Today on Sekulow Radio, CNN calls for the elimination of conservative news. We'll talk about that and more today on Sekulow Radio. Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow Live. Phone lines are open for your questions right now. Call 1-800-684-3110.
That's 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow Radio. So pretty just outrageous comments being made and accepted by CNN host Brian Stelter. I mean, the fact that this is now going around the internet and is being promoted by the left is something that would be totally normal, something totally okay to do in the United States, which is to basically eradicate, erase conservative viewpoints from both cable networks. So they mention specifically Newsmax. I'm a contributor to Newsmax and OAN, One American News. But also, you know, one of the people on the show said, you know, Brian, there's people on YouTube that have more people watching their broadcast during the day than CNN's daytime.
You know where he's wrong? There are people on YouTube broadcasting that have more people watching than in their prime time during the week. That's the truth. And what I think is, this is a backhanded way to eliminate competition. It's like deplatforming Parler. It's competition. Twitter saw a lot of people start moving to Parler. So they made up a reason, a reason their founder had to like explain through 20 different tweets about how it was bad, but they had to do it because they were losing a significant amount of people to Parler all of a sudden.
So I think what you've got to understand and what has to be very clear here, I want to play it for you so you all understand. This was this weekend on CNN. This would affect all of us. I mean, we're on YouTube. We're on Facebook. We use, we were utilizing Parler.
We utilize Rumble. We utilize, of course, Twitter and Periscope. And of course, our website is on a server as well, ACLJ.org, which broadcast every day the broadcast. So think about that and all the stations that we're on, both on television and radio, and then take a listen to the CNN. And it's just accepted on CNN. We have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences. There are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than daytime CNN.
And they are extremely radical and pushing extremely radical views. And so it's up to the Facebooks and YouTubes in particular to think about whether or not they want to be effectively cable networks for disinformation. And then we're gonna have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem, you know, that these companies have freedom of speech, but I'm not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes. These companies have freedom of speech, like CNN, like MSNBC, which by the way is far left, and Fox News, but oh, we don't want to bring them into the home. Now they have to, again, it's a financial decision by those companies, by AT&T and Comcast.
I mean, this is about business, not about so much content. And just because these are now, it's funny because CNN is not a main competitor to Newsmax. What has become a competitor to Newsmax is actually Fox News.
And it has been hurting some of this. And so it's interesting though, they're using this moment to say, let's silence the bigger ones, the Newsmax, the OANNs that are actually on cable, regular broadcast, but let's also take it to YouTube as well. So they mentioned that. What they don't mention is that there are people with YouTube channels getting more views than CNN gets during their prime time broadcasting. And that is just the truth.
They tried to say it was daytime and trying to be nice. But the fact is the left is on the warpath when it comes to trying and eliminate conservative speech, dad. And look, we're going to get into the constitutional issues when we come back because they're not cut and dry. In other words, these companies have free speech rights too, and freedom of association rights.
They don't have to put everything on. This is not like the state of Georgia saying, you can't speak. Well, we've won those cases at the Supreme Court.
This is a private enterprise. The dangerous precedent is it's whenever you try to silence a viewpoint, it's very dangerous. And I'll remember back in the 80s, we fought against what was called the fairness doctrine. If you speak about a conservative view, you had to put on immediately a liberal view.
That's not the answer to this. And some people are saying that, and I don't agree with that. We have to be tolerant of views we disagree with, but we also have to have civil discourse. And I think that's all part of what's going on here.
Absolutely. We want to take your calls about this. Your thoughts, 1-800-684-3110.
Had a glitch going on to Facebook, so share it with your friends and family. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. All right, so let me reset the stage because for some of you, this might be pretty shocking to hear that it is CNN calling for the removal of what would usually be competitors to more conservative broadcasting networks like Fox News. Not their competitors. It's not like I don't think it's Newsmax.
No, Newsmax is not really a direct competitor to CNN, nor is One American News, but also these YouTube channels, broad shows like ours, where by the end of the day, we have more views than Brian Stelter gets on his Saturday show. This show will have more views than he ever gets. By the day, when you look at it, it'll have three or 400,000 views. That's more than he gets during afternoon on Saturday? Sunday.
Sunday afternoon? Especially during the NFL playoffs, but it's when they make their most absurd comments. I want to play it again, just in case you missed it, because we played it the first few minutes, but you have to understand, Brian Stelter's got this guest on and he doesn't challenge him at all. He just accepts this as, yeah, this needs to be done.
Take a listen. We have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences. There are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than daytime CNN, and they are extremely radical and pushing extremely radical views. It's up to the Facebooks and YouTubes in particular to think about whether or not they want to be effectively cable networks for disinformation. Then we're going to have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem.
These companies have freedom of speech, but I'm not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes. It used to be thought, back when I was arguing cases in the beginning of my career at the Supreme Court, Andy, that the marketplace of ideas was where you had robust free speech and free exchange of ideas. Sometimes ideas and information you disagreed with. Now, no one's talking about advocating the overthrow of the government. No one's talking about imminent violence.
