Experts at Nazi detection fail to detect Nazi (10-23-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All Right, so, uh, just to be clear, because you know, I want everybody to be on sort of the same page here in the public square. Things that are Nazi Madison Square Garden, the ok hand sign, Trump obviously, Uh, everybody who works for Donald Trump or worked for Donald Trump, everybody who voted for Donald Trump, anybody who's opposed to illegal immigration. Also, it's Nazi to wave at a crowd if you don't sufficiently close your hand for a long enough period, I believe. Also Nazi Israel and the Jews. Okay, So just so. We're all clear, those are all Nazi, not Nazi. A Nazi tattoo on your chest that is not Nazi, Okay, Nazi not Nazi. Nazi tattoo not at all Nazi. That's apparently the standard that we are now going with. I mentioned I think I mentioned this guy the other day, but I did not go in depth, and it turned out to be quite the fortuitous procrastination that I engaged in, because Wow, what a difference seventy two hours has made in this guy's implosion. I mean campaign Democrat Maine Senate hopeful, Graham Platner. Is his name, Graham Platner. This is going to take a while because there are a lot of things that Graham Platner. Has going on. He's doing a lot of apologies, he's offering a lot of regrets. Apparently his youthful indiscretions dating all the way back to about a minute ago, have now been unearthed and it's causing some awkwardness on the campaign trail and actually had to result in a tattoo. I think he may be the first political candidate I've ever heard of that had to go get a tattoo on the campaign trail. Okay, so Graham Platner is expressing regret over getting a tattoo that this is from Politico. The tattoo appears similar to a Nazi symbol, and by appearing similar, I think what Politico means there is that it is in fact actually the Nazi tattoo. It is the logo, it is the thing. It is the totin kop, which I had never heard of. I would not know this. If I saw this thing, I would not know what that is. I would not realize that that was the logo of a Nazi SS unit that guarded the concentration camps. I would not know that. I also would not get it tattooed on me, because I don't know what that thing means. Right now, he's got a story for this youthful indiscretion, highly intoxicated, which that seems to be the recurring theme in Graham Plattner's excuses and regrets. He's got a lot, but then again too few dimension Actually it's actually a lot, so he yeah, and media is now in covering all of this because he would also apparently be very public in his regretful, youthful indiscretions from about a minute ago. He got the tattoo on his chest about eighteen years ago, or as Politico calls it, nearly two decades ago, and he plans to have it removed. He did not actually have it removed. He had it covered up. He had a different tattoo put on top of the Nazi tattoo. So I guess he's like gone into hiding the Nazi. He's like undercover. It's an undercover Nazi tattoo. Now, this is his latest maya kulpa, after a week of damning headlines over resurfaced social media posts platners, which, by the way, he attributes to getting drunk and poop posting. As the kids say, well, they don't say poop posting, but they use. An analogous term. So he By the way, what happened to all the people that were so very concerned about Pete Hegseth and his drinking? Remember they were oh so very concerned about his sobriety and whether he would be drinking as the Secretary of Defense, sorry, Secretary. Of War, What is it good for? No, I've not seen anybody raising any questions about whether or not this guy from Maine, who, by the way, also was a Blackwater Yeah, he was a Blackwater mercenary, which I'm old enough to remember when the Left thought Blackwater was Nazis. Well yeah, so, but it's different. See now, it's different. This is different because he's a Democrat and he's this working class you know, works with his hands, fishermen, oyster, farmer guy. Oh actually, no, that's not true either. That actually just came out about an hour ago. Not really so working class. Yeah, we'll get to it. So, Platner's campaign sought to what Politico describes as front run opposition research. I've never heard this term, front run opposition research. I've never heard that term before. The term that we usually use in this case is that they are trying to get in front of They're trying to get in front of a scandal. They want their narrative out there first to address it. So you address it first, and you break the news, You give your explanation, and you allow the media then to take up your explanation, advance that narrative. It calcifies, and then any future reporting always has your narrative embedded in the story, and any time it comes up after that, you can say, I've already addressed this, let's move on. I'm focused on the people. I'm focused on winning this election for the mayners, that's what they're called. I did not realize that people who live in Maine are called Mayners. I don't like the term. I'm thinking Maynias. No. I mean, if they elect this guy, definitely Maynites, Manians, what about Manians. Main Owens. I don't know. Maynor just seems like it's missing an extra syllable there for I don't know. That's just the way it hits my ear. So again, he is front running opposition research about his tattoo, which as Political once again describes it here as resembling a Nazi skull and crossbones. Again not resembling. Is it resembles the Nazi skins and crossbones logo because it is the Nazi skull and crossbones logo. Okay. He did an appearance to get out in front of all of this on the