If you tuned into "The Today Show" this morning looking for the usual funny cat videos and trans friendly salad recipes, you may have been surprised to find actual news being committed on your screen. In place of the segment you expected to see "Fit and sexy over 70," there was NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer letting you know that actually that assault on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco that you read about last week, that story was a whole lot stranger than you ever imagined.
According to Almaguer, citing several law enforcement sources with direct knowledge, it was Paul Pelosi who opened the door for police when they arrived. Now you'll remember that authorities had previously told us that the intruder, David DePape, had broken into Paul Pelosi's bedroom on the third floor of the house and woken him up. Yet somehow, both Pelosi and DePape were on the ground floor by the time police got there. Moreover, according to Almaguer, Pelosi and DePape had been together in the house for at least half an hour, and yet strangely, they both seemed fine.
With police present, Almaguer reported Paul Pelosi "did not immediately declare an emergency or leave his home." Instead, he "walked back several feet toward the assailant and away from police."
What? Paul Pelosi walked away from the police and toward David DePape? What could possibly explain behavior like that and what were they doing for the 30 minutes before police arrived? Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't want to know. Paul Pelosi's personal life is his business. It's not our business. We've got nothing against the guy. We believe in privacy. But unfortunately for Paul Pelosi, there's an election coming next week and his wife's allies immediately politicized the assault against him.
They tried to tell us that David DePape, a homeless, illegal alien, nudist, drug addict who had a BLM flag hanging near the broken school bus that he lives in, was actually a right-wing hitman inspired by Q, determined to act out the violence of January 6 in Nancy Pelosi's own home. They told us that like we'd believe it. Then the president of the United States went on television and said it again. It's laughably absurd. Russia bombed its own pipeline. Ok, but they said it and they're still saying it.
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Then out of nowhere comes "The Today Show," the head baton twirler in the Democratic Party's media pep squad and completely, probably unintentionally, blows up their lie. After watching Almaguer’s story on "The Today Show" this morning, you could only conclude, as Elon Musk put it, "there's a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye." You think?
Now we know for a fact that there is more to the story because NBC News has Jeffrey Epsteined the entire thing. NBC deleted Almaguer’s story both from its website and from Twitter. Why do they do that? Well, obviously, they did it because the report was true. There's no question.
When was the last time you saw someone punished for lying? No one's ever punished for lying. You can lie all you want. What you can't do is tell the truth about something important. That's dangerous. You will be punished if you do that and many are punished in case you haven't noticed.
So, just for fun, we called over to NBC News today. We wanted to get their explanation for why they censored their own story, but mostly, (if we're being honest) we just wanted to rub their noses in the fact that they're not journalists at all. They're obedient, little throne-sniffing servants to the party in power.
Predictably, NBC News refused to tell us what was wrong with their own story. But of course, we already knew what was wrong with it. Nancy Pelosi didn't like it. That was the problem. Nancy Pelosi did appreciate the story that NBC News ran entitled "The GOP has Paul Pelosi's blood on its Hands." That story remains on the NBC website tonight. It meets their "standards."
What are we watching here? Well, lying, obviously, but not the usual kind of lying. Normal people lie in a very recognizable way. They're human beings. They have consciences. They feel guilty about lying, so they don't go all the way. They shade the truth.
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"Did you eat these cookies?" you ask your 5-year-old. "I had one," he'll say, looking at you nervously. He's lying, but he's doing it to the minimum extent he feels he has to. But if you ask a sociopath the same question, you'll get a very different answer. "Did you eat these cookies?’ you'll ask. "No," he will reply, looking straight in the face and smiling faintly. "You ate them." That's not shading the truth. That's inverting the truth. It's scary, and you're seeing a lot of it lately.
John Fetterman on "The View" today, for example. The one thing everyone knows about John Fetterman is that in May he suffered serious brain damage from a stroke. He can now barely speak. That's true. It's obvious. There's no debate about it. Now, if you live in Pennsylvania, you may vote for John Fetterman on Tuesday anyway, depending upon how attached you are to late term abortion, but no matter how you vote, with or against, you can't argue that John Fetterman, "looks and sounds great" because by any measure, he does not at all. But that's exactly what ABC hosts argued today. Watch this.
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think you look and sound great. So, last week, let me ask you this, you and Dr. Oz faced off in your first televised debate and you said "It wasn't exactly easy." I think it was an incredibly courageous and brave thing for you to show what healing from a stroke looks like. That's incredibly brave. On the other hand, Dr. Oz, a cardiac surgeon, in my view, came off as a bully. Does any of this surprise you, a man with a Harvard master's degree? Do you think the people of Pennsylvania saw what they needed to see from you to gain their vote?
