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And again, thank you so much for your support. I
often say that if you don't understand the outcome, reassess
your assumptions, right, and so my assumption for a long
time was that the people who are anchors, particularly at
the major networks, that that they are trying to do
a good job, and they're you know, they're they're trying
to pursue stories, and you know they're they're trying to
bring light to certain things. Yes, they have bias, But
now I'm forced to reassess that assumption, specifically with Margaret
Brennan from Cbsnews dot com or not dot com. Well,
I guess they'll probably just be a dot com at
some point, But yeah, I assume that you get to
the top anchor chair at one of the big three.
You know, ABC, CBS and NBC that that you're there for.
You know the reasons I outlined, rather than to just
get posterized by every Republican that comes on your show.
And apparently I was mistaken. This is what Margaret Brennan
chooses to be. She wants to be a meme for
the right. That's the only Like, I cannot explain how
somebody can keep doing the things that she's doing repeated
over and over again, unless, of course she's just stupid.
And like, I'm trying not to make that assumption, but
I will go back and reassess my assumptions if this persists.
But right now I'm going with the she intentionally is
trying to get clicks or something, so she wants to
be I say, posterized. You know what that means. Posterized
means it's like you've seen the famous pictures of basketball
players when they dunk the ball and there's always like
some defender underneath them that's just getting worked, you know,
like somebody somebody's there to defend the goal and a
basketball player comes along and just dunk so on top
of them, and that guy underneath is like cringing and
recoiling and somebody's like, eh, jamming the ball, and it's
just it's like, oh, you got postterized, because then they
take that picture and they turn it into the poster
for the guy who's doing the dunking. Right, So it
seems like Margaret Brennan is simply interested in being the
person getting dunked on all the time, because man, she's
been getting dunked on a lot over the last bi
like what well since November, because Margaret Brennan, you'll recall,
she was one of the moderators at the vice presidential debate.
She cut off JD. Vance's microphone during that debate when
he was fact checking. He was correcting something that either
she or Walls had said, I forget and she didn't
want to hear it, so she cuts them off and
then that launches all of these dunks on her. So
over the weekend after JD. Vance does the speech in Europe,
and I covered all of that in the first two
hours of the program. If you didn't listen, go back
at the podcast thepepod dot com. Go back and get
the podcast and listen to the highlights of his speech
where he's basically saying just essentially, like you're elected to
represent your citizens, you should not be censoring them because
the things that they want or the things they are
saying is of a different opinion than you shouldn't be
trying to clamp down on them because like, for example,
they want to limit migration into their country and you
censoring that speech. Or I got a message here also
from Chris, because one of the other examples jd Vance
mentioned was the free access zones and the praying in
the privacy of your own house in a free access
zone could get you in legal trouble. And so Chris
wants to know, do you happen to know why Scotland
made such a draconian law as to punish somebody for
engaging in silent prayer even in the privacy of their
own home. So the free access zone is around abortion clinics.
So imagine, if you will, you live in a house
and then right across the street opens up an abortion clinic,
and then they map out an area around the abortion
clinic to be a quote free action excess zone, and
so you are now banned from praying silently in that zone.
And so as a form of protest of abortion right, well,
if I'm living in this house and you move in
across the street from me, and now I find myself
in a free access zone. You're saying, now I can
no longer pray privately in my own home against abortion.
First off, again, how would you even know that, unless,
of course, there's somebody in your family that's pro abortion,
and they rat you out because they know your anti abortion,
So they rat you out, your roommate teenager because man teenagers,
but like they would rat you out. And again, this
is one of the hallmarks of every authoritarian society. Family
members and neighbors reporting each other to the Stazi, to
the secret police. That's where all of the tips came from,
well the vast majority of them. It's one of the
dirty secrets about these authoritarian regimes. So after Vance made
his speech, then you get the German defense minister Boris
Pistorius gets up there and he's like, we have to
defend democracy. You know, we let everybody speak, which isn't true.
You don't you employ social media censorship tools to prevent
people from speaking, because you don't allow them to say
things that you think are you know, destructive to the democracy.
So then against this backdrop you've got CBS News Margaret Brennan.
Over the weekend, she has on the program for an
interview Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, and she makes an argument.
I must admit I had never heard this argument before
she articulated it, but then I went and looked into it.
But here's here's the argument she advances to Marco Rubio.
Speaker 3: Well, he was standing in a country where free speech
was weaponized to took a genocide, and he met with
the head of a political party that has far right
views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context
of that was changing the tone of it. And you
know that that the censorship.