That's not protected. We all get that, but we're talking about viewpoints here. Viewpoint discrimination traditionally has been viewed very skeptically by the Supreme Court, and I would say unanimously viewed skeptically. Most of the cases I had with viewpoint discrimination issues, that is, will allow one group to speak on this issue but not this other group.
I'll give a perfect example. Lamps Chapel Church back in the 90s, they ran a film series by Dr. Dobson, and Turn Your Heart Towards Home was the name of the series. And the school district in Roslyn, New York, said, no, we're not going to allow that. Lamps Chapel School District said, no, we're not going to allow that because it's church-related. That was their argument.
But they acknowledged that they had other people come in and other groups come in and talk about, you know, these kind of issues from a more secular perspective. The difference is, in the case we want unanimously in Lamps Chapel, they said viewpoint discrimination is unconstitutional, the actor involved, Andy, was a state actor. Thus, the First Amendment applied by the Fourteenth Amendment. You don't have that with these big tech companies.
That's exactly right, Jay. You know, the prohibition against viewpoint discrimination and against doing the things that violate the free speech provisions of the First Amendment always have to do with state action. In other words, something, an act by the states or by the government that causes someone not to be able to express themselves. But you have a whole different situation with these private companies and private concerns, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth, because they're private companies. And what they prohibit and what they allow on their platforms is not government, is not speech that is government action prohibiting the free exercise of speech, but they're private companies.
The thing is that they control the airways and they, you know, get to a lot of people. But you have to be able to push back on this notion that you just heard Brian Stelter's guests say, why are these people giving access? We give access.
Access is given because we believe in the free exchange of ideas. Well, he's a former CNN, he's a CNN contributor too, not just a guest on CNN. So he's paid by CNN. And he didn't say far right or alt-right. He said conservative influencers. That means like mainstream to me. That means like, you know, you've got liberal influencers that's not saying far left or, you know, the Antifa crowd. That's just talking about like liberals are then conservatives.
That's pretty like down the middle, right? I mean, we know we have that in our country, that kind of discussion. We've had it for decades and yet they want it removed. Not because it's a competitor. In some sense, I think that any kind of competitor, anybody who has something to say that they can take off does increase their chances of getting more views. Because if there's less options available to people, they may turn to other voices. I don't know if CNN is going to be their first choice, but that's what they're thinking is, can we take down the conservatives first?
But you have to ask them this because they're a business too. Would they like to take down those liberal voices on the far left? No, no. This is unification of thought. That's what this is.
Thought unification. Exactly right. And what I am so concerned about is that we rely on a couple of things. So obviously on our radio broadcast, we have hard radio stations that are broadcasting our terrestrial radio. Then there's Sirius XM. But then we utilize the platforms like Facebook, Twitter. We were utilizing Parler and we rumble YouTube, Periscope through Twitter so that you can see our show in different ways.
So you can actually come in and watch the show if you want. And we're relying on platforms and so you can be deplatformed. And what we saw with Parler Dad was a step past just being deplatformed, being taken off the app store. They were taken off the internet. Yes, because they were removed from the servers.
Yes. So, which raises this whole question. Again, I'm not an advocate for a fairness doctrine. I don't think that's the answer to this.
I think the answer to this is some tolerance. Now look, to be clear, I think that free speech is important to hear divergent viewpoints. I listen to a lot of the networks at night. I watch some of Fox. I watch some of Newsmax. I watch some of CNN. I watch some MSNBC. I watch these networks to understand where they're coming from on these issues.
For instance, an issue we're going to talk about tomorrow. There's been an American hostage taken in guess where? Iran. Why do you think they did it? Could it be incoming administration, changing policies in Iran, leverage?
Because this wasn't happening two months ago. But again, we may be taking a divergent viewpoint than others. This idea that people are so willing to stifle speech they disagree with, Andy, is dangerous. We used to say that religious speech, conservative speech should not only be tolerated, it should be welcomed in the marketplace of ideas. Right. I mean, if your speech is better than my speech, your point is better than my viewpoint, your advocacy is better than my advocacy, then you should prevail. But there should be a free and full exchange of those ideas. Look, Voltaire, the French philosopher said, I disagree with everything you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. And that's the kind of position that we undertake or that I feel.
Yeah. And it points to what happened that horrible day on January 6th. The way you handle speech you disagree with is not by invading the nation's capitol building and causing destruction. You handle speech you disagree with with more speech.
That's how you do it. Back and forth, free exchange of ideas, not violence, not over, this is Martin Luther King Jr., the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth. Right, someone they wanted to silence.
They wanted, absolutely wanted to silence him. Mainstream media at the time. Yes. Which was very racist throughout.
Yes. And we need to realize that. He was a voice of change. He was a progressive voice of change. And I use that with a little p. He was asking for America to rethink their thoughts on racial justice and racial equality. It was, there was some in the media that liked him. There were many in the media that did not like him. He writes a letter from the Birmingham jail.