JOHN FETTERMAN: Yeah. I really believe that it wasn't an even event for me without a doubt.
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John Fetterman, you look and sound great. Really, ABC Lady, have you had a stroke too? How stupid do you think your audience is? Pretty stupid, apparently.
This same liar described Fetterman's Senate debate performance, the one you saw as, "incredibly courageous and brave" like he was on the bin Laden raid instead of drooling on a stage in Harrisburg. In case you've forgotten what she was referring to, here's what it looked like.
MODERATOR: You're running for a seat that could decide the balance of power in Washington. What qualifies you to be a U.S. senator? You have 60 seconds.
FETTERMAN: Hi. Good night, everybody.
"Hi. Good night, everybody." That's not incredibly courageous. It's incredibly cruel. John Fetterman's wife ought to be shunned by decent people for allowing that to happen. She knew her husband's condition. She just wants the power. It's disgusting. And keep in mind, that's how John Fetterman talks with the help of a computer. We got a glimpse of his talking machine today. It's the size of an iron lung.
ROBERT COSTA: Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke in May, used a closed captioning device during the interview with the stenographer, typing out the questions in real time.
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Again, just like the question of what Paul Pelosi was doing at 2 in the morning with an illegal alien nudist, we would be just as happy, in fact, very happy to ignore this whole thing. We don't want to talk about John Fetterman's stroke. It's awful. It's depressing. John Fetterman should have dropped out of the race in May with the encouragement of his loving wife, which apparently HE doesn't have. but instead, they're pushing him. The Democratic Party is pushing him to run for the Senate despite his inability to speak and they're doing that because they want power. And for the rest of us, that means we are now required to pretend that the sad, brain damaged guy is actually incredibly brave and impressive.
In other words, they're demanding that we ignore what we can see with our eyes. That's called the "big lie" and four days before the midterm elections, it's everywhere. Here's Joy Reid of MSNBC telling you that inflation is not real. Now, you may think, you may imagine, that you're paying more for spaghetti and two-by-fours and heating oil. Oh, no. That's the figment of your imagination. In fact, it's a diabolical psy-op engineered by the information warfare division of the Republican Party in Washington. Watch this.
JOY REID: The only people I ever hear use the word inflation are journalists and economists. Right? So, that is not part of the normal lexicon of the way people talk. So, it's interesting that Republicans are doing something they don't normally do.. which is not use the common tongue. Right? Not use just common English, to sort of use, do on their campaigns like they do with crime, but what they've done is they've taught people the word "inflation." Right? Most people who would have never used that word ever in their lives are using it now because they've been taught it, including on TV, including in newspapers. They've been taught this word.
Someday we're going to a recurring segment called "Guess Joy Reid’s IQ." That'll be fun. What they've done, says the Harvard lady,is they've taught people the word "inflation." There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The Republican Party running around teaching people words, even three syllable words. "In-fla-tion. Inflation!" Scary! Next, some of these MAGA people will be reading and writing their own names on legal documents and God knows what else. Stop them before they bring literacy to the population. Before you know it, people will start to believe that crime is real and for the record, it's not.
AL SHARPTON: But there's a major concern surrounding the racist rhetoric that often goes hand in glove with the law-and-order messages.
REID: Republicans are pulling out all the old fear and loathing playbook, trying to scare voters about crime.
HILLARY CLINTON: They're not concerned about voter safety. They just want to keep voters scared.
CHARLES COLEMAN: They have now turned to a strategy that sensationalizes crime, that weaponizes crime and that racializes crime.
PHIL MURPHY: The other guys play the crime card relentlessly and shame, shame, shamelessly. It's got racial elements to it. Let's just call that for what it is.
CHRIS HAYES: Type of crime that scares Republican and independent voters the most to make them believe that crime is skyrocketing, that America is a hellhole and the thing is, it works. Dystopian, nakedly racist video, preferably grainy security cam footage featuring almost exclusively Black people committing crime in big cities.
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See, that's the thing. You know what they're doing? Do you know what they're doing, these racists? They're weaponizing crime. It's not the guy with the weapon who's the problem, the one stealing your purse or raping you or breaking into your house or carjacking you with the kids in the back. No, no, no. That's not the weapon that we need to worry about. The weapon is you're noticing that it's happening and in case you don't believe that, we have statistics and they appeared the other day on CNN. CNN read a report on FBI crime stats showing that crime is down. See, crime is down. These are numbers! Kind of forgot to mention that the FBI report they cited left out 40% of major cities in the United States, including the two biggest New York and Los Angeles. Just kind of forgot that, except for the population centers, but, you know, Bangor and Great Falls. Totally fine! It's totally fine!
