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March 25, 2010 10:59 PM UTC

Democrats Inciting Violence Against Themselves...Or Something

  • 42 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

We wrote yesterday about several Democratic members of Congress being threatened over health care reform. Today, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, somehow blamed Democrats for fanning those flames. From MSNBC:

A top House Republican accused Democrats Thursday of “dangerously fanning the flames” of extremism and using reports of vandalism and death threats against pro-health reform bill lawmakers for political gain.

“To use such threats as political weapons is reprehensible,” said Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who added that security concerns have been overhyped in media coverage of the debate.

Cantor prefaced his comments at a brief press conference by saying that Republican lawmakers do not condone violence in any form. The sentiment was echoed by Minority Leader John Boehner in his weekly press briefing, held earlier on Thursday. He called the threats against some members of congress “unacceptable” and asked people to find other ways to make their voices heard.

Really? Blaming Democrats for “fanning the flames?” Let’s just take a quick look at some of the goings on from the last few weeks:

Republicans Rile Up Opponents of Reform Bill, March 22, The Washington Post:

Inside the House chamber, Republicans placed on Democrats’ chairs photos of the Democratic lawmakers who lost their jobs in 1994. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) went to the well to say that “freedom dies.” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), sitting in the front row in a way that displayed the Lone Star flag on his cowboy boots, said Democrats were on “the path of government tyranny.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) warned of a “fiscal Frankenstein.”…

…Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) hollered on the floor about “dirty deal after dirty deal.” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) likened the Democrats to Soviets. “Say no to totalitarianism!” he said. Somebody in the Republican seats shouted “Baby killer” at Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), an antiabortion Democrat.

The legislators were making such a ruckus on the floor that they couldn’t hear the ruckus just outside their walls. The tea-party demonstrators chanted “Nancy! Nancy!” and held signs saying such things as “Red Queen Nancy — Joseph Stalin Was Not a Saint.”

That would have been the end of it, had Republican lawmakers not stirred things up. First Reps. Buck McKeon (Calif.), Rob Bishop (Utah) and Mike Turner (Ohio) came out waving signs saying “KILL THE BILL.” The crowd went wild. Reps. Mary Fallin (Okla.), Geoff Davis (Ky.) and Bill Posey (Fla.) held the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), head of the House Republicans’ 2010 campaign committee, came out with half a dozen colleagues and more kill-the-bill signs. Rep. Jeff Miller (Fla.) dangled an American flag from the balcony.

“That’s kind of fun,” Fallin said cheerfully after a turn at riling the crowd with signs saying “No” in red letters [Pols emphasis]…

…Boehner said the Democrats were a “disgrace” to Jeffersonian values.

“Hell, no, you can’t!” Boehner shouted at the Democrats.

“No, you can’t! No, you can’t!” echoed the protesters outside.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, March 18, National Review

Boehner says there will be major political consequences for pro-life Democrats who break from the Stupak bloc. “Take [Rep.] Steve Driehaus, for example,” he says. “He may be a dead man. [Pols emphasis] He can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati. The Catholics will run him out of town.”

Republican Rep. Steve King, March 16, Huffington Post:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged a smaller-than-expected crowd of Tea Party protesters on Tuesday to launch a Velvet Revolution-style uprising against the federal government, saying the parallels are striking between America’s current government and Eastern European communist rule.

Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 “would be fine with me.”

“Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can’t get in, they can’t get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people,” he said.

“So this is just like Prague under communist rule?” the Huffington Post asked.

“Oh yeah, it is very, very close,” King replied. “It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there.”

Earlier, King implored the crowd to bring the nation’s capital to a sort of paralysis. Warning, erroneously, that the health care bill would fund abortion and fund care for 6.1 million illegal immigrants, he demanded that concerned citizens “continue to rise up.” [Pols emphasis]

It really isn’t a mystery why some opponents of health care reform think that it is okay to resort to violence against Democrats in response to the bill’s passage. Republicans may not have specifically called for violence, but they sure as hell have toed that line. For Cantor, or any other Republican, to accuse Democrats of “fanning the flames” of violence is shameful.  

