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Reacting to the Pelosi Assault – Here We Go Again
Here we go again; the rush to politicize another horrific violent assault.
We see it with every terrible mass shooting. And now, with the bizarre attack on the 82-year-old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi.
We wish him a full recovery and the full force of our justice system on his attacker. From several accounts of the assailant, he was deranged, if not mentally ill. But that hasn’t stopped partisans from trying to pin the attack on Republicans in these final days before the 2022 elections.
“Following the attack on Paul Pelosi, Democrats and the media quickly framed the alleged assailant as a right-wing conspiracy theorist incited to violence by rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and Republicans,” reported Justthenews.com.
And it was led by none other than the President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden.
President Biden on Friday likened the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying the San Francisco attacker shouting “Where is Nancy?” echoed chants used by the rioters.
Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden condemned the attack as an act of political violence and chastised Republicans for stoking widespread vitriol.
“It’s reported that the same chant used by this guy they have in custody was used on January 6th in the attacks on the U.S. Capitol,” he said. “This is reported. I can’t guarantee it. We can tell you what’s being reported.”
Please don’t complain to me about anything Donald Trump said ever again. Joe Biden is unfit for the presidency. Gone are the days of waiting for the facts before weighing in on such matters.
Blogger and former California Independent gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger detailed the assailant’s story. It’s worth your time. He concludes with this:
We must reject the opportunism of politicians and activist journalists to blame addiction-and-mental-health tragedies on their political opponents. When fanaticism is behind violence we should hold the ideologies to account. But it was, fundamentally, mental instability, not political ideology, that drove DePape. My aunt who suffered from schizophrenia, and was raised in the 1950s, had delusions about Elvis and JFK. Psychotic homeless people I interview speak frequently of their communications with aliens. There is a huge difference between the mere rantings of a psychotic and the ideological drivers of a fanatic.
Finally, it’s simply not the case, as Biden claimed, that just “one party” lies, and talks of stolen elections; they both do. DePape’s alleged attack on Pelosi was not, at bottom, “the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric,” as Weiner said, but rather the direct result of America’s continuing failure to properly treat mental illness, dangerous psychiatric disorders, and drug addiction.
He’s right, of course. Shellenberger, a former Progressive activist, and energy expert (nuclear proponent), is a best-selling author on the Golden State’s homelessness crisis.
The people who expect me to write a dissertation on the evil attack on Paul Pelosi are also strangely silent about an assassination attempt on a sitting US Supreme Court justice and violent attacks on more than 100 pro-life pregnancy centers, organizations, and churches. The White House has been strangely mute on that violence, with one exception.
I quarter no lectures or lessons from them. This isn’t about “whataboutism.” It is about incivility, double standards, hypocrisy, and projection.
One constructive reaction concerns growing threats of violence against our public officials and the need to increase their security. The shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ). The attack at a Republican congressional baseball practice that nearly killed US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). The violent assault on US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). The “Swatting” of US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). And now this.
Perhaps we could start by having the children of our public officials at least not celebrate attacks on Members of Congress, as Christine Pelosi did in 2020 in this now-deleted tweet.
Regardless of party affiliation, all of us need to consistently call out and condemn the violence of this nature and the celebrations and politicization of it by partisans, especially in our tribes. Until we do, this incivility will continue and incent more violence and evil.
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It is shameful how many of the usual suspects at Ricochet have spun the false narrative that Paul Pelosi was attacked by a male prostitute. Shame on you.
Shame on you for doing a “back door” criticism. Are you posting where that has occurred?
And you know for certain that it’s false, because… CNN says so?
More likely daft form.
We have seen what you applaud, so we don’t care what you shame.
He’s 82, his scepticism has atrophied. And if he knew the guy (and he probably did) and De Pape was calm while standing at the door, this is, I think, the simplest explanation that takes no really unusual twists.
It’s unusual to receive an unexpected 2am visitor, but if they guy’s known to you, and if he’s a known nudist in his underwear, and if he’s talking in a medium loud daytime voice, Pelosi might have considered it better to get him off the doorstep and out of sight.
I don’t know about any broken window, but who knows, it might have been broken during the struggle.
This is all to try to explain why Pelosi would have said, I don’t know him, but his name’s David and he’s a friend. I can’t think of any NORMAL good reason under any circumstances for anyone to call 911 and to say he’s being invaded at night by a friend. But if Pelosi knew the guy, and he wasn’t violent in the past, it makes everything more “normal”.
Um, he was there.
Yeah no.
“Why yes, underwear clad acquaintance, Nancy is out but if you’re her pal, come in. Nice hammer.”
Nope.
A shameless person trying to shame others. That’s so narcissistic.
But somewhere, somehow, some will insist that this is not a fake Republican. Go figure.
The claim isn’t that DePape was Nancy’s friend, it’s that he was Paul’s friend/acquaintance, from the past.
“I don’t know who he is, but he’s a friend named David” makes absolutely no sense at all.
And of course it’s only speculation that Paul Pelosi was doing an Andrew Gillum with a male sex-worker, but it certainly is more likely and plausible, given what has been reported, than the CNN/Democrat/Adam Kinzinger theory of an angry MAGA Republican spurred on by the party’s extreme rhetoric.
Well, I didn’t say that’s how it happened. But think of the odds of a rich old guy in California inviting a homosexuals into the house and then killing them. It rarely happens.
BREAKING: Notorious Clinton donor Ed Buck sentenced to 30 years for injecting young black men with meth and killing them
And the answer to “but if Paul Pelosi did stuff like that, why hasn’t it come out before this?” is “Duuuh, he’s RICH!”
And connected.
Mostly connected BECAUSE he’s rich, now. Although originally he may have gotten rich from being connected. But less connected than he is now, because of being rich.
So you’re saying he’s the chicken and the egg.
Among other things, the people he was connected to early on were likely a good deal older to have the influence he needed, which means they might be gone for some time already since he’s 82.
I mean, if you were married to Nancy Pelosi, you’d be kind of screwed up, too.
Remember, he recently had a DUI. Drunk drivers kill people. The guy’s not an upstanding citizen.
Was the passenger on the car with him ever identified?
Also a Hoya. An obvious tip-off.
Hmmmm.
A more detailed analysis:
Let’s say you’re a street cop. Maybe you’re “connected” to the Chief of Police, doing favors for him which may be favors he’s doing for others, not taking the mayor’s bastard son to lockup when he gets stopped for DUI or something. And the Chief makes sure you get overtime pay that you don’t really have to show up for, whatever.
Then later YOU are the Chief of Police. You’re now “connected” more directly to the mayor, and still “connected” to street cops who are performing favors that you get “paid” for, etc.
And then later yet YOU are the mayor, who is “connected” to the then-Chief of Police, etc, who is “connected” to the street cops who perform many of the “menial” favors…
So you’ve always been “connected” but it’s not the same at each “level.”
Good pull, but then you probably knew already.
The “gay sex worker while the wife was out of town” explanation simply requires fewer leaps of logic than the “unexpected 2AM underwear visitor with a hammer” explanation or the “crazed nudist, illegal immigrant, hemp activist incited by MAGA rhetoric” explanations.
I call it “Occam’s Hammer.”
They’re the worst. [impertinent remark]
Looks like the work of Catwoman. We need to light the Cosplayman symbol!
Added:
^ better, faster.
Screen shots are forever, Missus Flicker.