Teabaggers start attacking people, breaking windows, to protest health care

[Cain]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/r3bxSlYXrbg/vandal_attacks_on_dem_offices_nationwide.php

Vandals smashed doors and windows at five Democratic offices around the country in the days surrounding the landmark House health care vote Sunday night, and a right-wing blogger in Alabama is taking credit for starting a so-called "window war."

Here are the reports we've seen from around the country on the mini-epidemic of brick-throwing:

Early on the morning of March 19, someone threw a brick through the window of Rep. Louise Slaughter's office in Niagara Falls, New York, doing $350 of damage, the Buffalo News reported. Slaughter (D-NY) briefly attracted the ire of conservatives over the "Slaughter Solution," a procedural maneuver that was considered (but, ultimately, not used) to pass health reform.

Also in Slaughter's district, a brick was thrown through the glass doors of the Monroe County Democratic Committee office in Rochester, NY, over the weekend, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. A note attached to the brick bore the Barry Goldwater quote, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," a spokesman for the committee told the newspaper.

In the early hours of the morning on Monday just after the House health care vote, someone smashed the glass front door of the Tucson office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the Arizona Daily Star reported. "The perpetrator likely had to hop the gated fence to get access to the door, since it's not viewable from the parking lot," the paper reported.

On Friday night or Saturday morning, a brick bearing unspecified "anti-Obama and anti-health care messages" was thrown through a floor-to-ceiling window at the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, CNN and the Kansas City Start reported.

After the passage of the bill Sunday night, a "fist-sized" rock was thrown at a window at the Hamilton County Democratic Party in Cincinnati, in the district of Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), the Enquirer reports.

Pinson, Alabama-based blogger Mike Vanderboegh has been tracking the breaking of windows at Dem offices after issuing a call Friday: "To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW."

It's far from clear whether Vanderboegh's call to arms has anything to do with the incidents around the country.

The Kansas City Star identifies Vanderboegh as a former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia.

His blog, Sipsey Street Irregulars, identifies with the so-called "Three Percenter" doctrine: "During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King's tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists."

The March 19 post says:

They will send the Internal Revenue Service and other federal police to do this in thousands of small Wacos, if that is what it takes to force us to submit. This arrogant elite pretends that this oppression is for our own good, while everyone else understands that this is about their selfish, insatiable appetite for control over our liberty, our money, our property and our lives.

* (This post has been updated to include the Cincinnati incident.)*

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/9vO47_pcf0w/map_a_guide_to_recent_vandal_attacks_on_democrats.php

Smashed windows. Threats of violence. A slashed gas line. Reports of vandalism and threats against Democrats have been stacking up over the past few days.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today estimated that 10 members had been threatened over the health care vote.

So just how bad is it out there?

We decided to make a map of all the instances of vandalism and serious threats against Democrats. Check it out below -- and click the markers for details on each incident. (ed.note: Be sure to zoom in on Ohio.)

Below the map, we round up some other late developments on the threats against Dems.


View Vandalism Surrounding Passage of Health Reform in a larger map

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), who is on the map above, today said he confronted Minority Leader John Boehner over an interview in which Boehner said Driehaus would be a "dead man" if he voted for the bill. "I think it's really important for folks around here, especially leader Boehner, to understand that his words have consequences," Driehaus said.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), on the map for an attack on her district office, released a statement pointing the finger at the GOP leadership: "It's more disturbing to me that Republican leadership has not condemned these attacks and instead appears to be fanning the flames with coded rhetoric." Slaughter also said she got a voice mail "referencing snipers."

Sarah Palin posted on Facebook a map of her own -- showing cross-hair graphics over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed the health reform legislation. Earlier she tweeted "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page."

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chair of the DCCC, called for "some adult supervision within the Republican party" in an interview on MSNBC Wednesday. "The Republican leadership, instead of saying to its supporters around the country, 'calm down' ... they are pouring more and more gasoline on flames. And that is irresponsible," he said.

