Lee Zeldin walked out to the Capitol in the wake of a riot: Politics on the Left and their Double Standards, and CNN has more opinion

At a time when control of Congress is at stake, and with the panel only weeks to finish its work, the hearing comes at an important time. If the Republicans win the majority, they will most likely shut down any official accounting of the Capitol in January for the largest attack on it in its history.

The speaker was attacked and the assault produced its own theories of a conspiracy. Once again, a gusher of falsehoods and wild, malicious misinformation circulating on social media and on the ideological right is creating an alternative reality meant to blur truth, prevent accountability and to further pollute political discourse.

On the day that the US Capitol was trashed, Representative Lee Zeldin walked into the Rotunda and went live on Fox News.

Republicans started to distance their party from President Donald Trump because of his campaign to overturn his election loss. Mr. Zeldin sounded ready to exonerate him that evening.

“This isn’t just about the president of the United States,” he said, referring to what prompted the riot that he condemned. “This is about people on the left and their double standards.”

In addition to being an associate professor in the Lawrence Herbert school of communication, Kara has written about her work on social media and women. She was a spokeswoman for international affairs in the Treasury Department. The opinions are hers and have no bearing on this commentary. CNN has more opinion.

An intruder broke into Nancy Pelosi’s California home and attacked him with a hammer: a critical look at the Washington, DC, case

An intruder broke into the California home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi early Friday and attacked her husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer while she was in Washington, DC. Paul Pelosi underwent surgery “to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” but is expected to make a full recovery, according to a statement released by the speaker’s office.

The suspected attacker, David DePape, who has a history of sharing conspiracy theories on social media, said he would wait “until Nancy got home,” according to a source briefed on the attack. DePape was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse and several additional felonies, according to SFPD Chief William Scott.

The shocking episode is just the latest in a series of escalating attacks and confrontations against politicians, most of whom face unacceptable hatred on the Internet that spills over into physical threats or violence. Social media platforms and law enforcement must act now to stop this abuse before a politician is gravely injured or killed.

“Just last year, we have seen threats against Congress people and their families went up to 9,500, which is double what we have seen ever before in our history.”

She told The New York Times that threats of violence have increased after the window was smashed in Susan Collins’ home. She said that she wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member was killed.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been harassed by a man who showed up repeatedly outside her home, armed with a handgun. Jayapal’s husband said he heard the voices of two men shouting obscenities and suggesting that they would stop harassing her neighborhood if she killed herself.

When we apply for this job, we sign up for many things, according to the Times. “But having someone show up to your door with a gun, scaring your neighbors, scaring your staff, and clearly trying to intimidate me — it’s hard to describe.”

And Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York receives so many threats that she has a round-the-clock security team and, at times, sleeps in different locations. Paul Gosar of Arizona, a Republican, appeared to kill her in an edited video that he posted on social media. Gosar didn’t apologize and deleted the video. A day after the House censured and removed him from two committee assignments, he took to social media to share a video.

The New York Post fired a rogue employee after he altered the headline of an online editorial to read “We must assassinate AOC for America”.

The Where Are You, Nancy? Attack of the House Speaker During the January 6 Attack on the Capitol, and the FBI’s Investigation of Pelosi’s Video

Pelosi is a particular target of hatred among the right. In 2019, the House Speaker, who has famously clashed with Former President Donald Trump, became the subject of manipulated videos that made her appear as if she were stumbling over and slurring her words. Those videos were then amplified by both Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on social media, where they went viral. During the January 6 attack on the Capitol last year, Trump supporters ransacked her office and yelled, “Where are you, Nancy?” – a chilling echo of the words DePape uttered on Friday: “Where is Nancy?”

Social media companies are against this kind of hate. The truth is clear: it still exists on their platforms. They need to get serious about taking down the abuse. If users see online hate like Gosar’s video, we should use the reporting tools to make sure these social platforms take it down.

It is sobering that this attack on Pelosi happened as Musk finalizes his purchase of TWITTER, and he favors more conservative moderation policies. If Twitter – or any other platform – becomes a bigger cesspool of misogyny and abuse, then users should make the decision to stop using it.

The abuse of women on the internet should be investigated by the FBI. If the agency needs more funding to do it, Congress should levy a tax against social networks to fund an expansion of resources. I believe that the lawmakers who have been threatened and harassed are happy to cast a vote for such a bill.

Paul Pelosi, Amy Lake, and her husband, Nancy, are seen as extremists in the midst of Trump’s false claims of election fraud

While troubling indicators — such as growing support for political violence, a rise in threats against elected officials and election workers, and the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — have clearly signaled the path of the country’s political environment over the past two years, many see the current election cycle as a crucial test of how much those factors will affect the practice of democracy in the United States.

There are new details on the assault on the husband of Nancy Pelosi that say he had a political motives and there are reports that he was involved in social media conspiracies.

This version of events will be tested in court and it’s premature to link any specific piece of political rhetoric to what transpired. Extremist politicians who refuse to take responsibility for their words will find it harder and harder to continue doing so.

A few years ago, Lake’s comments might have been disqualifying. But in the Trump era, the cruelty is often the point, as candidates and surrogates seek to establish their credibility with a radical base of voters by saying what once would have been seen as offensive or simply callous. Their rhetoric often exacerbates the process of dehumanizing political opponents that seems to make violence more likely.

It was the latest outburst of a climate of violence and harassment swamping modern politics. It took place less than two years after an unprecedented violent insurrection at the US Capitol rooted in Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. A man was arrested and charged with trying to murder a justice of the Supreme Court. Five years ago, GOP Representative Steve Walsh was shot at a congressional baseball practice. It was less than 12 years since Giffords was wounded by a stray bullet and left with a brain injury.