He didn't do a Facebook. Of course, there wasn't that kind of media access then. But if you disagreed with it, what are you going to do? Silence his voice? That's why they were trying to throw him in jail, to silence their voice. Now, now they're not throwing you in jail. They're just saying, we're going to de-platform you.
That's the current version. That's the year 2021 version of throw the guy in jail that you disagree with the speech message. Yeah, exactly. Make it where the President has no way to get his message out. Then you have no way to get your message out. And you, your show goes off the air. This show goes off the air.
All these different things. Networks that are taken down. You've got platforms for speech that are taken down like Parler. It is, it's a new way of the battles you were fighting decades ago for the freedom of speech. I mean, you listen to Martin Luther King here that if you don't, if you go this way, this kind of way of it, let's imprison your speech as a good way of saying it's like imprison your speech. So we're going to put you in jail.
You can't talk anymore. And, and we're, we're the speech police. It's not the government forcing them to do that, by the way, it's big tech. Who's just totally unregulated to a point that's absurd now. And we can get deeper into that later too.
Because you know, they get total immunity from what's on their sites yet they're now taking off, off, off content even though they get the, uh, the ability not to get sued for having content that's offensive, illegal statements. Pretty poignant. Yeah. Take a listen by five. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power.
It's a hundred percent correct. And now it's do instruments. Yeah. Well, the instrument in his day was they threw him in jail. So that's silence. So he has to sneak out a letter to the, from the Birmingham jail.
Now it's, you know, I was playing Monopoly with my, uh, one of my grandsons and you know, there's the card that says, go directly to jail, do not pass, go, go directly to jail. And this is kind of what they're advocating. And they were advocating this on CNN like, well, this is normal. Of course we need to have these companies off the air.
We need, we need them to be off of the social media platforms because, because more people are listening to them than are listening to us. Right. I mean, that's the truth.
That was pretty much it. I bet in a lot of days, Newsmax is definitely getting more, uh, viewers than CNN on, especially this daytime talk that they're talking about in these shows. But, but also it's just a different audience, a different world. Why not just all compete? That's what it's all about is competition.
Wouldn't be on the air if it wasn't, wasn't competing. We'll be back. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected.
Is there any hope for that culture to survive? And that's exactly what you were saying when you stand with the American center for law and justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.
It's called mission life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe V Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.
Request your free copy of mission life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American center for law and justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.
But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.
That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American center for law and justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org There's actually something great.
I know because a lot of your kids, even if you're doing virtual school, they probably didn't have virtual school today. So we've got a video that you just saw. If you're watching us on Bald Beagle, you check it out. That is the best way, Will, for people to find it. What's the best way for people to do it? Baldbeagle.com and it'll take you to the video right there. You can do it on your smart TV too.
You go to YouTube and search for Bald Beagle. There's a new video up on Martin Luther King Day, and it's great for young kids to understand, you know, in a short way and in an interesting way what we're celebrating on Martin Luther King Day and the bigger picture, especially I think in light of even what your kids may have picked up on these last couple weeks in our country, not just with COVID. Obviously that's been a tough year. There's schools, you know, reopening, closing the reopening, but also if they were watching the news with you or caught on the scene, all this military in Washington, DC and rioters happening and things you may be discussing amongst, you know, with your husband or wife or others when you're on the phone, that it's something inspiring. I think that we all need inspire words. Do we have some more from Dr. King too? I think before we get to some of the phone calls, I think looking forward, you take these messages, they are as relevant today, as relevant today as they were when they were spoken by Dr. King in the 1960s.
Take a listen by seven. Deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome. And with this faith, we will go out and adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. And we will be able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. And this will be a great America.
We will be the participants in making it so. I mean, he had a way with words that I think resonate today. When I hear the fatigue of despair, I hear that in a lot of your voices right now. I mean, we're about to have the inauguration of Joe Biden.
There was so much controversy surrounding that election that led to just those horrendous events on January 6, our nation's capital. I mean, you can feel despair. You can feel like, you know what, we're not really turning a corner into 2021. Things are just kind of seems maybe worse. We hear about new strands of COVID. Is it worse?
Is it more dangerous? When we get back to normal on that front, the political front. And then we hear that they want to silence us. But there is a moment where you have to, as Dr. King said, you have to rise up from this fatigue of despair.
And that's what we're preparing at the ACLJ as we speak right now for all of you to go into the hope, to say, you know what, we're going to be participants in making it better in the country and shaping the country in our vision. And that's what you have to do. You have to pick yourself up.
You have to say, this was bad. You understand the fatigue. I understand the fatigue.
We went through many days of no sleep at all, fighting our hardest to try to get to facts, what was right, what was wrong, what were just theories. And we're still at a point which seems like the country's right on the edge. Now, those protests didn't amount to much over the weekend.
That's good. DC, it was never going to have a huge inaugural anyway. So people are saying, well, look at the military presence. But the truth is, it's going to be very small anyways because of COVID.
