(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) As the true implications of Paul Pelosi’s ties to the “notorious” Castro Nudist cult grow darker and darker, dishonest news outlets like the Associated Press not only engaged in blatant denialism, as they did previously with the Hunter Biden laptop, but also attempted to use the story to baselessly bludgeon and defame conservatives.
Media pundits on Sunday followed the lead of President Joe Biden, who exploited the dangerous attack on Pelosi to push a false narrative linking the far-left assailant to the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising at the U.S. Capitol.
In reality, David DePape not only was a left-wing extremist, but also believed, according to the police dispatch, to be a “friend” of Pelosi’s.
Still, Biden claimed, with little evidence, that DePape had yelled “Where’s Nancy” during a domestic dispute with Paul Pelosi early Friday morning.
“[T]he same chant was used by this guy that they have in custody that was used on Jan. 6, the attack on the U.S. Capitol,” he said during a campaign event Friday.
Echoing the bogus narrative that the radical nudist had suddenly, out of the blue, converted into a MAGA firebrand, celebrity charlatans Rob Reiner and Al Sharpton were among those making outlandish claims.
Sharpton—who rose to fame as the result of another fake-news narrative, the Tawana Brawley race hoax—rightfully noted that America had turned into a “banana republic,” according to Breitbart, while appearing on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show.
“Let’s remember, this man who broke into Speaker Pelosi’s home saying where is Nancy was repeating the same question, of where is Nancy as they are breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6,” he said, parroting Biden almost verbatim.
“We are now in a time where it is almost being normalized that, like in a banana republic, our top officials can be targeted by people that wanted to do violence, not ‘I want to do voting,'” he added.
Reiner, best known for portraying “Meathead” on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, went even further by calling for the prosecution of former President Donald Trump, whom he directly implicated in Pelosi’s lover’s quarrel, as noted by Breitbart in a separate article.
Donald Trump has been spreading The Big Lie for 2 years. The violent assault on Paul Pelosi and the attempt to murder Speaker Pelosi is directly related to that Lie. Donald Trump is 100% responsible for this and Jan.6. He must be indicted and never be allowed to hold office.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) October 28, 2022
While these ignominious smears are to be expected from those, like Sharpton, who are paid to spout off partisan talking points and those, like Reiner, who are utterly disconnected from reality after half a century in Hollywood, the Pelosi “Hammer-Gate” scandal also became another case study in media malpractice.
The Associated Press disgracefully repeated a thinly sourced claim that the alleged assailant brought zip-ties to the attack—using the falsely framed premise that it was a right-wing extremist as the baseline narrative to prevent any further questions.
The AP’s libelous piece is reprinted in full below as part of our ongoing efforts to expose its far-left media bias. The outlet ironically—but without any sense of self-awareness—also published a smear attack against new Twitter CEO Elon Musk for suggesting the possibility of an alternative narrative.
Red-pilled journalist and pundit Glenn Greenwald issued a tweet thread, as reported by the Daily Wire, explaining that career-minded journalists at mainstream media outlets once again saw the obvious truth of the matter but were terrified to break free of the hive-minded groupthink orthodoxy for fear of being canceled.
It's very possible that the instantly formed media narrative — Paul Pelosi's attacker was a MAGA fanatic who broke in to murder Nancy — will be proven true.
But right now there are so many glaring doubts and holes in that story that it just takes common sense to question this.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 30, 2022
The story broke only 10 days before the 2022 midterm election, as Democrats desperately tried to stem their expected losses in the red-wave election on a two-pronged platform of Jan. 6 and abortion.
Unlike the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and the Russia-collusion hoax, however, in which hard evidence forced the truth ultimately to surface, there is a distinct possibility that the damning impact of Pelosi’s ties to a pedophile cult may never be revealed, particularly if any unfortunate mishaps were to befall DePape while he is incarcerated.
Below is the AP’s unedited hot-take on the Pelosi attack, which baselessly libels conservatives and repeats several false or unverified claims as fact:
AP source: Pelosi attacker carried zip ties, in Jan. 6 echo
The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband carried zip ties with him when he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home, according to a person briefed on the investigation, in what is the latest parallel to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the Pelosi case and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday.
