Thank you for highlighting Claudia Tenney, the least effective and laziest member of the NY Assembly until Republicans in rural Central New York made her the least effective and laziest member of the House, so lazy and ineffective that she lost after one term, only to be returned to the House by "winning" an election by 100 votes, in part because her opponent had no stomach for a long court battle. She is a horrible person and will be an ongoing lazy and ineffective member of Congress in this next term as she is likely going to win in a district that she doesn't live in, but is full of angry white rural male MAGAs who only care about owning the libs and loving their Trump.
She must be lazy as hell because I don't think I'd ever heard her name before. What a horrible human. Maybe the kids at Binghamton will GOTV and get rid of her. Ugh.
Lazy would be an understatement. During her first term I don't think she did anything other than praise Trump. Sadly she is running in NY 24, a new district along Lake Ontario (minus the city of Rochester) and doesn't contain any strong sources of blue votes. Last polling had her ahead by double digits. Not bad for someone who has and will do nothing if elected. And she's not even in with the kool kidz in the GQP so she won't get any plum committee assignments. I suspect even her neighbor Elise Stefanik secretly thinks she's a big zero.
I'm beyond horrified at all things maga but this attack was despicable and those laughing about it are sub human pos. I've been off twitter since Saturday and wow, do I feel better. Thanks Greg, another awesome piece of writing! Btw we love love love your book 'Empress'.
I've been off Twitter since Saturday too and I DO feel better! I deleted my account. I regret being on the same planet with Musk, but since I'm stuck, at least I won't be on the same disgusting platform with him.
Thanks for all the update Greg,?it appears the demented MAGA -GOP cults Tweets are as deranged as it’s new owner! Damn, the world has certainly become a ghetto of the fatuous, willing to give their lives to a demonic demagogue!
Hey and thanks, Greg. Another well-done recount from you! More pieces of the puzzle are now in place for me as I read your post.
I do have a question about once Pelosi opened the door to the police, why he grabbed for the hammer instead of letting the police take over.
Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of the Republican lawmakers. What needed to happen was for every single one of them to condemn this action which, IMO, would have gone a long way to still the violence, more of which is sure to come.
Lynell, if this nut job had been black, he would not have been afforded the right to be alive. I live in the Bay Area, you know, and the police actions are questionable, in my mind. Not certain why they did not overtake him before he pounded Mr. Pelosi’s head in. By the way, he has also been charged with elder abuse.
My read on the document is that they were struggling for the hammer as the police came in. I think the door was opened and the guy came at him and he grabbed it at that point.
Hasn't it already started? All the "lone wolf" mass murders. Just think-if the R's take over the House, whoever they appoint to be Speaker will be 2nd in line to be the President if something should happen to Biden & Harris.
The attack was disgusting and my heart goes out to the Pelosis. You're right, Nancy Pelosi ruffles all their feathers because she is better at her job and smarter than these guys could ever be.
I don't really know if there is ever coming back from being burgeoned by a hammer. I've seen traumatic brain injuries.
Jr & company's responses are the most vile thing I've ever witnessed, I reported every single one.
When is congress going to rein in these social media companies? Hate speech is not free speech.
Unfortunately, and to our detriment, free speech includes hate speech, as disgusting as that may be. The issue becomes 'who decides' what hate speech is, and then the slippery slope and blah, blah, blah. For now, hate speech is free speech too. With the Muskovite at the helm of Twitter, and apparently SOLELY at the helm, reporting things could be an exercise in futility. I now only keep my Twitter account so I'm able to monitor and read other people's tweets, when necessary, and of course, argue with fascists. That may change as time goes on.
It's a big task which why it's never been dealt with and court cases are supposed to set the standard and we haven't had anything definitive in terms of hate speech with social media that I know.
I'm not too worried about Twitter as we've always had crappy people at the helm of it.
I feel like I've dealt with bullies my whole life and I'm not leaving twitter.