liberal podcast pod Save America. The podbros and his campaign shared. The video of him that was going to get released against him as part of an OPO research dump. And the video, according to Politico, shows him dancing shirtless, which is true, but it doesn't provide the whole story. He is not just shirtless, he is pantless as well. Yes, he is in his underwear prancing around a bar at what appears to be a wedding, because who among us, right hasn't just stripped down to their tidy white although they're not white. He's not wearing white underwear. It's like the it's got like the boxer briefs. They're black. But who among us really hasn't, you know, imbibed too much and taken off all of our clothes at a wedding. Platner said he had no idea of any Nazi link to the logo when he got the tattoo quote. It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol. Oh so he's using the term that it resembled the Nazi symbol. So Politico just picking up his terminology, using his preferred narrative to advance that. He said, I have absolutely, I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that, and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed. So he had no idea except there are people who knew him from back in the day and they're like, oh, yeah, he totally knew. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. 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H Hang on a second, I did get a message here to do you do to do to do from some anonymous uh to anonymous person. So I've just labeled them as South Carolina leftist because that's. The it's an eight oh three number. You forgot to mention the members of the Young Republicans who literally self identified as Nazis. You guys really suck at creating a narrative that the Nazi talk is unjustified. Your condescending tone doesn't make reality not real. Uh well, let's see, I did cover the Young Republican Group chat. I did cover that. I disagreed with the the approach that some people on the right, aka the woke right, are taking that there are no enemies to the right of me. This uh sort of dictum that people are adopting, so you can never criticize anybody on the right. Uh. I don't agree with that, just like I don't agree with the dictum that you don't criticize if you are on the left, that you don't criticize anybody to the left of you, because all that does is allow the crazies and the radicals to hijack your organization. And so I was totally fine and totally supportive of firing all of the people that were involved in the Young Republican Group chat totally fine with it because it was completely inappropriate the stuff that they were saying. You got to excise that cancer. Now that being said, if you want to cite that as a reason or an example sc leftist, you want to cite that as an example that Republicans are Nazis and that somehow or another, that's an argument against Graham Platner literally tattooing a Nazi logo on his chest. Well, that would be dishonest, right, that would be a double standard, which you know, I'm reminded of the frequent criticism that people on the right have of people on the left that if y'all didn't have double standards, you'd have none at all. Right, But I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I've heard that criticism. And even so, see that might work on somebody who has not condemned the people in that group chat. It doesn't work on me, though, because I did see sorry not sorry, And that also exposes you as a hypocrite because you're not disavowing your guy. In fact, it looks like this guy, Graham Platner, he very well could win the Democrat primary. The maners in the Democrat mayners, they love what they love. The heart wants what it wants, you know, and they really want this kind of leftist and so you are employing the very same dictum, no enemies to my left, you will not excise the radicals. And that's why, by the way, the Democrat Party has moved further and further and further to the left. That's why your party is captured by this radical base. It's why so many people on the left, so many people in the Democrat Party come across as insane because they're celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder. Right, there's all this what aboutism, because you just cannot bring yourselves to criticize guys like say Jay Jones, right, who fantasized about murdering a Republican and that Republican's two young children in front of his wife. Right. You guys just can't do it, and that's how your organization gets corrupted, and that's why you lose. By the way, that's why you guys are losing these like the swing states. That it's why people are leaving the Democrat Party. North Carolina Democrats hemorrhaging registered voters. That's why I've been telling you this for years. You don't want to listen to me because I'm a Nazi. Apparently, oh there you go. Pete called himself a Nazi. Just absolute idiocy. So Platner said that he got the tattoo while he was out drinking with fellow Marines while on leave surely or whatever in Croatia. So that's I think, really where we need to direct the blame here, the tattoo parlor in Croatia. They slipped a fast one by these marines who asked for the Nazi logo as a tattoo. He said that the similarity to Nazi iconography never came up. Include but if you guys were completely sauced, then like maybe the guy did tell you at the tattoo parlor, like are you sure? Or maybe there was a language barrier. I don't know, but here's the thing. You've had the tattoo for eighteen years. And Genevieve MacDonald, the former political director for Platner, his own political director, quit and said, maybe he didn't know it when he got it, but