This wont get her in trouble, but it is because of her and two other republican senators that his first congressional session was remarkably historic. He wanted to do more. This good woman presiding over the senate said no. Enough is enough. And we had to retract some of the things we wanted to do. It was hard. But i do say this. It would not have happened but for the presiding officer. President saved the country from economic collapse, ushering in a new era of growth. In 2010, the economic recovery has added more than 16 million private sector jobs. Median housetold incomes have risen. And in some states, like the state of nevada, more than 14 . President obama brought to the Auto Manufacturing Companies that from collapse with unique programs, cash for conquerors. More than 800,000 new manufacturing jobs since 2010. The Auto Industry has added more 2000700,000 jobs since nine. Domestic production of automobiles and doubled from below 6 Million Units per year before, 12the year million. President obama brought health care to tens of millions of americans through the a formal care act. And every day, we have learned how important this bill has been. We heard from a very conservative American Hospital association today that doing it away with obamacare would bankrupt hospital industry. We would lose over the next few billion. Ost 200 the Affordable Care act, 21 more million american destiny one million more americans now have a formal health care. 92 of americans now have coverage. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage or charge more to cover people with preexisting conditions. And how many of us have gone out to our home states and seen people with tears in their eyes saying, debbie has been a sixyearold girl with diabetes. After the first time in her life, she can have insurance, health insurance. Insurance companies cant discriminate anymore against anyone because of their gender. All women were discriminated against before. Every american with insurance has access to Preventive Care without costsharing. That means no copays for , cancertions screenings, contraceptive coverage for women, diabetes cholesterolnd tests. His administration established a new watchdog to protect consumers from unfair financial practices. Thatgned legislation law homeowners from mortgage fraud. President obama took more action [indiscernible] with some native alaskans. It was scary to talk to this woman, a native alaskan, her town of 800 having trouble getting in and out of town. She told me the animals are confused because the seasons are changing. The caribou have traveled for 20,000 years. 3000 miles, they migrate every year. They walk in single file, not a large herds jammed together. She said they are having such difficulty. These to be of able to walk over the ice. They cant. There is no ice. They have to try to swim. Largestt obama made the investment ever in renewable energy, tripled when the power, increased solar power by 30 times, creating more than 200,000 jobs in solar alone. With hundreds of thousand more jobs the next few years. Created morema than 260 acres of public lands and waters. That includes, madam president , more than 700,000 acres in nevada with one order that he signed called the basin basin arrangement national monument. And, madam president , hopefully, someday you and every senator can go to this magnificent thing in the middle of the desert that has taken 40 years to build. One man has done it. Famous artist by the name of Michael Heiser called the city stunning. And when i talk about 40 years, it was not that he worked on weekends. Weekends, over time, large contingencies of people he directed to this magnificent thing in the middle of the desert is now protected forever. President obama and the first our Michelle Obama made nation show than a top priority. In 2010, president obama signed a bill into law to fight child hunger and improve school meals, ensures School Children receive food for healthy, successful futures. Our Nations High School graduate rate is the highest in the history of our country. He reformed the federal Student Loans program, made Student Loan Repayment more affordable and expanded loan for greater than publiciveness for service. Nearly 800,000 young people out of the shadows. President obama made our country more inclusive. He signed the repeal of dont ask dont tell. He signed orders to protect algae bt workers. Americans are now lgbt workers. Americans are now able to marry the person they love. What a record. It is a legacy of which he should be satisfied. America is better because of this good man eight years in the white house. Im more impressed by who use as a person than who he is as president. He is a man of Honesty Integrity and honesty. Ive never heard barack obama denigrate anyone ever. There been times when he could have. Negative thought a should have been said and i suggested that to him. But he would never take it. He wouldnt do that. Thats barack obama. And above all, i admire the attention he has given his family. He may be president of the United States, nothing gets in the way of his family. He arrives home for dinner with his family virtually every night he is in washington. He goes to their plays and games here and president or not, he is a husband and a father. His devotion extends to his staff as well. He has had a terrific staff working for him. I cant mention all of them, but i will mention dennis mcdonough. The have a close relationship. Close relationships come with a. Ot of difficulties sometimes its been tough what we try to work through together. Some of the nicest people i have ever known. Staff as senator and chief advisor when he was in the white house. Rahm emanuel, now mayor of illinois, former chief of staff, current mayor of chicago, a man known for his bluntness and his productivity as a member of congress and as chief of staff. Monaco, the video. I hope i had something to do with the romance that wound up her marrying my chief of