Again, this is not a small lie. Not a small lie! It's a big lie, the big lie, but that's a phrase they use. Of course, they do. They're also denying there's anything wrong with our southern border. There is nothing wrong with our southern border! There's no invasion. 5 million people? 5 million friends more for dinner. Not a big deal. By the way, if you got video of it, it's probably fake. Actually, we do. Here it is.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Clearly this is major news. This is a former president of the United States getting subpoenaed. While this huge news event was breaking, what was Fox News airing? Crime, crime, crime, crime, inflation, immigration. That's all they do all day, every day. Just going right to the fears of the American people.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR, BOSTON GLOBE: We saw JD Vance harping on the issue of crime and talking, linking it to things like illegal immigration. Those are the types of issues, the things that drive fear.
CHRISTINA GREER, FORDHAM PROFESSOR: They're just coming straight out and especially during election time, we see it's the caravans again. It's the fear of immigrants.
MICHAEL STEELE: They were scaring suburban White women with caravans coming to their neighborhood.
RUHLE: You turn on Fox News any time of day, any day of the week, there are three messages on repeat: the border crisis, crime on the rise and inflation.
Why aren’t they talking about climate change? Haven’t they seen the Greta videos? Climate change is what matters. Instead, they're talking about their country, their stupid country, because 5 million people show up. You're racist if you notice. Again, nothing you just heard refutes in any way the facts that Fox News puts on a loop. What it addresses is you and the person it attacks is you because you dared to notice. Shut up. You're not allowed to notice and don't you dare vote against it.
Of the many lies they're pushing, maybe the most bewildering of all, is the idea that you can destroy democracy by voting. Really? We are under the impression you destroy democracy with artillery or by changing the population of your country by opening the borders, thereby watering down the voting power of the population, its citizens. That might be destroying democracy, but no. Now we've learned that the real attack on democracy is electoral disobedience. Watch this.
PRESIDENT BIDEN: Make no mistake. Democracy is on the ballot for all of us.
JOCELYN BENSON, MICHIGAN SEC OF STATE: Democracy is on the ballot.
SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE: Democracy is on the ballot. Think about this.
BIDEN: Democracy is on the ballot.
MANDELA BARNES: Democracy is actually on the ballot.
LAURA COATES: Democracy is on the ballot.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN ANALYST: Democracy is on the ballot.
PELOSI: And Democracy is on the ballot.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Do you believe democracy is on the ballot in Utah?
EVAN MCMULLIN: It is on the ballot.
BIDEN: Democracy is on the ballot this year in America.
VAN JONES: Somebody needs to tell voters what they need to hear which is that democracy is on the ballot.
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This is ultimately a news show. We have our opinions, but it's also incumbent on us to check the facts. We have a sample ballot here, and we're checking and it turns out democracy is not on the ballot.
There are actually names of candidates who are on the ballot and you get to choose one as a voter, the one who best represents you and you get to choose any candidate you want because it's a democracy, meaning you run the government because it's your country. So no, democracy is not on the ballot and of course, they knew that.
What they're really telling you is that the threat to democracy is voters. Don't you dare destroy this beautiful representative government by asking it to represent you. How dare you! Democracy means supporting Joe Biden and anything less than that is insurrection. That's the script they're reading and the amazing thing is some of the more feeble-minded among them actually seem to believe it. So, Michael Beschloss, for example.
Beschloss is living proof they don't have to pass an IQ test to become a historian. You just have to call yourself one. I'm historian Michael Beschloss. They hauled in Beschloss the other day from semi-retirement to ruminate about democracy and they expected him to say "democracy is on the ballot" and he may have said that, but as he got going, he lost control of himself. Watch this.
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BESCHLOSS: And a historian 50 years from now, if historians are allowed to write in this country and if there are still free publishing houses and a free press, which I'm not certain of, but if that is true, a historian will say what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed. We're on the edge of a brutal authoritarian system and it could be a week away.
A week away! What? We don't know where Michael Beschloss is broadcasting from. It didn't look like a bunker. It looked like a French country kitchen that his decorator put together, but whatever. Hop he's stockpiling low carb pasta because it could be a dark tomorrow. Now, keep in mind, this is the guy who is advising Joe Biden on extremism, but needless to say, he does not regard himself as an extremist.
If you vote Republican, your children will be arrested and killed. That's his campaign slogan. It's not quite as reassuring as, say, a "chicken in every pot" or even "hope and change," but at this point, Democrats are out of hope and above all, they fear change. They want things to stay exactly the way they are.
