Don't Be Crashin' on the Nearing Shore; these Sirens Sing for War
From Wikipedia:
The caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. The attack was in retaliation for an invective-laden speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including pro-slavery South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed significantly to the country's polarization over the issue of slavery. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse"[1] and willingness to resort to violence that eventually led to the Civil War.
After the threat of a fistfight in the Senate, rightwing extremists decried the steps taken to stop the violence. Here’s what a Newsmax violence promoter said.
Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh also enthusiastically endorsed more physical violence in Congress as did others.
The Senator who almost came to blows with the head of the Teamsters went on air to say: “I’ll bite 100%. In a fight, I’m gonna bite. I’ll do anything. I’m not above it. And I don’t care where I bite by the way.”
My Magic 8 Ball never predicted this spread of rabies in the Senate.
Outside the DNC last night, between 150 and 200 protesters seeking a Middle East ceasefire blocked the exits till the Capitol Police ordered them back. Violence occurred from the resulting confrontation. In an ensuing statement, the Capitol Police said:
“When the group moved dumpsters in front of the exits, pepper sprayed our officers and attempted to pick up the bike rack, our teams quickly introduced consequences – pulling people off the building, pushing them back, and clearing them from the area, so we could safely evacuate the Members and staff.
Six officers were treated for injuries, from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched.
24-year old Ruben Arthur Camacho of Woodbridge, NY, was arrested for Assault on a Police Officer after an officer witnessed Camacho slam another officer into a garage door and then punch the female officer in the face.”
The leaders of the protest said 90 in their group were injured.
Online agitators called this an insurrection and called for prosecutions like the 1200 and counting prosecutions of January 6 protesters. Nobody was armed, nobody was preventing a presidential transfer of power, nobody was breaking into the building threatening harm to the legislators there.
Today, the Washington Post took an unprecedented step to publish scenes of the aftermaths of mass shooting events, along with some videos created during some of the attacks. Not for the fainthearted but important nonetheless.
The images are gut wrenching, bloody reminders of the traumas of those who endured or responded to the attacks. The article is a condemnation of the weapon designed solely to kill people in wars, the AR-15, as WaPo editors explained.
The videos didn’t display people recoiling as they were hit nor any of the resulting corpses…. until the last couple of images. One shows the Las Vegas field after the worst mass shooting in the past century. The other displays the body bags in the hallway of the school in Uvalde Texas.
This is the “proud tradition of violence” that rightwing extremists were championing yesterday. This is the legacy of a divided nation where the vast majority seeks a civil society where debate and arguments can occur in complete safety, but a significant minority - perhaps 20% - promotes another unCivil War.
43 year old carpenter David DePape, “who immersed himself in conspiracy theories spread online by right-wing extremists, admitted that he hit Paul Pelosi on the head “full force” with a hammer during his bungled attempt to take Nancy Pelosi hostage at their San Francisco home in October 2022.
After less than 2 days of deliberation, the jury unanimously convicted him. He faces as much as 50 years in prison with more prosecutions likely.
In her closing statements, US Attorney Helen L Gilbert “reminded jurors that DePape told police he was planning to break Pelosi’s kneecaps if she lied to him and that she would then be rolled into Congress in a wheelchair as an example to other politicians he deemed “evil.”
“We didn’t put those words in this mouth. He said that on the day that he did this,” Gilbert told the jury.
The prosecutors also urged jurors to consider the severity of Paul Pelosi’s injuries, pointing to enduring headaches and other health challenges caused by skull fractures that left him hospitalized for six days.
“This is what full force looks like,” Gilbert said, posting a photo on courtroom monitors of Paul Pelosi lying unconscious in a pool of blood next to his front door.”
A crowd of 3000+ on January 6, 2021, calling for the Vice President and House Speaker to be killed, the 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. A plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan. The attack that sought to kidnap and kneecap then 82 year old Nancy Pelosi. The current effort to kill the teaching of the history of the full weight of hateful racial discrimination that Black Americans have endured. The current effort to dehumanize, degrade and steal the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens. Robbing women of equal rights with the aid of a few corrupted members of the Supreme Court, including the one with the insurrectionist wife. Defending only the free speech rights of the wealthiest and the rights of men to own war guns.
That’s the America of today that we all live in. The insurrection efforts are ongoing. The most corrupt president in US history who tried to steal an election with lies, laughably lame litigation and blood, continues his effort to steal democracy itself. From you. From me. From the majority of voters. From all our ancestors who fought to their deaths to create a nation of justice and freedom and essential human rights.
Everyone knows the corpse-laden path that the violence promoters want to see. Everyone knows what the falsified claims and evil aims of the ghastly ghoulish Klanny kleptocrats are after. They want obedience via the lash of the whip. They want us dead if we don’t surrender to their foul fascists of farce.
And it’s surrender if we look away.
There’s so much more I wish I could write more about today. The House Ethics Committee providing more details of the human farce factory that’s George Santos (if that’s even his real name). But they chose not to expel him because the majority on the committee misplaced the definition of ethics.
The appeals court judge who temporarily paused the gag order on Trump in his bank fraud trial this (Thursday) morning.
The bullying co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia who’s about to get his bond revoked for his ongoing threats and violations of his bond terms (and his past violence against police). And the elections workers threatened, and their fresh effort to fight back.
The stupidity of the bad cop-turned-conspiracy-pusher, Clay Higgins and his checkered past.
A whole lot more on Speaker Mike Johnson, which I will get to. The worried conservative judge and his warning for us all.
But you can read about them yourself, if you’d like; just follow the links.
As for me, I have some pressing health issues and legal issues that are diverting my attention a bit this week. I’ll gladly accept all wishes for good luck.
Another excellent entry.
(Good luck with everything going forward.)