That's the thing. Kanye West, for example, can say whatever he wants. But Adidas and Balengiaga and etc can also exercise free speech by refusing to have anything to do with him. Incitement is not free speech.
I just saw in the past few days that both Alex Jones and Glenn Beck have released books entitled, "The Great Reset," which is referenced in the Forbes link. They have different subtitles to them, but I'm sure they're the same idea and more conspiracy nuttiness.
Our biggest problem now is, what do we do, besides vote? The Pelosi incident is truly the first time that one of their plans has succeeded, one of their "personal plans," that is. It's not about policies or anything reasonable, it's just about hate of the left. That has been stoked over and over from the highest offices in the land, and their minions in the right-wing media. The left simply doesn't have that setup, nor should we, because we're NOT driven by hate of the right, even now. It would probably be easier, but that's not what we do. We are human and recognize that even they are human. They seem to have lost that capacity -- they no longer see anyone disagreeing with them as even human! How do you fight that?
My daily mantra "Democratic Super Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate as a result of the 2022 elections". I'm actually saying this one several times a day at this point. I'm feeling a sense of (positive) urgency at this point. A sense of forward momentum.
You know what The Storm is, right? Have a sense of the behavior of mobs? Watched Jan 6 on TV? Listened to the cult being interviewed outside Trump rallies?
The evidence mounts of what we're dealing with here, how far they're willing to go, or at least how far some are willing to see their minions go, and people wonder how to fight it. Imagine someone coming to your house to put a hammer in your head. What do you do? That's how you fight I it. But maybe it'll be okay. Maybe they'll stop at killing our congresswomen (and men).
Too dark? Just my observation. I used to wonder how the Nazis came to power. Now it seems so simple. Who knew we were so ripe for it.
PS. Did you hear Garland is now considering a special counsel to determine whether to charge Trump if he announces his candidacy. Tick, tock. The cavalry might not be coming.
When I lived in Berserkeley 50 years ago, we used to have a term for the DePape's: Avenue Trash. That's because these druggd-out losers were generally found hanging out on Telegraph Avenue, looking for whatever was happening. If there was a demonstration it was unsurprising when these floating pieces of excrement were the ones smashing store windows and such.
Greg, the Pro-Rape Party is a terrorist organization. They have a few women, like Marjorie Three Names and Kari Lake who both remind me of concentration camp wardens. I see them in brown shirts and pants with a matching hat, whips and guns at their sides, heavy black boots on their feet. It’s frightening! You know what else is scary? Newt Gingrich is still alive and is helping Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. Tell when these m’effers are gonna die?
I used to be something of a political ignoramus. I used to be one of those people who doesn’t really understand politics.
That all changed in the years since I started engaging here and on Heather Cox Richardson, in 2018. I am no longer mystified by the distinctions between Republicans and Democrats.
The boneheads hate Nancy Pelosi, and you and me, because we are change agents. People like my dad don’t understand us, and think of us as the enemy, because we don’t want to continue the traditional old-order society of sexism and racism.
And yes, like Greg says, they hate Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi most of all in this country, because of all the women in politics in the U.S., those two wield the most power. Add the Obamas to that list, because the backlash to the Obamas is Trump.
Of course, we are all part of the same country, the same society. We here try to treat MAGA-ns as brothers and sisters. But the polarization between the traditionalists and the liberals has never been greater since the McCarthy era and, before that, the era of slavery.
However, compassion notwithstanding, make no mistake, this guy is a piece of shit. I echo Greg’s words. The members of the regressive society, like Depape and Trump and Trump’s wide network of accomplices, are a lot more interested in maintaining the racism and sexism status quo than in treating us well, you and me and our side. Violence, attacks on democracy, they use whatever it takes to keep men in charge and whites in charge. In our hearts, in our minds, there has to be some compassion for these misguided souls, a huge population of them, but we also have a Justice system and a prison system for criminal behavior.