The Paul Pelosi attack also took place against a backdrop of tension surrounding the midterm elections next week, including reports of groups monitoring voter drop boxes in Arizona. Earlier this summer, former Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman searingly told the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, that there was now nowhere she felt safe after getting drawn in to Trump’s voter fraud conspiracies and asked, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/01/politics/democracy-paul-pelosi-attack-analysis/index.html

An Arizona Activist Critique of President Donald Trump and the Pelosi Attack on Jan. 6, 2009: Education, Security, and Preparing for Elections

A Washington Post poll taken around the anniversary of the insurrection in January found, meanwhile, that 34% of Americans – and 40% of Republicans – said violence against the government is sometimes justified.

“This attack goes to the core of our democracy and it can’t be just written off to some crazy person. What our leaders say matters,” Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner, said on “CNN Newsroom” on Monday.

Trump insisted in an interview that the incident was a symptom of the rise in crime in America and that he was going to focus on it during the election.

Graydon Young, one of the first Oath Keepers to plead guilty, thought he was acting like a traitor against his own government.

His comments made clear the power of the inflammatory rhetoric that has come from leaders like Trump.

“It is very sad to see that once again, we are at a point in history where people believe it is okay to express their political sentiments through violence,” she said.

Those concerns were further emphasized by the release of an internal bulletin within federal agencies — on the same day as the Pelosi attack — warning of a heightened threat from domestic violent extremists in the coming weeks.

Shannon Hiller said that it was similar to what they were doing with the Bridging Divides Initiative, which tracks rhetoric and political violence. “We are not concerned about the safety and security on Election Day.”

Still, early voting in some places has been fraught. There were armed civilians at ballot drop boxes in Arizona. Republicans have been encouraged by the activities that prompted voter intimidation.

One of them is the Republican nominee for Arizona secretary of state who has spread baseless allegations of election fraud and encouraged his followers to look out for vote fraud in their communities.

You are in charge of maintaining your election. Finchem said at a rally last year, which began with those in attendance pledging allegiance to a flag that was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. “You need to be at the polls. You can’t leave this to someone else.

Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said recently the RNC had trained more than 30,000 poll watchers ahead of this year’s midterms.

Carly Koppes, the Republican clerk of Weld County, Colo., told Colorado Public Radio that all 35 poll watchers she approved for the state’s June primary had ties to election denial groups.

That can present a complicated situation. On one hand, having conspiracy-minded volunteers involved in the process can be a valuable chance to educate them on the way elections actually work.

If people are set in their beliefs that there is pervasive fraud and they need to uncover it, it can be a very dangerous powder keg, say voting experts.

It’s not about service or volunteering; it’s about political activism, vindicating an election from the past two years. “That can result in real conflict.”

Researchers say there may be a greater risk of violence in the days following the election than on Election Day.

“What happens when people don’t have their preferred candidate win?” said Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “They have seen that denial is a way forward, that you’re able to create a community of conspiracy around that. I don’t think violence is that far behind.

They have seen that denial is a way to create conspiracy around that. I don’t think violence is too far behind.

Creation of Evidence in the era of the 2020 Capitol attacks: The impact of campaigning and alleged voter fraud on the 2024 presidential election

Already, some influential voices on the right have said they’re readying for contentious litigation around races that don’t end up favoring Republican candidates.

Tape recently surfaced of former Trump lawyer John Eastman, whose involvement in trying to overturn the 2020 election has been a central theme of the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol, encouraging a crowd in New Mexico to scrutinize their election officials and take detailed notes that can be used in future lawsuits.

“You are allowed to make a written record of anything you see not going on correctly,” Eastman said, according to audio obtained by the watchdog group Documented. “That’s called creating evidence.”

Hiller, of the Bridging Divides Initiative, said she expects the field of locations where threats of violence are most pernicious to narrow fairly quickly. Her team is keeping a close eye on the races in the swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, where false claims of past election fraud are being embraced by some political leaders as well.

“They’re [states] where there are senior leaders, specifically in the Republican Party, that are already calling into question the results of the election or have a history of advocating for violence or condoning violence around it,” she said.

Nonetheless, Hiller is optimistic that institutions that have preserved the democratic process in the past will have the resources they need in the face of these threats.

“Many of the fail-safes worked and were one of the stories of 2020.” The court systems were effective. A lot of the recounts that happened were incredibly effective. And folks were able to surge resources to those locations,” she said. We’re going to test the resources and the resolve in this election.

Many are also watching closely to see what this cycle may portend for the next big one: the 2024 presidential election. Whether or not former President Donald Trump runs again, experts say the efforts around undermining democracy during the midterms could drastically affect what many perceive to be the even-higher-stakes race for the White House, calling it a “dry run” for 2024.

“This should be a dry run for people who want to protect democracy,” he said. “Our law enforcement, our governmental institutions, our leaders, this is a dry run for them to make sure that they’re doing whatever they need to do to protect our democracy moving forward.”

The upcoming elections will test whether local organizing of far right groups around challenging voter rolls and vote counting, and increased presence as election workers, will bear fruit. If it does, those efforts would be expected to continue or ramp up into the presidential election cycle.

“Groups have been preparing day in and day out,” she said. I think that most polling places are prepared if someone tries to create issues at a polling place. There’s been a lot of thinking on how to support people who have de-escalation skills.

Segal said that it’s important that national and local institutions demonstrate how they will handle a political event in the coming weeks.