.000And, you know, because this is a friendly dinner for such a great cause, Donald, if at any time you don't like what I'm saying, feel free to stand up and shout wrong while I'm talking.
00:21:16.000You know, come to think of it, it's amazing I'm up here after Donald.
00:21:24.000I didn't think he'd be okay with a peaceful transition of power.
00:21:29.000And that gets a big laugh because of course Trump has been making a big deal out of the rigged and the rigged and the rigged.
00:21:34.000And she makes another joke about that and then she gets to a Statue of Liberty joke.
00:21:37.000So skip one and she gets to the Statue of Liberty joke.
00:21:41.000People look at the Statue of Liberty and they see a proud symbol of our history as a nation of immigrants, a beacon of hope for people around the world.
00:21:54.000Donald looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a four.
00:22:03.000Maybe a five if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair.
00:22:09.000And you have the woman in the background explaining to Baldy over here what that meant.
00:22:16.000The idea of Donald Trump raiding the sexuality of the Statue of Liberty.
00:22:20.000And she went after Trump a lot harder.
00:22:22.000She started talking about the teleprompter and she really hit him hard for his warmth toward Vladimir Putin.
00:22:29.000Now, you notice there is no teleprompter here tonight, which is probably smart because maybe you saw Donald dismantle his prompter the other day.
00:23:08.000We've got the Honorable Chuck Schumer, the Honorable Andrew Cuomo, the Honorable Mike Bloomberg, the Honorable Bill de Blasio, the Honorable David Dinkins, and so many other
00:23:24.000Now, many don't know this, but Rudy actually got his start as a prosecutor, going after wealthy New Yorkers who avoided paying taxes.
00:23:37.000But as the saying goes, if you can't beat him, go on Fox News and call him a genius.
00:23:43.000Okay, I mean, this is vicious stuff, and it gets even more vicious.
00:23:46.000She really goes hard after Donald Trump, and the reason I'm taking time with this, folks, is because, number one, it's revealing about how our political discourse has just become utterly untenable.
00:23:55.000I mean, there's nothing funny about a lot of this.
00:23:58.000It's just turned into insult comic roasts that are bad.
00:25:18.000So, here's the reaction from the media.
00:25:20.000Okay, so what you saw here is that Trump went after Hillary, and it got very ugly, and you see Hillary goes after Trump in much the same way, and here's the way the media responds.
00:25:28.000So, CNN panel, as you can imagine, not
00:25:52.000These two, I agree with everything that has been said before me, that Hillary Clinton was more in the spirit of the event, beat up herself a little bit first, in a funny way, and it gave her a license, but let's be honest, if we went back and compared this to the last few cycles, these two don't like each other.
00:26:07.000And at the beginning of Donald Trump's speech, he didn't even acknowledge that Hillary Clinton was there.
00:26:14.000Yeah, the other part of this that I think distinguishes the two is that at the end, she had this statement that was about unity and about respect.
00:26:51.000Donald had some very solid minutes early on, and eventually he crossed the line and took it a little too far.
00:26:59.000Hillary, you know, on the other hand, was able to laugh at herself and at the same time not underplay any of the serious things that Donald Trump has said or done.
00:27:14.000OK, so, again, they're all going to make the case that Trump is some sort of outlier here, that Hillary's glorious.
00:27:20.000They're two sides of the same coin, and that's really what we saw last night.
00:27:23.000OK, it's going to be a little bit of a short show because of the technical difficulties today, but let's do some things I like, and then some things I hate, and then a little bit of mailbag.
00:27:41.000has ever been put out is The Long Halloween, written by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale.
00:27:47.000Jeff Loeb is the creative director on Daredevil.
00:27:51.000The Long Halloween is the best Batman comic.
00:27:53.000It doesn't, you know, kind of stray into the magical territory that a lot of Batman comics tend to do with the aliens and the superpowers and this kind of stuff.
00:28:01.000It's much more about Batman as the detective.
00:28:10.000The long Halloween Batman graphic novel.
00:28:14.000Okay, let's do at least one thing I hate.
