Nancy Pelosi's husband having brain surgery following an attack ... with a hammer

[TomF]

Didn't seem to have any notice of this bit of grisly news in the other thread where I'd posted it.

A 42 year old man police identify as David DePape broke into the Pelosi's house overnight. While Nancy Pelosi was out of town, the assailant confronted her husband Paul shouting "Where is Nancy! Where is Nancy?!" Not finding Nancy Pelosi, the man attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

Conflicting reports about Pelosi's status. On the one hand, he's reportedly expected to make a full recovery; on the other hand, he's also reported to be in brain surgery right now.

The assailant "has espoused extreme right wing views on social media, including conspiracy theories about Covid-19, according to one of the law enforcement officials." So this is a targeted attack.

The FBI is involved, alongside local officials. Which shows that there are aspects of the investigation already showing elements of Federal jurisdiction in this crime. It's not merely local street crime.

Stochastic terrorism.

A few Republican leaders have expressed outrage - including McConnell, and Cruz. That said, there's been no comment I've seen from the various Republicans who've recently aired campaign ads which featured them shooting firearms at pictures of Nancy Pelosi. MTG, for instance.

[TomF]

Supporting the now-fashionable return to explicit antisemitism too. Here's one example of something he's shared with approval, recently - there are others, if you've the stomach for it.

Again, this is another example of why it's accurate to describe the RW extremism of people like MTG, Gosar etc. as Fascism. As of yet, there's been no comment at all that I'm aware of out of Mar a Lago.


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[TomF]

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[icyb]

From Christopher Wray on down ,they been saying home grown terrorists our our greatest threat.

[Boatbum]

Per the Daily Beast:

The motivation for the attack is still under investigation, Scott said. However, CNN reported that the intruder shouted, “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?” after entering the home.

Depape appears to have sold hemp jewelry, though the website for his business is currently down. According to CNN, he posted YouTube videos about the 2020 election and the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, and shared conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19 on other social media.

Depape’s last known address was in Berkley, California, where he lived with nude activist Gypsy Taub. (Taub is perhaps best known for her nude nuptials in San Francisco, where Depape served as best man.) An SF Gate article from 2013 described the apartment as a three-bedroom, six-person flat that was “perpetually freezing.” Depape reportedly served as a “father figure” to Taub’s three children, who also lived in the apartment.

Depape, Taub and her children attended a communal Thanksgiving dinner at a market in Oakland in 2008, according to the Oakland Tribune. Taub was quoted as saying: “We like to meet our neighbors. I want my children to learn that everyone is a human being and a friend.”

Sounds like he went off the reservation

[Peerie Maa]

Stuff the !st, you need you some hate speech laws.

You should not have to wait until someone is hit on the head with a hammer to deal with people like that.

[Boatbum]

Stuff the !st, you need you some hate speech laws.

You should not have to wait until someone is hit on the head with a hammer to deal with people like that.

Sounds like he has a lot of conspiracy theories about a stolen election and the "farce" of the Jan 6 committee

There are hate speech laws. But if you locked up everyone that said hatful things, jails would be twice as full. It's not always easy to tell the difference between the person who says hateful things and the person who says it and acts on them. Most that say angry things but do not intend to hurt anybody.

[CWSmith]

I don't know what makes me more angry - the truly ignorant people who are so easily moved to violence, or the liars that move them.

[TomF]

I don't know what makes me more angry - the truly ignorant people who are so easily moved to violence, or the liars that move them.

Oh, that one's easy for me.

The ones who incite the violence, hands down.

[Peerie Maa]

Sounds like he has a lot of conspiracy theories about a stolen election and the "farce" of the Jan 6 committee

There are hate speech laws. But if you locked up everyone that said hatful things, jails would be twice as full. It's not always easy to tell the difference between the person who says hateful things and the person who says it and acts on them. Most that say angry things but do not intend to hurt anybody.

That is just politics. Anti-Semitism and race hatred is a whole other ball game.

[Durnik]

Didn't seem to have any notice of this bit of grisly news in the other thread where I'd posted it.

A 42 year old man police identify as David DePape broke into the Pelosi's house overnight. While Nancy Pelosi was out of town, the assailant confronted her husband Paul shouting "Where is Nancy! Where is Nancy?!" Not finding Nancy Pelosi, the man attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

Conflicting reports about Pelosi's status. On the one hand, he's reportedly expected to make a full recovery; on the other hand, he's also reported to be in brain surgery right now.

The assailant "has espoused extreme right wing views on social media, including conspiracy theories about Covid-19, according to one of the law enforcement officials." So this is a targeted attack.

The FBI is involved, alongside local officials. Which shows that there are aspects of the investigation already showing elements of Federal jurisdiction in this crime. It's not merely local street crime.

Stochastic terrorism.

"A few Republican leaders have expressed outrage - including McConnell, and Cruz. That said, there's been no comment I've seen from the various Republicans who've recently aired campaign ads which featured them shooting firearms at pictures of Nancy Pelosi. MTG, for instance.

heeding his master's call..

www.salon.com/2022/10/28/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-donald-is-cashing-in-on-americas-wish/

"...throughout his presidency and beyond, Trump and his agents have used the propaganda tactic known as "stochastic terrorism" — in which a leader encourages violence while maintaining vaguely plausible deniability.

This is part of a larger pattern of behavior. Trump's behavior and rhetoric repeatedly emphasize destruction, violence, conspiracy theories, apocalyptic imagery and threats of other dire outcomes if he and his neofascist movement are not returned to power.

