Episode 1244 Scott Adams： In Hindsight, A More Transparent Election Might've Been A Good Idea
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Summary
On this episode of Morning Joe, Alex takes a look at the massive protests that took place in the streets of Washington, D.C. on September 14th and 15th, and gives his thoughts on whether or not they were justified.
Transcript
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Come on in. Come on in. Come on. Come on. You know you need this. Sometimes you want
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it. Sometimes you do it and I have it. But sometimes, sometimes you need it. Gather
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around. Gather around. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. Oh, that's so good. Are you ready?
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Are you ready to make it official? Sure you are. All you need is a cup or mug or a glass
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of tank or chalice or style, a canteen jug or flask or vessel of any kind. Fill it with
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your favorite liquid. I like afternoon coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure
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of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that quells revolutions. Yeah, there hasn't been
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one yet. Not when you're drinking the simultaneous sip that happens now. Go.
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Oh, yeah. So can somebody tell me in the comments, what is the approximate estimate of the number
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of protesters who have descended upon our capital? Is it a hundred? Is it a thousand? Ten thousand?
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A hundred thousand? I'll bet you don't know, do you? I have no idea. I'm seeing a few estimates now.
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These look like wild guesses because they're all over the place. I don't even want to read them
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because they're just all over the place. Now, I think what we're seeing is that the news industry
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has decided that instead of reporting the news, they will try to stop the news. So the news has
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decided to try to suppress the protests. And let me tell you where I am on the protests because
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if I don't say that right up front, everybody will wonder, well, where are you? So I know what to think
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about your dumb opinion. Here's my take. I like to do this thing called being consistent.
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And it's really annoying, but I do it anyway. And here's how I'm going to apply it in this situation.
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When Colin Kaepernick was doing his kneeling and disrupting the fine sport situations,
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while many of you said, how dare he make us feel uncomfortable and disrespect our flag and words to
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those effect, I said the opposite. And I said, that's a good protest. Good protest makes you feel
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uncomfortable. That's what it's supposed to do. I just tweeted something from AOC that I think was
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maybe a month ago or so. She tweeted exactly the same idea that a protest is supposed to make the
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people who are viewing it uncomfortable. Now, if I would say that about Colin Kaepernick,
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shouldn't I be consistent? I believe I should. Should I also not be consistent, which I always say,
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don't blame a few bad apples for, you know, for the spoil in the whole bunch, you know what I mean?
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Every big group is going to have some bad people in it, so it doesn't define the group. So let's start
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there. So do the protesters have a, let's say, a free speech right to do what they're doing? Well, I say yes.
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I say that this situation called for, let's say, a dramatic tap on the shoulder. Now, of course,
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I oppose all forms of, you know, violence or destruction of property. If a few windows get
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broken in the course of a major demonstration, I wouldn't make a big deal about it, no matter who it
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was. You know, a few windows, a little bit of damage, that's going to come with the free speech
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and with the right to assemble and all the rest. So I'm not going to make a big deal about the little
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stuff. If somebody got killed, and we're still in fog of war, so I don't know what the circumstances
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are, but there's reports that somebody got shot. If that happened, it's a tragedy and should never
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happen. But we don't know what that's about, and I'm not making any assumptions about it.
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What I feel about this is that the Congress of the United States and the state governments
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collectively, let's just say, or a government, they gave us an election without giving us confidence.
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So that's the part we can all agree on, right? We can disagree about, you know, was the election
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stolen? Was it not stolen? But there is one thing we can agree on. The Congress and the state
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governments especially did not provide the people of this country a transparent, credible election.
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And when they didn't provide one that was transparent and credible to begin with,
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and they did have a chance really to correct that in the form of maybe audits or looking at the source
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code of any voting things, that sort of thing. Maybe a real hearing of the evidence, as opposed to
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having everything kicked out of the court for doctrine of latches and for standing and stuff like that.
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Whereas the fake news has decided to report consistently that somehow the evidence, alleged evidence,
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purported evidence of any election irregularities or fraud, they report as if the court cases actually
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listened to the evidence. But that didn't happen. There were lots of cases rejected for technical
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reasons, but not because of the evidence. They didn't get to hear the evidence. So what happens when
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you've got a fake news industry sitting on top of an incompetent government that does not deliver the
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single most basic element of the republic? A fair, transparent, credible election. Now, what should be
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the response of the public? What's the proper response to a government that is too incompetent or
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unwilling? Who knows? Bribed? We don't know. Whatever the reason is, I'm not even sure it matters.