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42 thoughts on “Democrats Inciting Violence Against Themselves…Or Something”

    2. It’s not his office.

      A possible gunshot was fired through the window of the downtown Richmond Main Street building that houses the offices of one of Rep. Eric Cantor’s top political consultants, a source says.

      Ah but it sounds so much better when Cantor claims it was fired through his regional Richmond office window, doesn’t it just?  

      1.  liberty and the american way” are actually in tune with the Will of God, dontcha know? Whatever they do, they are righteous and/or will be forgiven because it is they who know what is really going on.  

      2. Saying that it was motivated by “anti-Semitic left wing” people, based on the fact that Cantor was quick to bring up his heritage when talking to the press today.

        1. I’m pretty sure all the other Jews in congress are Ds or at least not Rs  (Lieberman is Indie) and there are quite a few.   Pretty sure Cantor is the only remaining Jewish R now that Specter has switched to D.  Maybe it was anti-Republicanic Jews? Probably not.  

        2. We’re all (including me) just throwing around sweeping generalizations about virtually everybody today so hey, why not add the dastardly left wing Jew haters to my ever growing stereotype list?  

          1. All the liberals who don’t agree with the Likud/AIPAC Way.  Nevermind that about half the people I know who hold a strong stand like that are themselves Jewish.  (I’ve also seen them lumped in with the stereotype of “self-hating Jews”, which I believe to be an inaccurate categorization.  If you’re going to be stereotype-driven, I believe it’s necessary to have a complete and accurate stereotype definition…)

      3. The key thing to realize about Cantor’s claim is that Cantor knows full well that nobody intended to put a bullet in or near his office or office building.

        According to the police report, someone shot a bullet into the air that happened to hit the window on the way back down.

        A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds.

        I got the story here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c…

        And the police report is here:

        http://tpmlivewire.talkingpoin…

        1. According to the police report, someone shot a bullet into the air that happened to hit the window on the way back down.

          That about sums it up, doesn’t it? But his version just sounds so much more exciting, doesn’t it? Oh goodie–as I’m writing this, ABC News is giving his version the full treatment. God, the MSM doesn’t even pretend to fact check anymore, do they?

    3. where Cantor’s story is a major fabrication.

      It wasn’t his office, it was downstairs from his campaign office, at a direct mail firm.

      It wasn’t “shot at”, it was “received a stray bullet” from a gun shot in the air – the bullet didn’t get past the window blinds on it’s downward trajectory.

      Cantor, like the NRCC and some of his other buddies, is giving cover to these whack-jobs out committing violence.

      1. Republican report of harassment or shenanigans = fake.

        Dem report of same = RACIST TEA BAGGER ANTI-AMERICAN…

        Like this one?

        AN IMPLAUSIBLE REPORT IN THE SEATTLE TIMES: “A rock was thrown through the window of Driehaus’ Cincinnati office Sunday.”

        Justin Binik-Thomas emails from Cincinnati that Rep. Driehaus’ office “is on the 30th floor of a skyscraper downtown.” He also says that he spoke to Driehaus’ office today and they said this never happened. Which is too bad, in a way, as the Reds could use a guy with an arm like that . . . .

        I wonder if Pat Waak ever backed off her claims that someone ‘against health care reform’ (i.e. someone who canvasses for the Purple People BeatersВ®) smashed the windows at Dem party HQ?  Somehow I don’t remember her retraction.

        Violence and threats are disgusting and have no place in our society, but neither do contrived efforts to make legitimate opposition appear to be part of a radical, racist militia.  It’s a smear, and people are catching on.

        Here’s a nice one. Does this mean that everyone that supports the “reform” bill is…oh, never mind.