Speaker 4: Disagree with you specifically about the right. Now I have
to disagree with you. The free speech was not used
to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an
authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because
they hated Jews, and they hated minorities, and they hated
those that they had a list of people they hated,
but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in
Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition
in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party
that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection
of history.
Speaker 2: Correct. I never heard this argument that free speech led
to the Nazis? Did you ever have you ever heard this?
Apparently this is making the rounds on the left that yeah,
I looked in to it over the last twenty four
hours and sure enough, this is what the leftists are saying.
And that's why Margaret Brennan advanced it, is that somewhere
somebody sent out the talking points that.
Speaker 1: Actually the free speech allowed the Nazis to occur, and
it's not true, much like the you know, the Second Amendment,
or i should say gun ownership issues in Germany, same
sort of, same sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Like the left doesn't know these these historical points that
the right does because the right has had to argue
this stuff for dar near forty years. And on the well,
on the gun control issue, which is like you know,
the Weimar Republic that preceded the Nazis, they were the
ones that created the gun registration, they were the ones
that made the lists because they wanted to keep them
out of the hands of well Nazis, right, they were like, oh,
we don't want anybody having guns, so you know, let's
make some lists of who has all the guns. And
then of course the Nazis take over and they're like, oh,
look at these lists. These are very helpful. We are
going to go take all of these guns from people. Right,
same thing with the free speech issue. They believe that erroneously,
that everybody had free speech and that's why Hitler was
able to rise to power, when in fact the opposite
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memories that'll last a lifetime. Ceebs's Margaret Brennan. So she
makes this argument that, you know, the Nazis rose to
power because of free speech. Again, I had never heard
this dumbassory before, but I'd say, you know what I
got to take a look into it, is that even true.
I don't think it's true. But I kind of remember
something about Hitler being elected with not even a majority
of the votes because there were all these different parties
and people and whatever, and so like he got like
thirty something percent, and that's how he ended up getting
in and then you know him being an authoritarian dictator
like that's and then he went about, you know, murdering
a bunch of people anyway. So so I started looking
into this theory. And there's actually a name for this.
There's a name for what she espoused to Marco Rubio,
which is the Viymar fallacy, the Vymar fallacy. And we
have somebody who shall explain it for us. This is
Nadine Strassen. She is a senior fellow at fire dot
org and a former ACLU president.
Speaker 5: If Germany had only had anti hate speech laws and
had censored the Nazi speech, Hitler would not have risen
to power, the Holocaust would not have happened.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the theory. This is from fire.
Speaker 5: Some experts refer to that theory as the Weimar fallacy,
referring to the Weimar Republic from nineteen eighteen to nineteen
thirty three, and the word fallacy because it is in
fact not true that there was free speech for hate speech,
including Nazi speech, during the Weimar Republic. To the contrary,
Germany then had multiple laws that restricted hate speech, insulting speech,
speech that advocated or might incite violence against various groups,
including religious groups, laws against defaming or insulting a religion,
including the Jewish religion, and all of those laws were
very strictly enforced, including by the leading Jewish organization at
the time. There was a very large organization I think
is quite similar in concept to the Anti Defamation League
in the United States that had offices all over Germany
and made sure that all of these laws were regularly
enforced through both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits. And many
of the leading Nazis were repeatedly prosecuted and convicted and
even served prison times. There were court orders suppressing the
publication of various Nazi newspapers. Pamphlets that were anti Semitic
were punished and were suppressed. Hitler himself was actually banned
from public speaking for several years. We obviously know that
despite the speech suppression the punishment of speech, it was
hardly effective in preventing the rise of Nazism. To the contrary,
the Nazis themselves as well as many historians, believe that
the net impact of those laws censoring Nazis speech was
to amplify their message, to give them attention that they
otherwise would never have received and to gain sympathy that
they otherwise never would have received. This is a common
phenomenon that provocateurs to this day seek to take advantage
of the so called forbidden fruits phenomenon that people become
more interested in an idea or an expression when it
gets the publicity of being s to censorship.
Speaker 2: Well, now, Margaret Brennan is an idiot. Okay, no, she
could just be misinformed, but you would think before you
go into this line of questioning that you would ask
whether it's true or not right, or maybe she just
relied on like maybe she's a you know, Anchorman Ron
Burgundy kind of a character where he just puts something
in front of her and she reads it, and maybe
some producer, you know, all of twenty two years old,
saw it on a Reddit thread or something and they're like, oh, yeah,
this is it. Ask Rubio this. You know that's possible too,
But yeah, like I could see how that would backfire,
especially if you've got these Jewish organizations that are helping
to shut down your speech. You then use that to say,
see that the Jews control the media. The Jews won't
let me tell you how awful they are. Look at this,
they're throwing me in jail, right, So it's like the
opposite of what Brennan said to Rubio, And good for
Rubio for pushing back on her dumb assery. All right,
if you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
I know you do too, And you've probably heard me
say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because
it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and
it's a website and it combines news from around the
world in one place so you can compare coverage and
verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground,
dot news slash pete. I put the link in the
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few
months ago and more recently chose to work with them
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and
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only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News
as they make the media landscape more transparent. All right,
so we have established that CBS's Maggie or Margaret Brennan
might be an idiot, but also she was wrong that
Hitler did not rise to power because of free speech.