The attack on Democratic leader’s 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, less than two weeks before before the Nov. 8 election that will determine control of Congress as well as key statewide and local offices, was an unsettling reminder of the nation’s toxic political climate. With threats to public officials at an all-time high, members of Congress were being urged to reach out for additional security resources, including increased police patrols of their neighborhoods.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said in a weekend memo to lawmakers that the attack “is a somber reminder of the threats elected officials and families face in 2022.”
Police in San Francisco said the assault of Paul Pelosi was intentional. Authorities said the suspect, identified as David DePape, 42, confronted Paul Pelosi in the family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and, the AP has reported, demanded to know, “Where is Nancy?”
The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to announce the charges on Monday during a new conference and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.
Eerie echoes of the Jan. 6 riot were apparent in the incident at the Pelosi home.
Rioters who swarmed the Capitol trying to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump roamed the halls and shouted menacingly, demanding “Where’s Nancy?” Some in the siege were seen inside the Capitol carrying zip ties. The presence of the zip ties on the suspect in Paul Pelosi’s assault was first reported by CNN.
Nancy Pelosi was in Washington when her husband was attacked at home. She soon returned to San Francisco, where her husband was hospitalized. He had surgery for a skull fracture, and suffered other injuries to his arms and hands, her office said.
“Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop,” she said in a letter late Saturday to colleagues. “We are grateful for the quick response of law enforcement and emergency services, and for the life-saving medical care he is receiving.”
Paul Pelosi remains hospitalized and “continues to improve,” she told colleagues.
With Election Day nearing and Trump relentlessly promoting claims he did not lose to Biden in 2020, federal agencies warned on Friday that domestic extremists fueled by election falsehoods “pose a heightened threat” to the midterms. The Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies said the greatest danger was “posed by lone offenders who leverage election-related issues to justify violence.”
Biden and other officials, Democrats and Republicans, condemned the attack on Paul Pelosi and said violence has no home in American politics.
“Enough is enough is enough,” Biden said while campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday night.
Trump, in an interview taped Friday with Americano Media, a conservative Spanish-language network, called the attack on Paul Pelosi a “terrible thing,” but the former president also tried to link it to crime in U.S. cities.
For years, Republicans have tried to make Pelosi a campaign boogeyman, using the 82-year-old’s image as a recurring caricature in countless ads against Democrats, including many now airing in races nationwide during a hostile election season.
The head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, said Sunday it was “unfair” to blame the GOP for creating a political climate that could have laid the ground for such an attack.
“You can’t say people saying, ‘Let’s fire Pelosi’ or ‘Let’s take back the House” is saying go do violence,” she told “Fox News Sunday.”
The House GOP’s campaign chief, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, was asked during a Sunday interview about a tweet promoting his own video, which shows him shooting a gun at an indoor target.
“Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights,” Emmer tweeted, mentioning he was with two House GOP candidates. The video includes the imagery and sounds of the rifle being fired. The tweet was posted Wednesday, before Paul Pelosi was assaulted, and said: “13 days to make history. Let’s #FirePelosi.”
Emmer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he was just “exercising our Second Amendment rights, having fun.”
Both McDaniel and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California said Paul Pelosi’s assailant was “deranged.”
McCarthy said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that violence or the threat of violence “has no place in our society.”
Five years ago, a left-wing activist opened fire on Republicans as they practiced for an annual charity baseball game. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was critically wounded. In 2011, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store.
Editor’s note: This is a false equivalency. The Scalise/GOP attack showed clear-cut political motives from a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter, while Giffords’s anarchist attacker was not proven to have any political motives that favored conservatives.
Elon Musk jumped into the debate Sunday tweeting, then deleting, a link to a fringe website with an unfounded rumor about the attack on Speaker Pelosi’s husband. Sent to his millions of followers, Musk’s tweet came just days after his purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who leads the Senate committee overseeing security at the Capitol, said lawmakers are considering new measures, including taking their private information off the internet.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted, however that Nancy Pelosi “has been villainized for years and, big surprise, it’s gone viral, and it went violent.”
“I think it is really important that people realize that it is not just this moment of this horrific attack, but that we have seen violence perpetrated throughout our political system,” Klobuchar told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at truthsocial.com/@bensellers. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