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But they were incapable, for whatever reason, to deliver the most basic element that holds the whole
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thing together. And they could get away with that because the fake news industry protects them.
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So under these circumstances, and I don't have an opinion about what might be found if we did more
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audits, etc. I feel that any system that can be corrupted will be. But beyond that, I don't have an
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opinion on any specific claim, except that most of them probably will be debunked. Maybe all of them
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easily could happen. But do we not agree that no matter what happened, our government didn't let us
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check it out? It prevented the people from gaining the certainty and the confidence that they wanted.
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And it is the most, have I mentioned this yet? The most basic part of the entire system.
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And we were prevented from it by incompetence or, who knows, greed, stupidity, whatever it is that
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drives our collective governments, state and federal. But they were certainly protected
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by the fake media, the way they report it. So what is the proper level of response?
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In my opinion, you're looking at it. The response that you're seeing, in my opinion, and this is
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entirely subjective, I won't even try to, I won't make any attempt to convince you to my opinion,
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because this is just subjective, right? You all get to decide, how big is the problem?
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What are the other alternatives besides protest? Because our system allows protest, right?
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So how big is the problem? So how big should the response be? You know, it's got to be big enough
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to address the problem, right? Would you want to have another election in which we allowed our
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government to be this incompetent? Again, I'm not saying that the election was necessarily fraudulent.
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But the incompetence is that they didn't give us credibility. They didn't give us a process we
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could trust. They didn't give us transparency. And then when we had questions, when we had questions,
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and then when we had questions, those motherfuckers didn't let us answer them.
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So what is the right size of the response to that? I think you're looking at it. I think that the right
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size was, we're not going to hurt anybody. Ideally, they're not going to hurt anybody. I don't really
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see bloodlust in the crowd, do you? I feel as if this crowd might leave the scene a little bit neater
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than they found it. I feel if they find anything that needs any repair. There are a lot of guys with
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trucks and skills. They might actually fix some things that needed repairs more than they break
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stuff. This is not a regular protest. In order to get these people all the way into the center of the
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Capitol, something went wrong. I heard, I forget who it was. I think it was somebody on Fox, was maybe
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you, Brad Bear? I'm not sure. But whoever said it, it sounded wise that what we're seeing is not a,
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not a failure of security. It's a failure of government. And I think that's exactly right.
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It's not a failure of security. Security actually is, I think, doing a good job.
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Did you see anything that the security did that looked like a bad job? I didn't. I think security
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is doing an excellent job. The protesters had numbers, and so the security wisely gave a little
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grounds, just like they should. So textbook, I think they're doing a great job.
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So yeah, we don't know anything about the situation of the shooting. My guess is it's sort of a one-off
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situation. I doubt it was representative of what's going on there.
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So here's my feeling. If you're worried about something like taking over the government,
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let me remind you that the government is not that room. That's not the government. The government is
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not the real estate. The government is not the thing behind the closed door. The government doesn't
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need a building. They can Zoom. Literally, they can Zoom. So what the protesters are taking over is not
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anything like the government. What they're taking over is some space, because it makes people
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uncomfortable. And did I mention that making people uncomfortable is the point of a protest? Do you think
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that our election security and, you know, transparency, do you think it would suddenly get better for the next
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election if this were not happening? I'd love to think that was going to happen? But I doubt it. Don't you? Don't you
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doubt anything would happen for next time? This, this is exactly the size and type of response that I think is
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perfectly fit to the size of the problem. And the fact that absolutely nothing was going to happen to fix this for next
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time. Nothing was going to happen. You get that, right? Does anybody disagree with that? You can tell, I mean,
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you don't have to be some, you know, management genius. You don't have to be a world famous political pundit
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to know that the following statement is real. The government wasn't going to fix it for next time.
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Right? Did anybody think, well, now we saw some complaints. I guess we're good for next time.