So I don't think you have to take that into too much as like that looks like martial law. You got to get past fatigue. I mean, here's the thing. If you wallow, Dr. King was right.
If you wallow in despair and if you stay in fatigue, guess what you're going to get done? So, we're going to talk tomorrow about a situation in Iran with our international, our senior advisor for foreign affairs and national intelligence, Rick Grenell, because a new administration is coming in and we've already got an American taken hostage. I mean, this is just, look, here we go again. And they were shooting off missiles. And they were shooting off missiles.
Very close to our strike force. And here's what you have to say to yourself. Am I going to just say, well, this is what's going on. No, you fight back. That's why our theme for 2021 is ACLJ now more than ever, because you have to be ready to engage and you cannot lose hope. Now we've got to be wise as serpents here. And that is with this thing with big tech and we're on big tech and we've had a good relation with them.
And I hope we continue to have a good relationship with them. But this idea that some are saying, and it's being certainly promoted this weekend on CNN, to silence a whole group of people you disagree with, not because what they're saying is inciting violence, not because what they're saying is causing harm, but they're advocating a position you, is different than the position you're advocating. And all of a sudden you label that dangerous. The danger in that is you are silencing people because of how they view the world or how they view life. And that is a dangerous precipice to be getting ready to fall off of because where does it stop? It does not stop with the conservative network.
It goes right down to what you're listening to or watching right now. That's why, Andy, we've got to realize it is still viewpoint discrimination, even though it's not a state actor. So it's not actionable in court, but it's actionable in the court of public opinion.
That's right. And we have to pursue that. It's very important that we're able to get out a conservative point of view, a point of view that deals with life, a point of view that deals with freedom or the exercise of the right of freedom of speech. You know, I was thinking about Dr. King and the letter that he wrote from the Birmingham jail that has become so important. But to our Christian audience, I want to say, don't forget that St. Paul wrote many of his letters while he was where, Jay? In prison.
In prison, in jail. And he wrote his letters to the different churches that he had founded and visited throughout the Aegean area and throughout Turkey and Asia Minor and Greece. So he persisted in doing what God had told him to do and to spread the word, even though he was locked up and in prison. And in many cases, he would dictate the letters to somebody else who was his amanuensis and wrote these letters because he couldn't see. And he says, and sometimes, see, I write with my own hand, and to others, see, I write with the hand of others.
So St. Paul should be an example to us as well. Interesting comment from Representative Cortez. Oh yeah, this is AOC, as she's called. This is the Congresswoman's statement about media control. There's absolutely a commission that's being discussed. Several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is a part of what happened here. We're going to have to figure out how we reign in our media environment so that you can't just spew disinformation and misinformation. Yeah, that's always good when you have a committee to start deciding what's raw info and what's right info, and it's going to be completely partisan, that commission. I mean, I think there's a lot of things that you could have an honest disagreement with AOC about what is news that you should report, and it's worth debating, and news that isn't, and you can just honestly disagree to disagree.
And that's fine in America. That's why we have other options. No one's making her watch Newsmax or Fox News or OAN, and no one's making you watch CNN or MSNBC, but there's places to go. No one's making it listen to this broadcast. There's other broadcasts available.
There's so much available, and I think that we've gotten to a point where the content is good. I mean, this free flow of ideas is for the most part good, and one bad incident should not be the catalyst to start eliminating what we cherish so much as our country, which is the free and open discussion of ideas, ideas that may sometimes seem out of the box at the time, but they may not be so radical 20 years later. Think about Dr. Martin Luther King. What he was saying then was radical, radical. Some would call it offensive.
They didn't want their kids to hear it, but now that would be totally normal. It wouldn't even be on the specter of wrong, right. It should be accepted. He's totally right. Nothing to debate there, but as we progress, then there's other things to debate. How do you have those discussions if it's only one-sided? That is not the America we intended to have, nor that we fought to create. We'll be right back.
Second half hour, Jay Sekio Live. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you, and if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work.
Become a member today, ACLJ.org. I'm talking about freedom! I'm talking about freedom!
We will fight for the right to live in freedom! Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow Live. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow.
Let's play for you very quickly. What are we talking about? Well, it happened on CNN this weekend, Brian Stelzer's show, and it got no pushback at all from any of the guests or from Brian himself, the host of the broadcast.
Take a listen. We have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences. There are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than daytime CNN, and they are extremely radical and pushing extremely radical views, and so it's up to the Facebooks and YouTubes in particular to think about whether or not they want to be effectively cable networks for disinformation. And then we're going to have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem. These companies have freedom of speech, but I'm not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes.