        Yes, uh. Yeah, I’m glad, uh. the president passed healthcare, yeah. Funky-ass, racist-ass Republicans hate that, don’t you? Jean [sic] Smith, when you got hit by that car or when you fell or whatever, you should’ve broke your back, b***h. You, and Boehner motherf***er, that Mitch McConnell — all you racist f***ing Republicans. Why don’t you just change y’all’s party name to “racist”? ‘Cause if one of those little f***ing Teabaggers would’ve spit on me, I would have socked them in the f***ing face with my f***ing .09 mm. F*** all you racist motherf***ers.

        1. The Seattle Times said it about Driehaus’s office, but Driehaus didn’t, and I haven’t seen that claim posted on Daily Kos, which has had several diaries collecting claims of violence and threats.  The Cincinnati media has the correct story, which the Times apparently mangled (badly)…

          Driehaus has received death threats and his home address was published (very similar to Rep. Periello’s brother’s – “let’s go visit”).  The rock wasn’t aimed at Driehaus’s office – it was aimed at the Hamilton County Democratic Party offices.

          The only people riled up about the Driehaus claim are the right-wing media, about a zillion of which posted the same article with the same title.  Us lefties are more upset at the white powder delivered to Rep. Weiner’s office and the severed propane line at Rep. Periello’s brother’s house (“collateral damage”, says the blogger who handed out the address…).

        2. Dems have piles of credible evidence of threats of harm and actual acts of vandalism. The ‘pubs have a few misprinted stories, and an old Pat Waak story that’s now more than balanced out by the Cantor story. (Waak apologized; has Cantor?)

          1. is that CDP headquarters really were vandalized by someone who was very angry about something. Yes, Waak jumped to conclusions and ascribed incorrect motives, and was slow to apologize, but it’s ridiculous to equate that with Cantor’s fact-free charges.

  2. You know what the people of Prague gave themselves after their successful uprising against the communists?  A government that provides universal health care.  You know…like in  all the other civilized countries.  You just joined Rush as an accidental endorser of government  guaranteed universal health care.

    Of course it’s hard to avoid.  If you want to use any other country as an example in any analogy you care to try, it will either be some hell hole like Somalia (no wrries about the horror of health care for all there) or a country where all are guaranteed quality health care.  

  3. I think Cantor hit exactly the right strategic note, if recent history is any guide, and if create a bastion of extremism is the goal.

    The far right wing-nuts are going to lap this up. Yes, of course, it’s the evil Dimocrits, exploiting unbalanced people who have nothing to do with politics for their own nefarious political advantage, who are responsible for any actual political violence that occurs.

    It’s exactly what they want to hear. It’s exactly what they want to believe. And, for them, it is already an unassailable truth.

      1. “shot at his building.” I’m talking about the diary above: The Democrats are responsible for the threats and violence. The alleged shot at his building is a side-show, and basically irrelevant.

  4. Holding an election, giving a decisive majority to the party that ran on healthcare reform, and then adopting healthcare reform by voting for it is just like Prague under communist rule?  WTF?

  5. From his statement:

    Earlier today an envelope containing white powder and a threatening letter was delivered to my community office in Kew Gardens. The NYPD was immediately alerted and have responded appropriately by sending a Haz-Mat team.

    New update while writing: the powder was non-hazardous.

  6. put words into the mouths of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid during a walk outside at the capitol. He imagined them saying, “what do you have to do to these people to get them to kill you?”

    I shit you not.

    1. Isn’t there a point where he has to be drug down to police headquarters and questioned… for about 24 hours.  Don’t torture him, just don’t let him sleep for 24 hours.

      SSG_Dan… I bet you would be able to easily come up with good questions for the police to use.  You may only need about 15 questions and just keep asking them over and over for 24 hours.

  7. We are a Democracy and a fundamental tenet of that is if we don’t like a political decision, then we work to get different people elected. Threats, attacks, a reign of fear – all of those are fundamentally anti-democratic.

    The people doing this are going against everything America stands for.

      1. It fits better in the subject line that way.

        “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

        Had it as my sig line somewhere for a while back during the Dubya era; thought it was outmoded – guess not.

  10. It was real. Many of the Kill the Bill protesters had signs not repeatable. They had children carrying them, too.

    It’s one thing to hate, but to teach hate to children disturbs.

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