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Because next time, next time, they're going to fix it. Literally, not one fucking person who's
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listening to this thinks the government was just going to fucking fix it. It wasn't. Whatever it was
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that made them not fix it last time, the time before, the time before, the time before, in terms of
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how good election security could be compared to what it is. Whatever that was, it's not different
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today. The only thing that's fucking different is that a bunch of people in red hats said, we're going
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to stand in your fucking building until you just treat us seriously. Just treat the concern seriously.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get, I get that you believe, you being somebody out there, you believe
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that the election's over, we should have a peaceful transfer. I agree. I do think the election's over,
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in my opinion, you know, ever since the media called it for Biden, I congratulated him publicly the same
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day. And at no point since I congratulated Biden, same day as the media did, at no point have I
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reversed that and said, oh, he's not going to get into office. To me, it was obvious that the system
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would just grind along. But no matter who takes office, we can't let this happen again, right?
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I don't think, I don't think we should stand for it. And if that requires taking over some space,
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not taking over the government, because the government just needs a phone, right? The government
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is the government, no matter where they are, they just go somewhere else. Nobody was kidnapping
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the government. Nobody was trying to assassinate the government. It wasn't really about the people
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so much. It was about a system that just isn't working, just isn't working. So if some patriots
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want to take some personal risk, and there's a lot of personal risk involved here, if some patriots
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want to take some personal risk, I give them the same respect that I gave Colin Kaepernick,
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which is, if you're going to do it, make somebody uncomfortable, or else you didn't do it right.
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So we're seeing some people making some people uncomfortable. I can't oppose that. But I also
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don't condone any kind of violence or threats, that sort of thing. But I do understand the size of the
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response. I understand the emotion. I understand the reason. I would have maybe a difference of
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opinion about how certain I am about what size of fraud there is, and whether or not it would reverse
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things. But we can all agree that the system did not do what it is supposed to do. Make you feel you
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voted in a credible way. Make you feel you could check. Make you feel later, if you had questions,
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you could look into them. Make you feel your concerns were heard. None of that happened.
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None of that happened. Not only did none of that happen in terms of concerns being properly
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aired out and addressed. But the fake news reported that it had been. Just consistently. Just keeps
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reporting. Yeah, totally. That stuff's been looked into by, I don't know. Now, again, I think 95% of all
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the alleged claims are complete bullshit. And maybe the other 5% too. I just agree with
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everybody who said, if we can't tell, we didn't have an election. Right? It might be completely
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accurate. It might be accurate enough. You know, the vote count and maybe the outcome is about what it
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should be. Maybe. But if you can't tell, you didn't really have an election, did you? You just had sort of
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the impression of an election. So, I don't think that I need to be too worried, and I would recommend
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that you not be too worried about this snowballing into some bigger thing. I believe that the limit of
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what can be done is being done, which is to make a statement that you can't forget. And you can't
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really forget this, can you, right? Simply by the fact, well, I just have to say this because it's
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just honest, and you wouldn't tune in if you didn't hear me say something like this once in a while.
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I've said before that when I hear stories about serial killers, I often have two feelings. One is,
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my God, that's horrible, the things that serial killer did. And then often, depending on how
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industrious the serial killer was and how well he planned and executed and built his underground
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bunker or whatever he did, I'm also thinking, but that was a pretty good plan. You know, strategy-wise,
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it's pretty good, pretty good. So, I feel as though, you know, we're all human, that you could have
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two conflicting feelings and hold them at the same time. And I'm having two conflicting feelings that I'm
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holding at the same time about the protesters. One is that I don't want to see anybody get hurt, and I don't
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want to see the Capitol defaced, I don't want to see just any unnecessary damage, right? So, don't want
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any of that. So, I can hold that thought in my head, while at the same time, hold the other thought
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in my head, that is, that was one awesome protest. How long did it take him to slice through security
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and get on the inside of the Capitol building? I've got a feeling that the Antifa is looking at this
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protest? Don't, don't you have this image of Antifa? Let's see, I must have my Antifa disguise
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around here somewhere. But, don't you have an image of Antifa watching this on TV? And they're like,
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hey, hey, look at this, these MAGA guys, they're trying to protest. They don't know how to protest.
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We've had a lot of practice. I'll tell you, we knew how, they did what? They've penetrated the inner
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core of the Capitol building of the Capitol of the United States in 10 minutes.
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Okay, that's some good protesting. That, that's some good protesting right there. That's some good
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protesting. So, I would not worry that this is going to, you know, snowball into some big revolution.
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It doesn't look like it has any kind of energy for that. What it does have is the right kind of energy
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that, in my opinion, very subjective. I'm fine if you disagree with this, because there's lots of
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room for disagreement here. In my opinion, it is sized correctly to the problem. Sized correctly.
