Democratic members of Congress have been the victims of vandalism and pronounced death threats due to their votes in support of the recent health care bill. This severe elevation of threatened violence has caused at least 10 House members to raise concerns about their personal security, causing the FBI to monitor the cases and take them very seriously.
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D- NY) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against Democratic lawmakers and their families, and reported that a brick was thrown through her office window in Niagara Falls. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D- AZ) reported that her Tucson office was vandalized after the vote, and Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American lawmaker in the House, said he received an anonymous fax showing the image of a noose.
Sarah Palin published on her Facebook page a list of 20 Democrats who voted for health insurance reform and referenced their locations on a map with crosshairs — a symbol that clearly refers to target practice and violence. Former militia leader Mike Vanderboegh posted a “call for action” on his blog, saying “We can break their windows. Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.” And conservative blogger “Solly” Forell is being investigated by the US Secret Service for this threatening post he made toward President Obama on the website Twitter: “ASSASSINATION America, we survived the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. We’ll surely get over a bullet 2 #BarackObama’s head.”
This extremely dark and personal backlash from the health debate, which includes a tense weekend of racial and homophobic slurs hurled at Democrats and one incident of a Tea Party protester spitting on a congressman, has left many Democrats shaken. But the end result could complicate Republican efforts to continue their threatened attacks on the legislation if they are seen as inciting elevated levels of outrage and breaching the boundaries of civility.
As Democrats prepared to leave Washington for a two-week recess, they met with Capitol Police and the FBI to get advice on security issues, and pressed Republicans to join them in renouncing threats and violence. “What we want to be sure is that people know that these threats have no place in our country,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “We have a legitimate disagreement. We have passed landmark legislation, and there are strong differences of opinion about it. Our Constitution allows us to have a lively debate in that regard, and that does not include threats to violence.”
This is outrageous. You don't threaten people simple because you disagree with them. That is childish and foolish. I am lost for words.
BTW: Repub, Eric Cantor’s recent BS claim that he'd also been “directly threatened” by a “bullet” that was shot through the window of his Richmond office this week "not only because I'm a member of Congress, but also because I'm Jewish" turned out to be_well, a deliberate Exaggeration of "HIS" facts to distract from THE FACT that Democrats nationwide really ARE being threatened by right-wing nuts.As per TPM: Fri, 3-26-10:In an interview with TPM, a Richmond Police Department spokesman said the bullet that penetrated a window in a building that includes a campaign office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) was "an act of random gunfire."“…a police statement on the incident, which occurred early Tuesday morning, suggested that someone had fired a bullet up into the air and it went through the window of the building on the way back down. While it went through a window, it did not penetrate the blinds, according to the police.”A Cantor spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.Full story:http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/police-on-cantor-incident-were-calling-it-random-gunfire.php?ref=fpblgPoor fella_(sigh)_even among a slew of Minor leaguers in the Republican Party Cantor stands out as a “minor” among MINORS_smh. Oh_and Frum has now been officially cast OUT of right-wing NeoConLand, banished to the nether-regions, by the AEI for taking the Republican party to task yet AGAIN.
I certainly expressed this very opinion on another post last week: The Rage Is Not About Health Care By FRANK RICH March 27, 2010 Exerpt:That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964. In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. Full article: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html?hphttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich…. />It’s as OBVIOUS as a Black man at a KLAN_Oops, I mean_“Tea Party” rally!
Gawker:There's this ex-militiaman named Mike Vanderboegh who lives in Alabama and every so often he tells his fellow psychos to go out and break Democratic windows, with bricks. He describes himself as a "Christian libertarian." He is a Welfare Queen.Even though the Vanderboegh's latest Kristallnacht call was his response to the expansion of government-subsidized medical benefits, and even though Vanderboegh is insured through his wife, guess what?Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension.Full story and picture:http://gawker.com/5503007/brick-fatwa-libertarian-also-gets-fat-government-checksGawker commenter:“As a former intern for a Republican Senator, I can tell you that 90% of these "small government anti-welfare" conservative voters are collecting SSI, SSD, Medicare and Medicaid.”