In fact, there were all sorts of restrictions on free
speech in the Weimar Republic and that was actually helpful
to the Nazis because they got to play victim. You know,
they're being oppressed and suppressed and they won't let you
know the truth and all of that stuff. So that's
the first thing that's CBS News. And then last night
CBS runs their sixty minutes magazine program. Does anybody even
watch it? The only time I ever see anything from
that show is when people are pulling clips to talk
about how stupid they are, or if it happens to
come on because I haven't changed the station after an
NFL show or a game, right if I'm watching the
Panthers and then like you know, usually they're they've lost,
and I'm you know, I walk away at some point
usually you know, around the third quarter, and and then
I come back in it's like, oh man, what is
this sixty minutes that you know? And then I turn
it off last night sixty minutes and I have the
story right here. The headline is Germany is prosecuting online trolls,
which that to any legitimate media outfit that values freedom
of speech and the free press, that should automatically give
you pause. That should be sort of the the bright
red warning sign that something has gone awry in Germany. Right,
They're prosecuting online trolls, and it says here's how the
country is fighting hate speech on the internet. Spoiler alert.
It's not just quote hate speech, it's name calling too.
So if you call I learned a word by the way,
I learned a word. Umm, I don't want to mispronounce
it because it's a oh yeah, here we go. A
guy by the name of Groat, that's his name, and
somebody sent out a tweet and called they called him
a Pimmel PI M M E L Pimmel, and that
is a German word for the male anatomy. So Groat
got called a Pimmel and he was very mad. His
complaint triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship
by the government. Accusations, Yes, that's censorship. If I can't
call an elected official a pimol, I don't want to
live in that society. I don't even know, Like I
didn't even know what pimmel meant, you know, And it
like of all the things to call somebody, really like,
it's not even you're a pimll. It doesn't even land,
you know, it's it doesn't have any kind of you know.
And I want my insults to carry some weight. I
want the weight of the word to land to do
maximum amount of damage, right, and Pimble is just not
getting it done, okay, which would be a different kind
of problem. But anyway, here is a clip from this
sixty minutes program. I don't know, I think your name
is Ashley or something. The reporter you're gonna hear, and
she's interviewing these three German prosecutors, none of whom are
named Hitler, which was weird, but three prosecutors who are taught.
Listen to the way they talk about going after people
and the punishments that they are enforcing for simply saying
things online that are hurtful, that are offensive. You offended somebody.
Speaker 6: It's illegal to display Nazi symbolism, a swastika, deny the Holocaust.
That's that's clear. Is it a crime to insult somebody
in public? Yes, yes, and it's a crime to insult
them online as well.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 7: The fine could be even higher if you insult someone
in the Internet. Why because in Internet it stays there.
If we are talking at face to four, you insert
me and sold you, Okay, finish. But if you in
the internet, ifie and selled you or a politician, that sticks.
Speaker 8: Around forever, the prosecutors explain. German law also prohibits the
spread of malicious gossip, violent threats, and fake quotes. If
somebody posts something that's not true and then somebody else
reposts it or likes it, are they committing a crime?
Speaker 7: In the case of reposting it as a crime as well,
because the reader can't distinguished whether you just invented this
or just reposted it.
Speaker 2: That's the same for us.
Speaker 8: The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail
time for repeat offenders, but in most cases a judge
levey's a stiff mine and sometimes keeps their devices.
Speaker 6: How do people react when you take their phones from them,
they are shocked.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of punishment if you lose your smartphone.
It's even worse than the fine you have to pick use.
Your whole life is typically on your phone. Now you
can't access all your necessary data to conduct daily things.