staff. They are all wonderful people. And then there is president obamas cabinet, a cabinet of quality. Friendsudes my secretary of interior ken salazar come a wonderful man and a terrific public servant, a man of substance. For eight years leading our country, president obama is leaving office at a high point. When he first talk when he first of office, our country was hemorrhaging jobs. Now comes the longest streak of privatesector job growth ever. We have the lowest Unemployment Rate in a decade. Are on a sustainable path to fight Climate Change and grow renewable energy. And more respect around the world. We reached International Agreements to stop, change. And on a path of minimizing normalizing relations with our neighbor cuba. Theres no doubt that the United States is better now than we were eight years ago and we have barack obama to thank for that. Take you, president obama, for being the person that you are. On newsmakers, john yarmouth, the incoming Ranking Member of the Budget Committee talks about the future of the federal budget under a Republican Congress and a republican president and efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care act. Clockkers today attend a a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. At 10 00kers today a. M. And six apart p. M. Eastern on cspan. When you work on a project, you look is you achieved your efforts. Politics aside, morality aside, what happens after the party is over . What are the aftereffects of war . And what are the human and financial costs on both sides . Sunday night on q and a, brian gruber discusses his latest book war, the after party, a global walkabout through a half century of u. S. Military intervention. It chronicles his travel experiences to countries impacted by u. S. Involved conflicts. I went to all of these places with an open mind come again, trying not to much to understand what a partisan point of view might be or be validated, but to look at was the Mission Accomplished and what were the costs on both ends of the gunbarrel . Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Now, the cato industry to discussion on the future of freedom of speech and the freedom of the press in politics. This is one hour and a half. Kat hello. Good evening everyone. Thanks for coming out to the Cato Institute in washington, d. C. My name is kat murti. Im cato digital out reach manager. You are at cato digital. An ongoing series on the hashtag for tonight is as always catodigital. To use ityou all liberally on twitter and instagram and share your thoughts, reflections, favorite tonight. Om the panel those of you who are watching on cspan or one of our online channels can also use it to feed in questions, which i will be looking for on my found throughout the panel. The freedom of speech and the freedom of press are at the core of a free society. Unfortunately, we are increasingly discovering that far too many people might say that they support them, when a they donten safeguard any of the above. On the campaign trail, we saw both from Hillary Clinton and donald trump calls to close sections of the internet in order to combat isis and support for bans on flag, a constitutionally protected right. Last week even, donald trump dislike ofn on his flag burners with an incendiary tweet calling for all americans who would burn the flag to lose their citizenship. For toughercalled libel laws that would crack down on Media Companies that publish embarrassing or unflattering information about individuals and has said that the freedom of the press gets in the way of the war on terror. Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, we saw students calling the police to report hate speech because of seeing trump 2016 written in chalk on their campuses. We saw employees of Facebook Zuckerberg tork ban donald trump. Post 2016 elections, pundits on both the left and the right blame social media for the increasing polarization of the voting public and both google and facebook have announced initiatives to crack down on fake news on their websites, despite controversy over what that fake news actually is. Our guests tonight are two fight for freee speech and the freedom of the press and we are lucky to have them here tonight. The 2016 winner of the Milton Friedman award for advancing liberty. He is also an avid scholar here at the Cato Institute. And he is the author of the tyranny of silence. Is now in paperback. Those of you who are here in the audience will get an opportunity to have a copy signed after this presentation. Most of you probably know nick gillespie. He is editor and chief of reason. Com. Fleming, your life changed german medical he in 2005. Can you tell us why . Fleming it was the day that the of the Prophet Muhammad were published. Nothing happened right away on the day of the publication. Call from one phone the newspaper for someone who had been at the mosque and complained and said he would not sell the newspaper anymore. You get those calls every now and then. It took a while until i understood that this may change my life. Kat why did you publish those cartoons . Fleming the cartoons did not come out of the blue. It was published as part of a debate about censorship and violence regarding islam in denmark and europe. Cases one several selfcensorship. A dutch filmmaker was being kill in amsterdam in 2004. There were other cases. There was this debate, is there selfcensorship or not . Or is it based in the imagination of those who sensor themselves. To find out, i invited cartoonists in den mark to draw the prophet as they see them. I received some from 25 active members of the association of of cartoonists. Kat some of those people did express they would want to publish anonymously. Fleming well, yes. One of the reasons why we published was that it always started with a Childrens Book about the life of the prophet and the illustrate or who did those illustrations insisted on anonymity which is a form of your own name under fears for the