That's their hit. They're not going to say, well, we're not saying Newsmax doesn't have right to speech, but that they're going to target the companies, Dad, which is what we've seen happen is that they targeted Amazon, they targeted Facebook, they put the pressure on Twitter to deplatform people, to take them off the air, and because they say, oh, it's not Newsmax that we're not trying to tramp on their freedom of speech. We just don't want them to reach as many people, which is trampling on their freedom of speech because they fought hard to get that network time. And so it's similar to a case I argued back in the 80s, is these secondary boycotts. In other words, you're not boycotting directly, but you're saying to people, put pressure on them so that that person will not rent their hotel to this particular group. Now it's put pressure on them so that you don't have your cable airwaves open to that group that's already been on your broadcast because, well, you may find that advertisers may boycott you. I mean, this is cancellation culture that we've been talking about.
But this is not, I want to tell you this, I've been practicing law, Andy and I collectively have been practicing law about 90 years. This is a harder battle. Yeah, it is a harder battle because there's no state action. But what makes it even harder is there are all these people saying, well, there's so many avenues of communication, but there really aren't.
No. There's so many places full of major platforms that you have to be careful with. And that's what we're really talking about.
You have YouTube, you have television, radio, and then you've had places like Facebook and Twitter. Yeah. And they got rumble and you got these others, but it's smaller. They try to take them down. And yes, it's tough to compete with the big guys. You have to come up with a great idea.
But when the big guys are actively taking you down, it's a real problem. Let's go to Robert and Marilyn on Line 1. Hey, Robert. Yeah. Hi, Jordan.
Hi, Jay. I wanted to ask the both of you, why do you believe in addition to competition and ratings, what could be some of the other ideas or reasons behind CNN wanting to shut down conservative voices in addition to just disagreeing with the ideas? Is it a push toward totalitarianism?
Because in every totalitarian regime you find throughout history, one of the things that they attack is when you teach in the media and they control it. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Is that what's happening here? They used to have a program called Crossfire and they don't anymore because that was the right and the left and they would debate. It was a good program actually.
And I was on it a lot. Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson was on CNN. Now they like to get rid of him on TV.
Yeah, now they're going after him. So here's what it is. It's trying to eliminate anti-counter viewpoint. Andy, that to me is what it is. It's if your narrative is not our narrative, we don't want you to have access to that narrative.
And then eventually then you're changing people's minds because they have nowhere else to go. Well, I mean, Robert is absolutely right. This is an attempt to stifle conservative speech by just sort of saying that, and what Sandy Cortez, the Congresswoman from New York is saying, we've got to rein in the media environment so you don't spew misinformation and disinformation. Based on what? Whose misinformation and disinformation? You think it is misinformation and disinformation? I happen to think it's the truth. Am I not entitled to speak in near my viewpoint?
I think I am. What is truth? What is truth? That's right. As ponchos pile. Right. So again, folks, we're going to take your calls.
1-800-684-3110. Listen, I don't think it's a question of how dangerous do you think this could be? Because we're already seeing it. We've already seen what happened to Parler. We've already seen what happened to the President.
We've already seen what's happened to others. And now they're trying to target more mainstream outlets like Newsmax, who I'm a contributor to. And again, just to try and keep anyone new out, anyone who's gaining new steam, let's let's get them out.
Let's get Parler out. Let's get Newsmax out. OAN, let's get them out. Let's target.
You know, they don't like a conservative talk radio and Christian talk radio either. So they'd like to get this out too. It's gonna be tougher for them, but they'd like to try. The challenges facing Americans are substantial. At a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.
But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.
That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life changing work.
Become a member today. ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.
It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.
Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. It's interesting because the same person, by the way, former Facebook executive, now CNN contributor that was on Brian Stelter's show on CNN, which is about the media, he also went on to say that we should use the same tactics as the U.S. security used to remove ISIS from the internet to use against conservative influencers. Glenn Greenwald, who is not necessarily a conservative, but just hates the idea of silencing speech. And I agree with him on that aspect, that speech is speech is speech, and it's protected, it should be protected. Because take a listen, here's where he goes further than just saying, well, Newsmax, they've got a right to free speech with these people, but AT&T and Verizon and Comcast don't have to put them on the air.
Take a listen, he goes a step further. There needs to be an intentional work by the social media companies collaborating together to work on violent extremism in the same way they worked on ISIS. I mean, he uses that violent extremism, dad, in the same context when he said conservative rate, that is blaming all of us for 5,000 people out of the 75 million who voted for President Trump. And you blame Newsmax on that.
I was on Newsmax, I'm going to be on there later today, same show, it follows our show live, John Bachman show, and we were talking about the different options to challenge the electoral count act, and the riot began. Newsmax wasn't promoting some riot, they were shocked too. But yet he's lumping them in.
Well, that's because it's easy to lump things together to get to a desired result. And one of the things you got to fear in this, and Logan, you brought this up earlier over the weekend is, CNN was so brazen with this. They didn't hesitate to say it, they promoted it, and they haven't sought to clarify it.
They mean it. Yeah, I mean, Brian Stethers is the worst when it comes to these things. He's always the person who's out there kind of poking at conservatives to the point of making you uncomfortable saying things that are ridiculous. If you listen to the reprogram, we joke around about them a lot because it's always this very intentional attack. Now, when you look at the way that the conservatives were presented in that, it is a little alarming.