On CNN last night, RNC chief Michael Steele said of Nancy Pelosi: "This November, they're gonna pay. So let's start getting Nancy ready for the firing line this November."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/WaHGtuLIjqc/pajamas_media_editor_on_health_bill_lets_bring_bac.php

In a blog post yesterday on the climate of threats surrounding health care reform, an editor and radio host employed by the Pajamas Media conservative blog outlet called for a return to the "fine tradition" of tar and feathering, and potentially even more extreme acts of violence.

In the post, titled "Put the Fear of Something Into Them," Pajamas' Denver Editor Stephen Green riffed on the recent threats and attacks on Democrats and concluded:

"If this abominable, unconstitutional, usurperous, injurious, unsustainable and ruinous new health care law has a mere ten legislatures afraid for their safety, then this country might already be too far gone to save itself."

Then, in a comments section exchange with a reader, Green, who calls himself "Vodkapundit," took it further.

"This country has a fine tradition of tarring & feathering, and one I've come to the reluctant conclusion needs to come back," he wrote in response to a reader named Geekesque. "If the US Government considers that terrorism, consider the source."

Asked by another reader how far Green's "condoning of violence against us 'Nazi' liberals" goes, Green responded:

"That depends entirely on how much violence is done to our liberties by your idiotic policies. Right now, tar & feathers still seem extreme. Tomorrow? It's in your hands."

According to his Pajamas Media bio, Green hosts the PJM Political show for XM Satellite Radio and also hosts a video series for the company. "He pioneered 'drunkblogging,' which he calls 'the only sober response to modern politics,' according to his bio.

Green's comments yesterday do not come in a vacuum. Democratic offices around the country have been vandalized and threats have been made against multiple members of Congress.

We've reached out to Green but haven't heard back.

Asked for comment about Green's statements, a spokesman for Pajamas Media sent along this post from CEO Roger Simon. It reads in part, "Violence is to be condemned, but so is the desecration of a great democracy."

But the Tea Partiers and their supporters aren't Brownshirts or anything.  Oh no.  That's Obama's government, the fascists.

Incidentally, I called this last summer.  I'll even find the post if I had to.  I said they were putting together a machine, and that machine is now out there, inciting and carrying out acts of violence designed to intimidate and harm those who disagree with them. 

[Freeky]

I don't know whether to or  or  .

You do seem to have a decent track record with predicting this sort of thing. I think.

[Suu]

This is only going to get worse.

They're resort to personal violence against politicians, and when the mob is countered with tear gas, arrests and the National Guard, then it will be the "government oppressing them".

This could possibly turn into another Civil War.

[Jasper]

I know that this is very bad, but I can't stop laughing.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

[Da6s]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

La Resistance!

[Cain]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

WOLVERINES!

[Da6s]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

WOLVERINES!

[Jasper]

The problem with civil war is that our present day military is far more conditioned and indoctrinated than militaries of old, and they are far better equipped to suppress huge numbers of civilians than any force in history.  So any civilian war that does occur will be much more "under the table" than probably anything seen to date.  

[Freeky]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

WOLVERINES!

"WE'RE BEING INVADED BY THE RUSKIES! CAN'T YOU TELL? THEY'RE SPEAKING SPANISH! CUZ ALL FOREIGNERS SPEAK SPANISH!"

[Bruno]

Now it's a Tea Party!

[Suu]

This is just so damned weird.  What the hell do they think they'll accomplish?

WOLVERINES!

"WE'RE BEING INVADED BY THE RUSKIES! CAN'T YOU TELL? THEY'RE SPEAKING SPANISH! CUZ ALL FOREIGNERS SPEAK SPANISH!"

That's because Mexico was behind it all along.

I knew I couldn't trust the Chalupas!

[Jasper]

But seriously though, what we have on our hands is a fast-growing political party that is fanatical enough to get totally nuts when people oppose it.

How do we stop them from burning the Reichstag, so to speak?

[Freeky]

But seriously though, what we have on our hands is a fast-growing political party that is fanatical enough to get totally nuts when people oppose it.

How do we stop them from burning the Reichstag, so to speak?

I don't think it can be stopped. Not unless people with official looking papers came along and had them line up against a wall.

It feels, to me, like we've hit a critical mass stage, so to speak.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Jesus, what the hell?

Breaking windows because of restrictions on being denied medical insurance? WTF is wrong with these people.