Isn't that a writ Oh my goodness, Guy Benson, Fox
News contributor. He pointed out, if you look at the
faces of these three German prosecutors and the American correspondent
as they chortal over German citizen's bewilderment when their smartphones
are confiscated by the police for posting content deemed to
be insulting, hateful, and false, they're laughing about it. We've
become so reliant to do everything in our lives on
our phones, and so you take it because you called
a politician a pimmel, And so what judge takes and
finds you like one of the numbers I saw was
like almost four thousand euros. And if you repost, retweet
or like something that the German prosecutors think is too
offensive or as false, then you can have your phone
taken as well. Why would anybody engage in any kind
of public discussion of anything and of course, that's kind
of the point. It's to keep people scared so they
don't participate in their self government. And then, of course
you give preferential status to other people, protected people, privileged people,
so they can say stuff, they can do marches, right,
they can do a whole bunch of things, and they're
allowed to run wild. And that's why you're seeing the
rise of these populist right wing parties in Germany. It's
the same dynamic folks, and they will not learn from
their previous mistakes in the Weimar Republic. Apparently. All right,
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Create a Video. Russ is asking Pimmel, where aren't the
left and media? But I repeat myself, who celebrate this
kind of censorship? Just laughing and cheering somebody calling elon
a similar word on TV like a week ago? Or
is that different? Yes, that's different because Democrats did it.
It's always different when they do it. Hey, these are
the same people, think about it that spread lies about
JD Vance and a couch thought it was hilarious, right,
and now they're over highlighting how the German government will
take your phone and find you thousands of dollars if
you call a politician a Pimmel? Can I say Pimmel
on the FCC era, I think I can. No, you
don't think I can. It's just no, it's an anatomical
correct term. That's all. That's Hey, can we bleep that
just to be safe? Stephen Miller, a writer for The Spectator,
He says so on CBS News Today. In one single day,
their lead Sunday morning show hosts claimed free speech led
to a holocaust in World War II, and then their
most recognizable news program featured pandering interviews and an endorsement
of German criminalization of speech laws. Also, this was all
in service against a sitting Vice president, whom the same host,
Margaret Brennan, during a nationally televised debate, cut the microphone
while Vance was calmly debating an opposition parties border policy.
He says, so, I just hope everybody is pretty clear
eyed on what is happening and what corporate media conglomerates
are screaming at you in the face about what they think,
believe and will act on. Right, this is what we
like to refer to as a clarifying moment. Very clear, Right,
this is very clear what's going on. They're talking about
in positive terms speech laws to imprison to fine, to
punish people for calling politicians anatomical parts. They think it's
they think it's just fine. Dozens of police teams across
Germany raided homes before dawn in a coordinated crackdown on
a recent Tuesday. The state police were not looking for
drugs or guns. They were looking for people suspected of
posting hate speech. John Ly, as prosecutors explain it, the
German constitution protects free speech, but not hate speech. See
that's a different thing. And here's where it gets tricky,
says sixty Minutes. German law prohibits speech that could incite
hatred or is deemed insulting. You can't even insult people
on social media, which I think that's the whole point
for its existence. Perpetrators are sometimes surprised to learn that
what they post online is illegal. According to doctor Mathoo's Fink,
one of the state prosecutor, I think that's how he
pronounces it, one of the state prosecutors tasked with policing
Germany's robust hate speech laws. Authorities are prosecuting online trolls
in an effort to protect discourse and democracy. You knew
that was coming, right, Yeah, Sorry, you can't call that
politician a pimmel because if you do, democracy dies. We're
just protecting discourse. You see, it is a crime to
publicly insult or. It can be a crime to publicly
insult somebody in Germany. The other two voices you heard
on that clip Svenja mining house or Mainning mainging house,
something or other, Frank Michael lau whatever. In twenty fifteen,
a video of a local politician named Walter Lubke went
viral after he defended then Chancellor Angela Merkle's progressive immigration policy.
Loubkey was fatally shot in the head after he made
that speech. The video went viral and he was murdered
four years later. He was murdered four years Okay, so
that's the reason why they passed this law. Supposedly, that's
what Although the law was sorry, it was a decade's
old law, but it was then strengthened after this guy's
murder in twenty fifteen or twenty nineteen. Then after a
man with links to Neo Nazis was arrested in that case,
Germany ramped up the creation of its online hate task forces.
There are sixteen units across the country Lao, a career
criminal prosecutor, leads the Lower Saxony Unit, which works on
around thirty five hundred cases a year. Nine investigators work
out of the office. They get hundreds of tips a
month from police, watchdog groups and victims. His unit. This
is the secret police. Guys like, that's what this is.
This is like the Stasi kind of thing. They have
successfully prosecuted about seven hundred and fifty hate speech cases
over the last four years. To build their cases, they
scour social media and use public and government data so
they so they're just sitting there looking at it Facebook
all day. You've got seven hundred fifty cases you have.
I don't even know how hundreds of these people employed
to just look at comments on Facebook, which I think
is probably I think that was one of the layers
of hell right in Dante's Invernto. I think that was there.
I'm pretty sure it was in the book. All Right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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