And I think when you go into the parlor situation, that's the situation where I think things took an interesting turn because it went from taking you off an app store to removing you from the internet, from your servers being shut down with 24 hours notice. That is something we all need to be taking a look at. And it's such an odd time because you do want to also, if you don't hear the other side of the point of view, how will you ever know what you disagree with? I mean, that is sort of a big issue that if it's just being fed one way, again, it does feel a little like what you hear comes out of North Korea, which is just, here's one viewpoint. This is the viewpoint we all agree on. We all understand in America, we all understand in society, and we don't move.
You're not even allowed to hear the other person's point of view. That is a deep concern. It's a concern for Christian television.
It's a concern for Christian radio, a concern for the conservative side. And also, as we all know, history repeats itself. There's a cyclical nature to society, whether you're coming out of the sixties and the protests that came out of the sixties, and then you move into the eighties where everything became capitalism and corporatism.
And you know, that is what became that. So how do we not know 10, 15, 20 years from now, tides will turn back to where do you want the shoe to be on the other foot where all of a sudden the liberal view can't be heard? No. And I think that's the main difference between these conservative outlets and the liberal outlets is the conservative outlets go, no, you have every right to be there in this space. They would never, ever promote this idea. No, never. Conservatives.
Never. Just like everyone denounced the attacks immediately on the Capitol. Pretty much everybody came out and said, this is horrible immediately.
Not something you would have seen from the other side. This is where you have to take a big look at this and go, okay, now look, we have to be careful. Everyone has to be careful.
I think you'd be careful in your media presence today and anything. Yeah. Because we're used to honestly radio, but then honestly, what do we see in radio? We saw top conservative leaders in radio, people who run the networks come out and tell their hosts, you better be careful. Yep.
Yeah. And these are people that honestly you would never expect. They're the only reason that people are listening to these stations. And that's also the main problem is CNN showed their, their cards a little bit when they said, you know, this is getting bigger ratings than we are.
Well, no kidding. Which shows where the influence at. They don't want the influence from people. They can make the transition. They could put more available on YouTube. They can make more available, but it costs, it's not the same kind of traditional point of view.
They're stuck. And you know, that's when they want to bring back these laws, these ancient laws because they, they cable news, they want to be the only voice cable news is not the only voice where it's one important voice. I think like for Newsmax to have a cable news channel for OA to have that it's a, makes them a bigger voice than just their web presence. But if you look at their web presence, it is gigantic. I have, we have a video that we posted one of the Newsmax interviews I did. It has like 1.3 million views. Brian Seltzer has never had a show that's had 1 million people watching. No, I saw the other day. I saw the other day that Probably a hundred thousand people watching or less. I saw the thing that you did with Will, I mean months ago. It was like a Nancy Pelosi thing.
Yes. And I think it had 1.5 million views. Now, Brian Seltzer for the month did have 1.5 million. We keep saying Seltzer, which Brian Seltzer is Jeff Johnson, the swing king of the nineties.
But no, I say it too, you know, but no, I understand. You're right. The media landscape has changed completely. And I think that's for the better.
I think it's good that there are obviously your traditional cable and you're right. It's shaking up their entire lineup started this morning. They're doing that because things are constantly changing, constantly evolving, constantly bringing, trying new systems to the morning with the three o'clock with where Bill Hamer was.
Bill Hamer back in the morning with Dana Perino. So why are they doing that? Because they're trying to figure out. And one of the problems with this is Andy, is that this idea that if you shut a valve down, if you, if you don't have the release of free speech, it's like a tire.
If you don't have that release valve, you know what happens? What happened on January 6th. That's what you got. The beauty of a country that supports free speech is it gives the outlet for the American people here in our country, the ability to redress their grievances, to petition Congress, to speak out on the streets, to engage the culture. If you squelch that down, you end up with violence in every other culture. That's what happens. Well, that's happened. That happened in the Roman Empire.
The emperor used to come into the cities riding on his horse and the people would run, would stand around and they would, you got to get the emperor's attention. And what would you yell? One word, Brad, Brad, give us food.
And he heard the, and he heard it. But that was with the, you can't squelch that because once you squelch the ability of the people to demand from their government, redress of grievances to be heard, you have explosions. You have what happened on January 6th. You have the terrible things that this suppression of free speech can give. It's wrong.
Yeah. I mean, listen to Bite 8. Again, I keep going back to how Martin Luther King, we celebrate because of Martin Luther King Day, but so much of what he says is timeless. It can be applied to almost every situation we go through.
Take a listen to Bite number 8. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy. And right now the enemy is the conservative voice. Right now the enemy for Joe Biden, for Kamala Harris, for these networks, these platforms is us conservative. They didn't say alt-right. They didn't say extreme right. They said conservative. Conservative influencers, which is a huge, yeah, of course.