he got it years ago, and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means. A former Democrat state lawmaker McDonald resigned from the campaign last week after revelations about his numerous controversial posts on the platform Readit. Jewish Insider dot com also reported this week that an acquaintance of Platner recalled him referring to the tattoo the tattoo as quote my totin kop which is what that thing is called. Although Politico is not into dependently verified the reporting. Toten kopf is a German word typically referring to an image of a skull and crossbones. During the Nazi era, one form of the image was adopted by the Nazi police, leading to a lasting association with Nazism and continued use by white supremacists, sort of like the okay symbol that we have to kick a bunch of guys out of the West Point over right because they were playing the circle game and you guys were. Like white supremacist. The people who hear all the dog whistles somehow just don't see this. It's amazing. Here's a great idea. 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For example, twenty thirteen, he downplayed sexual assault in the military twenty eighteen suggested that violence is necessary to enact social change. He also this is from CNN. In a comment from Youthful Indiscretion twenty twenty one Long Time Ago twenty twenty one, he says I got older and became a communist. He was posting in a subreddit called anti work. He also later in twenty twenty one, reflected on his life after his military servicing. He was a vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist. These days, after the war, I've pretty much stopped, pretty much stopped believing in any of the patriotic nonsense that got me there in the first place, and am a firm believer that the best thing a person can do is help their neighbors neighbors and live a loving life. Still got the guns, though, I don't trust the fascists to act politely. Hm. Let's see. Oh, he called all of the cops, remember the a cab acab All cops are fatherless children, right? You talked about that? He called rural white Americans racist and stupid. He also would post prolifically on a subreddit called Socialist r A, a self described anti capitalist left firearms education forum that says it is unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association. He said, I did used to love America, or at least the idea of it. These days, I'm pretty disgusted by it all. He also told CNN that he he no longer feels that disillusionment with America that he had once long ago, three years ago, four years ago, that he posted online. He has evolved on these matters. He says he's not a secret Nazi, which, like that makes sense because a secret Nazi wouldn't, you know, put the logos on their body like that. According to a person this is from Jewish Insider dot com, one person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, DC more than a decade ago. He had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a totin kop, the death's head symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War Two. I know people are arguing with me about this. I don't know what the logo is. I'm just telling you what Jewish Insider is telling me. That's what they say. The logo is, which, by the way, appears on Hollywood costu ums in Inglorioa's Bastards. What was the other one. It's like three different movies prominently displayed onlike their lapels, on their collars, on their hats. Anyway, he told this acquaintance, Oh, this is my totein cop He said it in a cutesy little way. The exchange occurred in twenty twelve at tune In, which is a popular dive bar on Capitol Hill, where Platner later worked as a bartender, which I feel like one bartender in Congress is enough at this point. No, Okay, So he was a frequent patron, though before he became a bartender, he was going to George Washington University on the GI bill. According to the former acquaintance, he would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion, had stated that he knew what the tattoo represented, but he gave varying accounts of the image during this time, saying at one point he was aware of what it was, and then at another time claimed that he had not known what it was when he got the tattoo. The mixed accounts indicate that Plattner has at least long been aware of the symbols connection to Nazism, even as he said in the podcast interview the Podbros that he was not familiar with any such association when he chose to get the tattoo. He said he was very inebriated when he got it. He says, I can honestly say that if I was trying to hide it, I've not been doing a very good job for the past eighteen years. It was not until I started hearing from reporters around and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol. There it is again, it resembled. I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I know that, and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. But again, Genevieve MacDonald, former political director for Graham Platner. She said in a Facebook post that he has an anti Semitic tattoo on his chest. He's not an idiot. He's a military history buff. Maybe he didn't know it when he got it, but he got it years ago, and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means. Platner, a political newcomer who is facing Governor Janet Mills and other candidates in the Democrat primary, launched his campaign in August, and he has been really leaning into the opposition to Israel. I know who would have thought that, man, But yeah, it's true. He's been very, very critical of Israel, very opposed to the fascist and even picked up an endorsement from Bernie