Once in awhile, we hear of a man plotting to attack Brett Kavanaugh, or a someone shooting Ronald Reagan or George Wallace. But for every one of those, there are 100 Depapes and John Lennon and JFK and RFK and journalist murderers.
Merrick Garland, Fani Willis, and Letitia James have to finish their jobs. As a nation, we absolutely must come out as we did in 2020 and end this madness of men and whites (and straights, rich people, Christians) having power over everyone else. It’s a disease.
They are thirsty in other ways, too.
Thank you for highlighting Claudia Tenney, the least effective and laziest member of the NY Assembly until Republicans in rural Central New York made her the least effective and laziest member of the House, so lazy and ineffective that she lost after one term, only to be returned to the House by "winning" an election by 100 votes, in part because her opponent had no stomach for a long court battle. She is a horrible person and will be an ongoing lazy and ineffective member of Congress in this next term as she is likely going to win in a district that she doesn't live in, but is full of angry white rural male MAGAs who only care about owning the libs and loving their Trump.
She must be lazy as hell because I don't think I'd ever heard her name before. What a horrible human. Maybe the kids at Binghamton will GOTV and get rid of her. Ugh.
Lazy would be an understatement. During her first term I don't think she did anything other than praise Trump. Sadly she is running in NY 24, a new district along Lake Ontario (minus the city of Rochester) and doesn't contain any strong sources of blue votes. Last polling had her ahead by double digits. Not bad for someone who has and will do nothing if elected. And she's not even in with the kool kidz in the GQP so she won't get any plum committee assignments. I suspect even her neighbor Elise Stefanik secretly thinks she's a big zero.
I'm beyond horrified at all things maga but this attack was despicable and those laughing about it are sub human pos. I've been off twitter since Saturday and wow, do I feel better. Thanks Greg, another awesome piece of writing! Btw we love love love your book 'Empress'.
I've been off Twitter since Saturday too and I DO feel better! I deleted my account. I regret being on the same planet with Musk, but since I'm stuck, at least I won't be on the same disgusting platform with him.
Hopefully Elon is blasting off to Mars
Adieu, Elmo.
It is a cesspool. Depressing, horrifying. Every day something awful. I loathe that man.
Thanks, Helen. I'm so glad you enjoyed the book! You're not missing anything on Twitter. It is a cesspool.
Thanks for all the update Greg,?it appears the demented MAGA -GOP cults Tweets are as deranged as it’s new owner! Damn, the world has certainly become a ghetto of the fatuous, willing to give their lives to a demonic demagogue!
And it's only gotten worse since you wrote that, with this Bibi business. Good lord, we are in such trouble.
Hey and thanks, Greg. Another well-done recount from you! More pieces of the puzzle are now in place for me as I read your post.
I do have a question about once Pelosi opened the door to the police, why he grabbed for the hammer instead of letting the police take over.
Thoroughly disgusted by the behavior of the Republican lawmakers. What needed to happen was for every single one of them to condemn this action which, IMO, would have gone a long way to still the violence, more of which is sure to come.
Vive la Nancy Pelosi!
Lynell, if this nut job had been black, he would not have been afforded the right to be alive. I live in the Bay Area, you know, and the police actions are questionable, in my mind. Not certain why they did not overtake him before he pounded Mr. Pelosi’s head in. By the way, he has also been charged with elder abuse.
I hope he enjoyed his nudist orgies while they lasted, because that's all gone forever now. He's going away for a long long LONG time.
Dang straight!!
My read on the document is that they were struggling for the hammer as the police came in. I think the door was opened and the guy came at him and he grabbed it at that point.
My read was a bit of hesitation but maybe that will all come out of his trial. It’s kind of unclear.
Don't be fooled. The GOP is at war to the death on behalf of their paymasters, corporations and the super-rich.
They will happily burn America to the ground to retain old white supremacy.
