Politics Plus

Every day, I hope and pray that I will not be reporting this issue.  Every day it gets worse.

A tea party participant published what he thought was Rep. Thomas Perriello’s home address and urged disgruntled voters to “drop by” for a “good face-to-face chat.”

Vandals broke windows at Slaughter’s office in New York and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s office in Arizona.

And angry voters are planning to protest this weekend at the home of Steve Driehaus — who’s already seen a photograph of his children used in a newspaper ad published by reform opponents.

The vitriolic health care debate has become personal — too personal, say House Democrats who voted for the bill and now find not just themselves but their families in the cross hairs of opponents.

Slaughter, a Democrat who chairs the House Rules Committee, said a caller to her office last week vowed to send snipers to “kill the children of the members who voted yes.” Her office reported the call to police, who were dispatched to provide protection for Slaughter’s grandchildren. She has also been in touch with the FBI and U.S. Postal Service inspectors, who intercepted a letter en route to her home in upstate New York.

Stupak, the Michigan Democrat whose last-minute compromise on abortion guaranteed passage of the bill Sunday, said callers have left messages for him saying, “You’re dead; we know where you live; we’ll get you.”

“My wife still can’t answer the phone,” Stupak told POLITICO on Tuesday. The messages are “full of obscenities if she leaves it plugged in. In my office, we can’t get a phone out. It’s just bombarded.”

Stupak, a former police officer, said he’s not fazed by the threats or by the prospect of protests at his district office this weekend. “I’ve looked down barrels of guns,” he said. “I’ve talked my way out of it.”

But Democrats said their political opponents go too far when they bring members’ families into the fray.

Driehaus, a Democrat from Ohio, was outraged last week when a group called the Committee to Rethink Reform used a photo of him and his two young daughters in a newspaper ad urging him to vote against any health care reform bill that included federal funding for abortion. Both the group and the newspaper — the Cincinnati Enquirer — apologized for including Driehaus’s daughters in the ad.

“I’m very protective of my family, like most of us,” Driehaus said Tuesday. “There is no reason for my wife and kids to be brought into any of this. If people want to talk to me, if people want to approach me about an issue, I’m more than happy to talk about the issue, regardless of what side they’re on. But I do believe when you bring in a member’s family, that you’ve gone way too far.”

Driehaus faults Republicans for providing encouragement to the most extreme opponents of reform. Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned that anti-abortion Democrats would suffer politically if they voted for the health care bill; he singled out Driehaus, saying he “may be a dead man” and “can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Politico>

The GOP storm troopers took Limpy Boehner seriously.  I have seen a couple of Republicans say that the violence of out of place.  However, in every instance the format was ‘It’s inappropriate, but…’ followed by an excuse blaming it on Democrats.  It reeks with insincerity, and encourages continuation of the violence by providing justification for it.

The GOP leadership is far more responsible than their Teabagger storm troopers.  The leadership know what they are doing.  The Teabaggers are just poor, brainwashed fools, goose stepping as ordered.  How brainwashed are they?  It’s this bad:

Nicholas Kamm, AFP / Getty Images On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he’s a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here’s new data to prove it:

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"
• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <The Daily Beast>

Because the storm troopers believe that those lies are true, they sincerely believe that they are justified in their violent opposition to what they see as an enemy takeover of their country.  This does not absolve them of responsibility for their actions.  They have failed to attend to finding out the truth for themselves.  But the lion’s share of the blame for this rightfully belongs to the sources of the false information with which they justify their actions.  Those sources are the leadership of the GOP and the GOP Reichsministry of propaganda, Faux Noise.

As much as I wish that this insanity would stop, the GOP continues to encourage and defend their Teabagger storm troopers.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that several Democratic offices around the nation had been vandalized in the days surrounding the House health care vote. Vandals have struck the Tuscon office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the Monroe County Democratic Committee headquarters in upstate New York, Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Niagara Falls office, the Knox County Democratic headquarters in Ohio, and the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita, KS. The local Rochester ABC affiliate now has more information on the upstate NY vandalism, including an assassination threat against the children of lawmakers who voted for health reform:

No one was inside when the brick was hurled through the Democratic Patry Headquarters on University Avenue. Attached was a note quoting conservative Barry Goldwater: “Exremism [sic] in defense of liberty is no vice”. […]

[Rep. Louise] Slaughter has been at the center of the push for reform. Last Thursday she received a chilling recorded message at her campaign office. “Assassinate is the word they used…toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes.”

The FBI is now investigating.

Pictures of the note attached to the brick thrown at the Monroe County Democratic Committee headquarters:

Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars [GOP hatemonger delinked] is taking credit for inspiring the vandalism, saying that he’s urging people to break Democratic offices’ windows. He insists that he’s not advocating violence… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Prior Vanderboegh’s bragging admission, GOP pundits claimed that these were isolated incidents.  They were not.  Rachel Maddow covered this story and tied it into other GOP threats of violence.

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Even the GOP’s most exalted leaders, such a the tweeting tundra twit, Sarah ‘Hand Job’ Palin are in on the act.

Even before this story broke, Keith Olbermann made it clear that there is nothing random about this GOP push toward domestic terrorism.

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Had I not been so indisposed, I would have put up his special comment yesterday.  The GOP is directly responsible for this insanity, because there are too many isolated incidents for them to be anything other than a directed pattern.  I admire Keith’s olive branch, but I see little chance that the GOP will acknowledge it, let alone act on it.  Therefore, every Republican in office is one Republican too many.