00:28:21.000So, today's thing I hate, since we have to cut it short, I had so many things I hated today, but unfortunately, it starts with the technical problems on the show.
00:30:25.000The Cubs beat the Dodgers last night to my everlasting regret and shame since I'm a White Sox fan.
00:30:29.000Okay, but this idea that never Trump is to blame because these people, the three on this screen, helped push Trump to victory in the primaries and then he imploded during the general election and we said we're not part of this because he doesn't meet our basic moral criteria is asinine.
00:31:02.000And one of the reasons I would never vote for Hillary Clinton is specifically because of her stance on abortion.
00:31:06.000If we're going to talk about abortion politics, let's be real about something.
00:31:10.000Donald Trump was never and is never going to appoint justices who overturn Roe v. Wade.
00:31:15.000Donald Trump is not and never was going to fight very hard against Planned Parenthood since he's not made that a priority and said so in the primaries.
00:31:21.000Donald Trump's pro-life position is extraordinarily weak.
00:31:26.000Right now, abortion law is relatively set because Congress is in the hands of Republicans.
00:31:31.000Hopefully it stays in the hands of Republicans.
00:31:33.000But the idea that Donald Trump was the great God-King-Savior when it came to abortion is ridiculous.
00:31:37.000And the people who foisted the pro-choice-until-five-seconds-ago Trump on us in the primaries and then insist that we jump on the bandwagon or we're on the side of abortion.
00:31:49.000You don't get to play this game where you stick us with a turd sandwich and then you suggest that if we don't take a bite, it's our fault if the turd sandwich doesn't become president.
00:31:58.000Maybe you shouldn't have cooked it, Laura.
00:32:02.000And, you know, I don't blame people for voting Trump to stop Hillary.
00:32:06.000I don't blame people at all for doing that.
00:32:08.000I consider whether I ought to do that every morning and every evening.
00:32:10.000I mean, I spend a lot of my day trying to decide what I'm going to do in this election.
00:32:15.000And I'm somebody who's, you know, considered never Trump because I say that I'm not going to vote for Trump.
00:32:19.000You know, every day I have to consider whether that's right, true, and good.
00:32:22.000And I think the good people have to consider that about their vote for Trump.
00:32:26.000But to say that it's just as simple as, you know, putting a—going out there and openly siding with a guy who is smearing the conservative brand for every growing demographic in America, simply to lose by 10.
00:32:40.000And if you don't do that, then you must be in favor of killing babies on the day that they're supposed to be born.
00:32:45.000It's just, it's pathetic, and it's not true, and it's an insult to morality, and Laura Ingraham knows better, but since she's a demagogue, she really doesn't give a crap.
00:32:55.000Kevin, we were doing a little mailbag extra because we had to cut it short yesterday, and Kevin writes, Hey Ben, not a stoner or a pothead, but out of curiosity, what's your take on marijuana legalization?
00:33:04.000I'm in favor of marijuana legalization.
00:33:06.000I have been in favor of marijuana legalization for a long time.
00:33:08.000That's not because I'm in favor of marijuana use.
00:33:11.000I think people who smoke marijuana are generally annoying.
00:33:14.000I went to school with a lot of them when I was in college, when I was in high school, and I find them really annoying.
00:33:19.000If it were up to me and I were a fascist dictator, then I would make it illegal.
00:33:29.000We already have laws against you driving while being drunk.
00:33:31.000We already have laws against you mistreating other people.
00:33:33.000And it seems to me that the federal government and state governments suck royally when it comes to policing generally.
00:33:40.000And so the idea that they're going to do a good job when it comes to policing marijuana, I just don't see the evidence of that.
00:33:44.000When I was in junior high, it was much easier for a 7th grader to get pot than to get a can of beer.
00:33:49.000Maybe if you regularize it and make it part of the taxable system and make people show ID to get it, you'll actually have a better shot of preventing children from getting it.
00:33:56.000Adam writes, Dear Ben, if Ken Bone and Harambe were each running for president, who would you vote for?