They are happy to stoke hatred in the gullible and the mentally ill, murder by proxy.
"An evil GOP enemy will burn his own nation to the ground .. just to rule over the ashes."
- Sun Tzu
Any bets on the start date for their Civil War?
Hasn't it already started? All the "lone wolf" mass murders. Just think-if the R's take over the House, whoever they appoint to be Speaker will be 2nd in line to be the President if something should happen to Biden & Harris.
Yes, Very Scary.
So much depends on Biden's health, in general. So much.
The day the cuff Trump.
Yes. I think that's the accepted trigger 😥
That's why they have to arrest them all at once, like the Baptism scene in the Godfather.
I was buoyed by the DOJ acting so quickly here. They had the guy dead to rights, but they also have Trump dead to rights for stealing the documents.
The only thing that might save us is the strength in numbers. They are loud, but we outnumber them significantly.
The attack was disgusting and my heart goes out to the Pelosis. You're right, Nancy Pelosi ruffles all their feathers because she is better at her job and smarter than these guys could ever be.
I don't really know if there is ever coming back from being burgeoned by a hammer. I've seen traumatic brain injuries.
Jr & company's responses are the most vile thing I've ever witnessed, I reported every single one.
When is congress going to rein in these social media companies? Hate speech is not free speech.
Unfortunately, and to our detriment, free speech includes hate speech, as disgusting as that may be. The issue becomes 'who decides' what hate speech is, and then the slippery slope and blah, blah, blah. For now, hate speech is free speech too. With the Muskovite at the helm of Twitter, and apparently SOLELY at the helm, reporting things could be an exercise in futility. I now only keep my Twitter account so I'm able to monitor and read other people's tweets, when necessary, and of course, argue with fascists. That may change as time goes on.
It's a big task which why it's never been dealt with and court cases are supposed to set the standard and we haven't had anything definitive in terms of hate speech with social media that I know.
I'm not too worried about Twitter as we've always had crappy people at the helm of it.
I feel like I've dealt with bullies my whole life and I'm not leaving twitter.
Silence is complicity.
$8 a month, and just run a 20-minute video insulting Elon...
The Supreme Court has called the few exceptions to the "protected speech" of the 1st Amendment “well-defined and narrowly limited.”
They include obscenity, defamation, fraud, INCITEMENT, true threats and speech integral to already CRIMINAL CONDUCT
Of course, this "scotus" may change it for whatever needs they have to grab power.
Obscenity? I'd never heard that, and I wonder what that even means. It must be like obscenity in porn, where you know it when you hear/see it.
That's the thing. Kanye West, for example, can say whatever he wants. But Adidas and Balengiaga and etc can also exercise free speech by refusing to have anything to do with him. Incitement is not free speech.
On Twitter, hate speech is making fun of Tomi Lahren.
It's really just horrifying. Imagine being in bed and woken up to this? Shudder.
I just saw in the past few days that both Alex Jones and Glenn Beck have released books entitled, "The Great Reset," which is referenced in the Forbes link. They have different subtitles to them, but I'm sure they're the same idea and more conspiracy nuttiness.
Our biggest problem now is, what do we do, besides vote? The Pelosi incident is truly the first time that one of their plans has succeeded, one of their "personal plans," that is. It's not about policies or anything reasonable, it's just about hate of the left. That has been stoked over and over from the highest offices in the land, and their minions in the right-wing media. The left simply doesn't have that setup, nor should we, because we're NOT driven by hate of the right, even now. It would probably be easier, but that's not what we do. We are human and recognize that even they are human. They seem to have lost that capacity -- they no longer see anyone disagreeing with them as even human! How do you fight that?
1/ Get more Senate seats.
2/ Protect voting rights. First. All of that. Every citizen should be able to vote, period. Even inmates in prisons. No exceptions.
3/ Expand the court.
4/ Indict the fuckers. All of them.
But yeah. The media has fucked us so badly, I don't know how we really come back.