Yeah. Huge spectrum of people from all, I mean, if you find Instagram, you're probably following tens, thousands of them. You can say that about Hollywood actors who have become more conservative over the years. You could say that about anybody who's posting conservative political points of view and not even political. And somebody commented, I think it's interesting saying, you know, it is that sort of old, like saying, and look of that, you know, the more liberal perspective looks at you and says, you're a horrible person.
The conservative looks at a liberal person and says, I think you're a good person just with bad views. And I think that is the problem is they're treating you. You're an American with views I disagree with. Right.
Not you're the enemy. And this is the big concern. And look, not that there aren't fringe on both sides. There absolutely are. Uh, but the mass majority of people, the fringe is motivated more by these cancellations and more by this feeling of their, of when they hear this, then if you just, like you said, that it's like, they, that's what pops up unfortunately when you don't have anywhere else to express views and express views that that doesn't mean they should do no monitoring by the way. And you know, the funny thing is they weren't doing any and because they have that section 230 protection where they are not liable for anything that goes up on their site. There's executions and live murders going on Facebook.
Remember that time there were live murders and things like that. But look, it's a problem with YouTube, YouTube. I love the platform. Uh, you know, my channel has done very well and I'm very appreciative of the platform that I have on YouTube, but they tell you, if you don't monitor your comments, you can get kicked off. And when you have a video like mine that has 1.7 million plays, it's almost impossible to go through every day.
The amount of comments that come in and roll in still every day, every day, a month old, it's a video of six months old and it gets comets every day cause it's now just rolling. And the problem is if I don't go in there or someone doesn't go in there now, some, they obviously check if there's horrible profanities. There are some self checks there, but there are things I go through every day and go, I can't believe someone put this on the internet. I got to delete it because it could get flagged on you.
You're fine. And then all of a sudden we're shut down. This is where it's, it's becoming a tough, tough moderator, not them, right? They have their own self moderate, but then you have to self moderate. You even have to self moderate and say whether you think an advertiser will like this video and whether it's a comment and a person's comment. You have to be super careful.
And I mean that for everyone who's listening, everyone who's watching. I mean, look, you bald Beagle, our kids channel is marked for kids. It's specifically for kids. So there are no comments. So that's actually a little bit of a, because your kids aren't exposed.
They know, at least they're smart enough to know YouTube don't expose kids to these horrible things. People say we come back. A lot of people have got questions about the legal challenge. You know, parlors in court now with Amazon. I'll be talking about that later today too.
And it's uphill. Are they back on there online? Uh, they're back on the page is up, but they have not relaunched the service because I don't think they have the proprietary information yet to relaunch it yet. We'll answer some of these costs. A lot of people are calling and say, what about the legal challenges? So let's get into that.
Now that we've kind of explained the issue, we go deeper there. 1-800-684-3110 is always go to ACLJ.org. Support the work of the American center for law and justice. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected.
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Welcome back to J-Secio Live. So I wanted to start taking some calls about more like how to fight this here in court. So we've got a lot of questions about this and there are actual legal challenges ongoing right now. One is on Parler taking Amazon to court right now.
They're looking for an injunction to get them back on. So let's go to Rebecca in California on line three. Rebecca, welcome to J-Secio Live. Hi Rebecca. Hi gentlemen.
Thank you for taking my call. So bear with me because there's a lot in this question, but in essence, having worked at big tech for over 25 years and seeing the monopoly that has grown with AWS and Microsoft Azure that does all the hosting for these new media platforms like Newsmax and OAN through the internet, hosting their servers, and seeing how telecom has changed both with AT&T and Verizon, what has occurred with Parler to me looks to be a huge antitrust issue. And I'm interested to know because of FCC regulations, antitrust law, and the fact that these are private companies, but they're publicly traded, how is it that they could isolate and say no conservative speech on YouTube or these platforms? Yeah, the fact that they're publicly traded does not mean they're a public forum or that they're a government speech. That just means their stock ownership is traded publicly.
You could buy their stock. With regard to the antitrust aspect of it, I was just looking at Andy when he said that. Antitrust litigation, I've been involved in some of that.
You're talking about a decade. Oh, antitrust litigation takes on forever. I remember we had an antitrust division in the US Attorney's Office in Atlanta, and all I remember them doing is coming to me for immunity requests. And I said, you want to immunize everybody?
You have any defendants you intend to prosecute? And they never did. All they did was immunize people and take testimony in the grand jury. You're talking about decades and decades of complex litigation when you talk about antitrust laws. And the Parler case, it's not Parler saying that Twitter tried to shut us down. So it's not like a competitor tried to shut us down.
They were taken off literally the server, the AWS issue that she was talking about, which is the Amazon server program. Yeah, a lot of people use it because it's very reliable. Obviously, it's Amazon. They're very reliable.
I'm sure the Microsoft one is too. Yes. So how vulnerable are these companies to like Amazon and these others? Like, first of all, listen, if somebody went after us, to de-platform us, which we hope they don't do. Yeah, don't give them any ideas. No. But I'm saying, well, we're giving them nothing to de-platform. I wouldn't have any conversation about free speech. Yeah, of course. And I said they have the right to say yes or no. The question is, it's not hard. No, no.