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Just like Colin Kaepernick. Colin Kaepernick didn't punch anybody. He didn't, he didn't start a fire.
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He just got on one knee and offended people. His, his protest was well-sized for the attention it got
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to the size of the problem he was talking about. So, I can't, I can't fault, I never fault protesters
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if they're not hurting anybody, because that's one of the best parts about this place.
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I do expect the Trump supporters to be unusually peaceful. Yeah, I know it's getting a little
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rowdy down there, but I would trust them to know what is the limit of a good aggressive protest,
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and what is too far. And I'd be really disappointed, you know, if they don't kind of collectively
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feel that limit without anybody needing to tell them. So, I feel we're in good shape.
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A good shape in terms of, you're watching freedom of speech, freedom of expression. And by the way,
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compliments to the Capitol security, Capitol police. I mean, I think you got to give it up for
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the Capitol police. They are playing it exactly right. Because the MAGA people are not likely to
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trash all the furniture and set things on fire. So, so letting them through, so long as, you know,
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other people have been secured, it was the right play. And I think that everybody's going to
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appreciate that in time. So, I'm seeing a well-executed protest, and I'm seeing a security
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service that's acting very responsibly. What I am also seeing is a media that is trying to suppress it
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rather than appreciate where it's coming from. So, I would say that the worst actors right now are
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the media, the way it's being covered. The, the stars, the stars are the protesters, and the stars are
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the, the DC police who are trying to keep things under control. They're both stars right now.
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Both doing great work. And Congress, of course, um, I would say is a disaster. That's why they're,
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that's why this is happening. Congress is a disaster. And the news, the news business is, is just, uh,
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Somebody says in the comments, this is gaslighting 101. No, no. Uh, you must be new here. Read my book,
00:24:20.460
Loser Think. There's a chapter on there about people like you who, who don't know what gaslighting is.
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Literally, you just called me something that I have a chapter in a book.
00:24:31.080
Well, it's probably not your best moment. All right. Um, Trump's Twitter is banned.
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Interesting. Is that true? Can I get a, uh, well, it looks like a lot of people saying it. Uh, Trump's
00:24:52.680
Somebody says Capitol police killed the person. Yeah. I don't think we know anything about the
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shooting yet. Um, somebody's dead. I understand that for those of you who are too stupid to
00:25:14.540
understand the following point, I'm going to say it three times. Nobody's in favor of violence.
00:25:20.440
Nobody's in favor of violence. Nobody's in favor of violence. Now, can you stop saying,
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duh, somebody got shot because nobody's in favor of violence. So the dumb people here should maybe
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go to another live stream if that's too complicated for you. Uh, so Trump is, uh, blocked unless he
00:25:42.560
deletes two tweets. Well, somebody needs to tell me what those two tweets are. Were they tweets that
00:25:48.320
supported the, uh, the, uh, protest? Uh, I'm seeing in the comments, it's not true. Some people support
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violence. You know, there's always somebody, it's a big crowd. So, uh, I would agree with the statement
00:26:03.040
that in a big crowd, there's somebody who supports just about anything. So he's got a 12 hour suspension.
00:26:11.460
So have you noticed that social media and the mainstream news are acting as the gatekeepers
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of, let's say, order? Do you want them to have that job? Is it the job of social media
00:26:28.860
and the job of the news to manage the news in a way that controls our natural passions
00:26:39.020
or our inflamed opinions or our aggressive protests? Is it really the job of the news to do that?
00:26:49.820
It's very good that they don't make it worse. So we don't want them, you know, mixing things up,
00:26:56.840
but couldn't they be a little more neutral and just say what's happening? I feel as if they're
00:27:03.060
trying pretty hard to, to reduce it. Now, I don't know how big it is because as far as I can tell,
00:27:10.660
it's not been reported the, the number of people there. If I found out that the number of people
00:27:16.460
there was, I don't know, 500 and it's not growing, I have a very different opinion of it than if it was
00:27:24.740
500 an hour ago, but it's 2000 now. I'd be a little worried, but you're not going to get any reporting
00:27:32.020
on that. Because if they report that the number is going up, it will make the number go up some
00:27:37.540
more. So the news can't really report what's there without changing it. There's some Heisenberg
00:27:45.140
principle or something there. I don't know what I'm talking about. So ignore that part.