Sanders. Oh I mentioned the socialist Rifle Association. Yeah, he apparently did instructions for instruction sessions, training sessions for the Socialist Rifle Association, taught them paramilitary tactics. That's according to oh his own social media posts. Why would you not have blitzed this stuff out? Sorry, I shouldn't have used that term. Yeah, so, Platner made dozens of posts under the Socialist Rifle Association subreddit, also under another subreddit called Tactical Gear, and he was doing these in June of twenty twenty, which would be during the summer of fiery but mostly peaceful riots. That's who he was training and when he was 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 the right. See for yourself. Check dot Ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News, as they make the media landscape more transparent. But wait, there's more. Graham Platner, according to to The Advocate, which is an LGBTQ plus two IA publication, this time he's under scrutiny for anti LGBTQ plus comments. He confirmed that he authored a series of Reddit comments that include homophobic slurs, anti LGBTQ plus jokes, and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men. The existence of the comments, posted under the handle p Hustle that's what he went by, P. Dash Hustle. Between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty one, has not been previously reported. The Advocate obtained the posts independently this week. The revelations come on the same day that Platnir was scheduled to hold a town hall in Ogunquit, a seaside resort long known as one of New England's most prominent LGBTQ plus destinations. He said, quote, I have no reason to deny that the posts are mine. Well, actually, you do have some reasons to deny the posts or yours, but you would be lying so like that's not advisable. But if you had to think of a reason to deny it, like what, I think the big one would be, you're running for US Senate right as a Democrat, and so you Yeah, anyway, he says, I made a lot of comments over the years and talked a lot of poop on the internet. I have no reason to doubt that at some point I used language that I would not be using today. Because I'm running for Senate. He said. It's indefensible the unearthed posts. I'm not going to tell you what he said, but yeah, cho as a pattern of homophobic language and rhetoric that mocked or demeaned LGBTQ plus people. In some cases, Platner appeared to use slurs casually in discs Russians that were completely unrelated to sexuality. In others, he explicitly framed gay people as the punchline. He told The Advocate that he no longer uses these slurs or dismissive language that appeared frequently in his posts. These were words that I used for a long time in ways that I did not take seriously because of personal relationships that I have developed over the years. Since twenty twenty one, he says, I don't use these words now, and I find them to be quite offensive. I stopped using that specific kind of language a while ago, yeah, like less than four years ago, and today I find that stuff abhorrent and I am sorry I ever used it. Yes, So, before the tattoo controversy, Platner had already apologized for earlier Reddit posts about that included misogynistic as well as racially charged remarks. He described those as coming from a dark period after his military service. That defense of his is a bit complicated by the fact that these newly discovered comments were written many years later, so he said the controversies reflect his past, not his present. He says, I think we need a politics that is reflective of the fact that people can change and they can evolve. I'm very proud of who I am now. I'm very proud of what I've become. I only got here because of the struggles along the journey, and I would just like the people to judge me off of who I have become throughout all of this, not who I was at a darker point in my life. Which if this look, if this appeal sounds familiar, it's because this is what Democrats were saying about Mark Robinson in North Carolina. It was the same thing they were saying, like they were like, oh okay, no, like that was a different period of his life. Let's not turn all of this stuff into attack ads. He said. I think there's a place for looking back to a point. But if we're going to just litigate every comment somebody makes on the internet, we'll never have a politics that functions. So see, people, we're just gonna have to put up with the homophobic slurs from Democrats. I think the important part is is there. A believable story of change? That's what he said. That's the important part. Is there a believable story of change? So that's his damage control strategy, right, That's what he's going to go with Now, I do find it quite interesting that all of this stuff, all this OPO research, which is like, let's be fair, didn't only take a lot of research. Just go back through his social media and once you knew his Reddit name. You just look at his posts and holy Toledo. So I do find it interesting that all of this OPO research came out when Janet Mills entered the race the governor of Maine, a Democrat in the primary. Now, all this stuff comes out, right Now, he may still win, I don't know, but it all came out after she got into the race. This stuff did not come out before, which tells me it probably would not have come out at all because knocking off Susan Collins, who is about as moderate squishy of a Republican as you can get, right like, they probably would have sat on all of that stuff about their own guy. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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