It's a couple flips of switches and you're done. I mean, the only thing would be holding us out is that hopefully your Christian radio stations and your conservative radio stations would keep you on the air. And TBN and Christian television, which by the way, like I said, if they're going to go after your Newsmax, your TBN is next.
And it's just true. Who's got shows like Huckabee, which they didn't have like four years ago, but they brought that back. I know he's doing like an inaugural special for TBN, something different for them than they've done in the past 10 years. So again, all of that to me just signals that they'll come for parlor because I'll try to say, well, look, they were this open place and there was so much craziness going on there because they were a brand new company protected by what? Section 230. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, they got the same protection force.
So as a new company, they weren't held to the standard of having to have the same kind of monitoring because they didn't have the same kind of resources to monitor. So how do you set, but again, I think that's the perfect example of it's, they don't want to just take down a show is now what I'm saying. They want to take down the place that's hosting the show. So your entire platform, Newsmax out. So it's every show on Newsmax.
Yeah. Instead of saying, let's call to cancel ex-host, it's beyond that. That was my big concern when they came for parlor as a platform, not for people, not for broadcasters, not for a show.
Because look, if you don't have advertisers, all those shows can crumble quickly. When they're saying to de-platform the entire network or the entire service, that is where you have to be. Look, I have no really, really liberal friends who hate this idea because they know it could easily, the shoe could be on the other foot. Except for the, like what you said, conservatives don't think this way. We don't say silence the other side. Oh, it would never happen.
It would never happen. But I'm saying the other way, they see at least there are people who think this way. The other way is that these tech companies don't understand that Section 230 was created by Republicans. I mean, that's created by conservatives to allow them to grow as businesses.
And yet they're now using it, abusing that to silence conservative voices. Let's go take the final couple of calls of today. Because this is what we're getting a lot now, dad.
People are talking about the Fairness Doctor again from the other side because maybe we need it. Jerry in Virginia online one. Jerry, welcome to Jay Sekio Live. I appreciate you taking my call. I agree with your comments. I'd say 99.999% of the time. But it's ironic that you just mentioned the Fairness Doctrine because if the First Amendment does continue to be attacked, then at least the conservative view will be displayed. So it only applies, I suppose, to radio and television.
But at least you have a cordial and perhaps a civil conversation that can be... Yeah. Jerry, I'm opposed to the Fairness Doctrine. I didn't like it before.
I don't like it... You know, this is the old story. We complained about it because it was stifling conservative speech. So get rid of the Fairness Doctrine, of course, conservative speech. I mean, I think about Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, us, others, programs grew exponentially.
So now we're on the... She's on the other foot. We've got big tech saying, hmm, we wanna silence these conservatives. I wanna use more speech to beat them back.
I don't wanna use government compulsion. At least that's where my head is right now. I think you're right.
I think that's the way to do it because, again, it could quickly turn against you very fast. And that's been the reason we've been against it before. But the danger of any culture, Andy, that silences a... You're not talking about... Like you said, Jordan, 75 million people voted for Donald Trump. To silence half the country point of view is really setting up for danger in my view.
Every culture has experienced this. The First Amendment is the safety valve. It's the air pressure release. That's what it was designed for. And you remove that and you create problems.
Unfortunately, it's human nature. I think the only answer to speech is more speech and more speech and more speech and never stifling speech. And again, as I said, whether you agree with it or not, I defend to the death the right to express yourself in any way you can, religiously, politically, economically, socially. That's not just freedom of expression verbally, but to express yourself in the point of view that ultimately takes stock in the marketplace.
But you don't suppress speech by trying to do the things that we see on CNN and so forth. Could you imagine if 75 million people decided tomorrow we're not going to use Amazon anymore because we're mad at them? I mean, they could do that. They have the right to do that, but that's not good business. And simply it was not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. It's the convenience of life at this point digitally.
It is Martin Luther King Day. I want to say, as we wrapped up the show, we do have a brand new Bald Beagle video. If you haven't seen it for your kids, go watch it, baldbeagle.com. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and check out what we're doing. We obviously do new shows also on my channel on youtube.com slash loganSekulow reprogram or just search for loganSekulow. Click that subscribe button.
We'll have a new show up later today or tomorrow. All right, folks. A great discussion today. I think on MLK Day, especially when talking about speech, talking about the need to allow speech that again may seem at the time radical to some voices, to some ears. And then you see, like with Martin Luther King, that over a period of time, it becomes totally acceptable. Like, like this is nothing, nothing to disagree about that everyone on every side of the aisle politically and all over the world agrees with. And that you're, you're, you're in the minority of the minority. If you disagree with what Dr. Martin Luther King was talking about the 1960s at the time, extremely radical, they would consider that offensive speech that children shouldn't be able to hear the white kids shouldn't be able to listen to.
We don't want to get to that point, folks. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-02 13:40:18 / 2024-01-02 14:04:27 / 24