00:27:51.620
Yeah. And if it's true, and I assume it is because everybody's saying it, that Twitter has suspended
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Trump. I'm sure just guessing it had something to do with, uh, whipping up, uh, passions.
00:28:09.420
there was a funny joke in the comments, but if you missed it, that's on you.
00:28:19.260
Let's see. Metro DC police confirmed the girl was shot and died. So I would make, I'll, I'll probably
00:28:29.980
say this 10 more times before tomorrow. Um, I would make no judgments if I were you on the question of,
00:28:37.900
uh, what happened with that shooting, because it's fog of war and whoever got shot could well have done
00:28:46.220
something that, you know, earned that response, but it could have also been a tragic mistake.
00:29:00.780
why would they take a off a video calling for peace? I don't know. Is that what happened?
00:29:08.220
Jack Spear put out today, they should pull out the 25th amendment.
00:29:11.580
Yeah, I think you're going to see a lot of people calling for, uh, Trump to resign, uh, or to be
00:29:18.220
removed from office. And, um, I don't really have an opinion on that. I don't think it matters,
00:29:25.900
frankly. Frankly, what would it matters in a few weeks? I don't think it's, it doesn't make much
00:29:33.180
difference. Um, all right. I'm seeing in the comments that Trump asked for a peaceful retreat.
00:29:41.580
And then he was accused of inciting violence. Well, only, only Trump could word a tweet
00:29:49.340
that asked for a peaceful retreat and make it sound like he was asking for violence.
00:29:55.740
Trump told people to come down and go home, according to the comments.
00:30:02.940
All right. Well, here's what I would not worry about.
00:30:05.580
Uh, I would not worry about it getting out of hand. I think the protests are proportionate.
00:30:14.460
Any kind of death, of course, is not what anybody wants, but I don't think that represents what was
00:30:19.500
happening as a whole. And I think that this country needs a more, uh, transparent and credible
00:30:27.820
election system. And this might go a long way toward creating the energy to make that happen.
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Because seriously, if we're having this conversation in the next presidential election,
00:30:40.540
we should do this again. Right? I mean, if, if nothing changes, and the election is just as
00:30:52.380
non-transparent, forget about being fraudulent or fair. If it's non-transparent, it's worthless.
00:30:57.820
So, uh, if we don't fix it by next time, maybe there'll be a bigger protest. We'll see.
00:31:07.820
All right. That's all for today. Uh, I'll see you in the morning. Don't panic. You will be fine.
00:31:22.060
You get it. Congress doesn't. Thank you. Uh, you are intentionally dishonest and speaking in
00:31:31.980
opposition. Wait, what? You are intentionally dishonest and speaking in opposition to what
00:31:37.900
can be realized. Okay, Blake, you need to work on your commenting skills so they make more sense.
00:31:44.380
I can't say that I even know what that means. Um, will Trump end up in jail?
00:31:52.060
Uh, you know, almost anything's possible now. Trump tower, blah, blah, blah. Uh, where was the sip? You
00:32:02.860
missed it. Yeah, I was, I was asking on Twitter where, which side is Antifa on? Shouldn't Antifa be on the
00:32:11.740
same side? Because chaos. Uh, force, it's a false flag to force the vote tonight.
00:32:28.140
Can certification be delayed for a week? I think they have five days to do the certification.
00:32:34.380
Uh, let's see. It makes a difference because Democrats are in power. They think they can do what? Yeah.
00:32:39.900
Yeah. I think, I think that the, uh, protests are the people who, uh, feel somewhat abused by this
00:32:49.340
election. I think it's them just saying, um, that they're a force to be reckoned with. So I'm not sure
00:32:55.900
that that's bad. Trump should address the crowd in person. No, he shouldn't. No, he's, he's a match in
00:33:05.340
gasoline and no, he should stay away. Uh, is there any way to hold the media accountable? Probably
00:33:13.020
not. Cause if you tried to hold them accountable, the only, you'd destroy free speech as well.
00:33:19.580
Um, Senator Rand Paul says, what'd he say? He said it was a big mistake to do this. He said of the
00:33:31.340
challenge to the elect. Oh, so he's saying that the challenge to the electoral college vote was a big
00:33:35.820
mistake. Uh, maybe, maybe. All right. That's all for now. Stay cool. You'll be fine.