Trump effectively channels the ways that whiteness, which was invented with European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, has functioned as a force of terror, violence, intimidation and existential threat against Black and brown people all over the world. One of Trump's favorite tactics is white victimology. His ability to frighten white people about their personal and collective safety — and to present himself as their protector and savior — is one of his greatest powers."

paging @ Dunphy Snipe..

[Peerie Maa]

Oh, that one's easy for me.

The ones who incite the violence, hands down.

No, 'tis the other way round.
If people knew not to act on the incitement, the loudmouths would just be p!$$!ng in the wind.
That is not to say that those who use hate speech to incite should not be prosecuted as well as the idiot who shouts a pizza parlour's accounts computor in back of a clothes' cupboard..

[CWSmith]

I don't know what makes me more angry - the truly ignorant people who are so easily moved to violence, or the liars that move them.

Oh, that one's easy for me.

The ones who incite the violence, hands down.

No, 'tis the other way round.
If people knew not to act on the incitement, the loudmouths would just be p!$$!ng in the wind.
That is not to say that those who use hate speech to incite should not be prosecuted as well as the idiot who shouts a pizza parlour's accounts computor in back of a clothes' cupboard..

Let's split the difference and give them adjacent cells and equally long sentences.

[TomF]

I dunno. Some people are easy to lead - question is who you try to lead them to become.

If there are no "bad dogs," just "bad dog owners," then ...

[Paul Pless]

kinda puts the lie to guns being the source of violence in america

[TomF]

Not a source of violence, just an effective medium to express it.

Degrade the fatality of the medium, and you'll degrade the fatality of the result.

[Paul Pless]

i might rather get shot than brained with a 24 oz estwing with a wafflehead

[TomF]

i might rather get shot than brained with a 24 oz estwing with a wafflehead

Good reason not to leave Phoenix for Fredericton, I guess...

[Joe (SoCal)]

i might rather get shot than brained with a 24 oz estwing with a wafflehead

[Joe (SoCal)]

i might rather get shot than brained with a 24 oz estwing with a wafflehead

I’m a big fan of the #2 and the Hammer

[Gerarddm]

Trust me- the Stumps won't care. In fact, many will approve.

See my signature, fer crissakes.

[birlinn]

Freedom of speech, innit?
And Musk wants more of it.
I think our anti-hate laws work a bit better than yours.

[Paul Pless]

I’m a big fan of the #2 and the Hammer

i gotta little joke for ya, "a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar. . ."

[Joe (SoCal)]

i gotta little joke for ya, "a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar. . ."

My second video

BTW Great movie and he played both rolls like a champ.

[LeeG]

From Christopher Wray on down ,they been saying home grown terrorists our our greatest threat.

Can’t justify giga dollar weapon systems with domestic dysfunction.

[CWSmith]

I dunno. Some people are easy to lead - question is who you try to lead them to become.

If there are no "bad dogs," just "bad dog owners," then ...

Some are easily lead, but don't we all know right from wrong?

[Bobby of Tulsa]

He should be glad it wasn't this guy.
https://ktul.com/news/local/man-arre...-head-with-axe

[TomF]

As someone observed on Twitter, there's a way that we all know already that the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi is white.

[AlanMc]

Stuff the !st, you need you some hate speech laws.

You should not have to wait until someone is hit on the head with a hammer to deal with people like that.

YES. let's limit the free speech of 350 million people b/c there's some mentally ill people out there.

[Paul Pless]

one thing i find curious, is how a lone deranged man, manages to get through the security and into the residence of a couple whose net worth is $265 million, notwithstanding mrs. pelosi being next in line behind kamala harris as head of the u.s. govt

[John Meachen]

Would you expect those who aren't mentally ill to use hate speech?Are you happy for people to present falsehoods as fact?

[Paul Pless]

trumpism as a mental illness
i think you brits might be on to something

[TomF]

YES. let's limit the free speech of 350 million people b/c there's some mentally ill people out there.

prosecute incitement to stochastic terrorism. Or you'll implicitly enable stochastic terrorism.

Yeah, I suppose it limits freedom somehow. Almost everyone on the board here NOT from America experiences themselves living in a very free society, objectively more safe than the US.

Freedom isn't only "freedom to do" something, it's also "freedom from" something. Freedom to bear arms in the US is limited by another's freedom from being murdered.

[Tom Montgomery]

The FBI is involved, alongside local officials. Which shows that there are aspects of the investigation already showing elements of Federal jurisdiction in this crime. It's not merely local street crime.

Well... yeah.

Several years ago a well-known Louisville gadfly was convicted and tossed into Federal prison for threatening Senator Mitch McConnell.

This fellow was a political junkie who had run for public office and wrote a weekly column for the local alternative newspaper (owned by U.S. Representative John Yarmuth and ex-University of Louisville basketball coach Denny Crum). It was well-known that he suffered from bi-polar disorder. He and McConnell knew each other personally. No matter. Into Federal prison he was tossed.

[Peerie Maa]

YES. let's limit the free speech of 350 million people b/c there's some mentally ill people out there.

I was not aware that racial hatred, anti-Semitism, homophobia were certifiable mental illnesses.
Y R Silly.
Or is it that you are planning to go out and abuse some poor black woman until you reduce her to tears, just for walking whilst black?
Is your freedom reduced by homicide laws, or burglary laws?