consequences. Nick its the case that mo hammad, a dominant train of thought that you should not figure the prophet, correct . Famous there is a very artican scholar of islamic who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. He said afterwards that there is no basis in the current tasks texts for banning images of the prophet. You had images of the prophet. But recently thats true its been banned. But you have throughout islamic history, you have you see them in copenhagen where you in fact have a 13th century image of the prophet. So its not true that, you know, that its an eternal taboo. , if you go into a mosque if you go to a church, you will not see images. Nick this is a good reason to avoid both, right . Keep your weekends free. Kat there was a violent reaction after these cartoons came out. Multiple embassies around the world were set on fire. I think over 139 people were killed in protests. Do you regret publishing the cartoons . Fleming no, i dont regret publishing these cartoons. I mean, they were in line with my fundamental approach to journalism. It says that if there is if you hear about a story, if you hear about an issue, you want to find out if its true or not. Right . Thats what you do as a journalist. We just chose an untraditionalal way. Instead of just asking people, we invited people working with images as their medium to show in practice what how they view this issue. But of course i dont believe that a cartoon is worth a single human life. The challenge for any editor and journalist is what do you do when there are people out there who believe that its okay to kill because of a cartoon. Kat but you yourself would put on al qaedas hit list alongside the now late editor, and your own newspaper, despite supporting you publicly, did give you very restrictive list of rules on how you were allowed to engage zblchlt quite. Flemming quite late in the game in 2011 after i published this book in denmark in 2010. It was in a situation of emergency i would say. I mean, there were between five and ten foiled attacks or plans to attack the newspaper. So it was a very unusual situation. Thats why i accepted, you know, this in 2011. But a year later when i was told this will be in effect as long as youre employed by this company. I was not allowed to speak and write about religious issues. I was not allowed to speak and write about the cartoon crisis. I was not allowed to speak and write about the organization of islamic conference or collaboration, international organization. I said, you know, i disagree strongly and i will take the consequences if i am not able to live with this at some point. Kat it was emblem attic of the it was emblematic of the same chilling of speech. Flemming it was a huge victory for the jihadists. Im not on speaking terms with, you know, colleagues and friends whom ive known for 25 years. The top management at the newspaper, they tried to silence me. In the end, i broke with them and i left the newspaper. We dont talk anymore. Simon, friendships were ruined. Fundamental journalistic principles were violated. Thats a huge victory for the jihadist the toe or the historian a few years ago. Kat nick, in 2015, you faced similar pressure to value security over liberty. Nivkz yeah. Let me just thank you for having me and its a real honor and a privilege for me to be on a stage with somebody like flemming who is and i hope you all appreciate both what he said when he said no cartoon is worth a human life. As somebody who reads editorial cartoons almost everybody day and even publishes them on a weekly basis, i agree with him completely and also the principles for which he really made a bold statement is really just fantastic. I would like to give him a round of applause for standing up for that. [applause] as cat was saying, as a bed rock principle of a free society of an open society, of a truly liberal society, free speech, free expression, i think Free Assembly as well, these are all inter intertwined. They are really at the core. I say that as a bit of a precedent preface to say i feel bad to be on the same stage as somebody whos in the name of a foundational civilizational value, i publish a bunch of cartoons and then inseason insane then jihadists who purport the group they represent, tried to kill me and people around the globe and caused all kinds of mayhem. My contribution to free speech is much smaller. It may be more common for more of you. Essentially last year, if all of you know or have heard of the silk road website, which was a dark web or deep website, where people could buy and sell anything they wanted basically using bit coin. They were anonymous users. It was used to traffic in a lot of drugs. The person who is ultimately convicted of founding and running the site, he went on a long trial. He essentially got a life sentence which hes appealing now from a judge in new york. Kat with no chance of parole. Nick thats right. Hes, you know, hes going to be locked up for the rest of his life almost certainly. He is appealing it. But when the he when the judge handed down her sentence, katherine forest, the judge in the Southern District of the federal court of new york, she himt a long time haranguing about his libertarian believes and who did he think he was that people should be able to come and freely trade whatever they wanted, what kind of bastard are you . Im exaggerating a little bit. I wrote up a post about the outcome outcome of the trial which i think was wrong and the judge went off on a tangent. She wasnt talking about the law. She was mad that this guy would have done this. And then in response to that a couple of our commenters, we have an unmoderated Comment Section. Its increasingly rare to have any comments on websites for reasons that i think will become clear over the conversation tonight. But a couple of them made literally six people made comments that were making fun of the judge, a couple made jokes that were threats based on fargo, the movie fargo. Theres a