My daily mantra "Democratic Super Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate as a result of the 2022 elections". I'm actually saying this one several times a day at this point. I'm feeling a sense of (positive) urgency at this point. A sense of forward momentum.
You know what The Storm is, right? Have a sense of the behavior of mobs? Watched Jan 6 on TV? Listened to the cult being interviewed outside Trump rallies?
The evidence mounts of what we're dealing with here, how far they're willing to go, or at least how far some are willing to see their minions go, and people wonder how to fight it. Imagine someone coming to your house to put a hammer in your head. What do you do? That's how you fight I it. But maybe it'll be okay. Maybe they'll stop at killing our congresswomen (and men).
Too dark? Just my observation. I used to wonder how the Nazis came to power. Now it seems so simple. Who knew we were so ripe for it.
PS. Did you hear Garland is now considering a special counsel to determine whether to charge Trump if he announces his candidacy. Tick, tock. The cavalry might not be coming.
When I lived in Berserkeley 50 years ago, we used to have a term for the DePape's: Avenue Trash. That's because these druggd-out losers were generally found hanging out on Telegraph Avenue, looking for whatever was happening. If there was a demonstration it was unsurprising when these floating pieces of excrement were the ones smashing store windows and such.
They were nothings then and nothing's changed.
Berserkeley, ha! I had to read that three times, but I get it!
I had that sense about this guy, he's just a lifelong loser. He fits the profile. He's a Czolgosz type.
I'm still waiting to hear certain Republican lawmakers say, "If only Paul Pelosi owned a handgun..." Why haven't they spoken up, hmm?
Instead they are blaming it on SF being a sanctuary city.
Greg, the Pro-Rape Party is a terrorist organization. They have a few women, like Marjorie Three Names and Kari Lake who both remind me of concentration camp wardens. I see them in brown shirts and pants with a matching hat, whips and guns at their sides, heavy black boots on their feet. It’s frightening! You know what else is scary? Newt Gingrich is still alive and is helping Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. Tell when these m’effers are gonna die?
When they walk into direct sunlight or have their hearts staked by Van Helsing.
I used to be something of a political ignoramus. I used to be one of those people who doesn’t really understand politics.
That all changed in the years since I started engaging here and on Heather Cox Richardson, in 2018. I am no longer mystified by the distinctions between Republicans and Democrats.
The boneheads hate Nancy Pelosi, and you and me, because we are change agents. People like my dad don’t understand us, and think of us as the enemy, because we don’t want to continue the traditional old-order society of sexism and racism.
And yes, like Greg says, they hate Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi most of all in this country, because of all the women in politics in the U.S., those two wield the most power. Add the Obamas to that list, because the backlash to the Obamas is Trump.
Of course, we are all part of the same country, the same society. We here try to treat MAGA-ns as brothers and sisters. But the polarization between the traditionalists and the liberals has never been greater since the McCarthy era and, before that, the era of slavery.
However, compassion notwithstanding, make no mistake, this guy is a piece of shit. I echo Greg’s words. The members of the regressive society, like Depape and Trump and Trump’s wide network of accomplices, are a lot more interested in maintaining the racism and sexism status quo than in treating us well, you and me and our side. Violence, attacks on democracy, they use whatever it takes to keep men in charge and whites in charge. In our hearts, in our minds, there has to be some compassion for these misguided souls, a huge population of them, but we also have a Justice system and a prison system for criminal behavior.
Once in awhile, we hear of a man plotting to attack Brett Kavanaugh, or a someone shooting Ronald Reagan or George Wallace. But for every one of those, there are 100 Depapes and John Lennon and JFK and RFK and journalist murderers.
Merrick Garland, Fani Willis, and Letitia James have to finish their jobs. As a nation, we absolutely must come out as we did in 2020 and end this madness of men and whites (and straights, rich people, Christians) having power over everyone else. It’s a disease.