Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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      AOC speaks out against Republicans’ gun-wielding Christmas photos

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      AOC speaks out against Republicans’ gun-wielding Christmas photosAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls out Lauren Boebert on Twitter for posting a picture of her family holding rifles in front of a tree Leftwing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out about the hypocrisy of gun-wielding Christmas card photos, an emerging trend among several Republic lawmakers who have posted holiday photos showing themselves and their family holding military-style rifles.Man charged with arson for burning down Fox News Christmas treeRead moreIn a tweet on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez called out far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who had posted a picture of her family, including her small children, holding rifles in front of a Christmas tree.“Tell me again where Christ said ‘use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain’?” said Ocasio-Cortez, recalling back in 2015 when conservatives declared that there was a “war on Christmas”, with companies like Starbucks facing threats of boycott.“lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society ‘erasing Christmas and it’s meaning’ when they’re doing that fine all on their own.”Tell me again where Christ said “use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain”?lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society “erasing Christmas and it’s meaning” when they’re doing that fine all on their own https://t.co/TOKE1SmY4C— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 8, 2021
      In addition to Boebert’s gun-themed Christmas photo, Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie recently posted a picture of his family holding rifles while posing in front of a Christmas tree, with the caption: “Merry Christmas! PS: Santa, please bring ammo.”The photo was posted only days after a school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, located an hour outside of the state’s capitol, where four students died and seven people were injured.Boebert and Massie’s Christmas photos faced widespread criticism, as several other Republicans have used violent imagery in attempts to shock and provoke as well as rally supporters. Arizona congressman Adam Gosar was censured after tweeting an animated video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and Boebert received criticism for Islamaphobic comments about Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.“Here his family’s got guns under a Christmas tree just after four kids were killed,” said Elaine Kamarck, a former official in the Clinton administration, in an interview with the Guardian. “The guy’s abominable but that’s what’s happening to the Republican party. They’re flat-out nuts. There’s a piece of the Republican party that now supports violence.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘A core threat to our democracy’: threat of political violence growing across US

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      ‘A core threat to our democracy’: threat of political violence growing across USRepublicans’ muted response to Paul Gosar’s behavior has intensified fears about where incendiary rhetoric may lead Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the House floor and implored her colleagues to hold Paul Gosar accountable for sharing an altered anime video showing him killing her and attacking Joe Biden.“Our work here matters. Our example matters. There is meaning in our service,” Ocasio-Cortez said in her speech last week. “And as leaders in this country, when we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues, that trickles down into violence in this country.”House Republicans heard Ocasio-Cortez’s impassioned plea and responded with a collective shrug. All but three Republican members voted against censuring Gosar and stripping him of his committee assignments, while every House Democrat supported the resolution.The Gosar incident served as the latest data point in an alarming trend in American politics. In a year that began with a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, lawmakers have seen a sharp rise in the number of threats against them. Republicans’ muted response to Gosar’s behavior has intensified fears about the possibility of more political violence in America in the months to come.Jackie Speier, the Democratic congresswoman who spearheaded the effort to censure Gosar, warned that Republicans’ refusal to hold him accountable could have dangerous repercussions.“If you are silent about a member of Congress wanting to murder another member of Congress, even in a ‘cartoon’, you are inciting violence,” Speier told the Guardian. “And if you incite violence, it begets violence.”That cycle is already playing out in the halls of Congress. The US Capitol police reported earlier this year that the agency had seen a 107% increase in threats against members compared with 2020. The USCP chief, Tom Manger, has said he expects the total number of threats against members to surpass 9,000 this year, compared with 3,939 such threats in 2017.Some of those threats have been on vivid display in the past month. In addition to Gosar’s violent video, the 13 House Republicans who voted in support of the bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier month have received threatening messages.Representative Fred Upton of Michigan publicly shared one such message, in which a man called the Republican congressman a “fucking piece of shit traitor”. “I hope you die. I hope everybody in your fucking family dies,” the man said in the message.And those kinds of threats are not reserved solely for members of Congress. Election workers and school board members also say they are receiving more violent messages. According to an April survey commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice, nearly one in three election officials are concerned about their safety while on the job.Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel at the government watchdog group Common Cause, described such violent tactics as “a core threat to our democracy”.“The threat of violence is really to intimidate people from doing their jobs and upholding their oath of office,” Spaulding said. “When you start having these violent episodes enter the system, it is totally counter to the way that we are supposed to engage in open and fair debate about policy issues in this country.”There are already signs that fears over personal safety are pushing lawmakers out of office. When the Republican congressman Anthony Gonzalez announced in September that he would not seek re-election, he said his vote to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection had affected the lives of his family members.Gonzalez told the New York Times that, at one point earlier this year, uniformed police officers had to escort him and his family through the Cleveland airport because of security concerns.“That’s one of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” Gonzalez said.Even though threats are affecting their own caucus members, House Republicans rejected the opportunity to send a message by voting to censure Gosar. Instead, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, attacked the censure resolution as a Democratic “abuse of power” and suggested he would award Gosar with “better committee assignments” whenever Republicans regain control of the chamber.“He’s got a number of radical extremists in his caucus that are very effective communicators to the right fringe, and he can’t really rein them in because reining them in means they will attack him,” Speier said. “You might as well put a brass ring in Kevin McCarthy’s nose because they’re pulling him around.”Dr Joanne Freeman, a Yale history professor and author of The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, warned that McCarthy’s response to Gosar’s behavior may encourage similar incidents in the future.After all, there are other historical examples of lawmakers being rewarded for violent behavior, Freeman noted. After Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a cane over his anti-slavery views in 1856, he resigned from the House but was then quickly re-elected by South Carolina voters.“He’s going to be rewarded for it in some ways, and because of that, there will be others that follow in that model,” Freeman said. “It’s a moment that shows how far party is above government and above institutions of government and above institutional stability.”While acknowledging the possibility of future violence within Congress, Freeman added that the Gosar incident could also provide an opportunity for a course correction in political discourse.“We’re in a moment of extreme contingency, and indeed things might become much worse,” Freeman said. “But during that kind of moment of extreme contingency where anything can happen, those are also moments where it’s possible to make positive change.”For Speier, Gosar’s behavior served as a reminder of how far some of her colleagues have strayed from their duties to constituents. The California congresswoman, who announced her retirement last week, urged fellow members to focus on advancing policy rather than spewing violent rhetoric to raise money and rack up retweets.“I love this institution. It’s such a privilege to serve,” Speier said. “We’re given the opportunity to fashion legislation to make lives better for the American people. And that’s what we should be doing.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezRepublicansUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Congresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’

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      InterviewCongresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’Joan E Greve in WashingtonThe Democratic congresswoman talks about her effort to censure Paul Gosar, her retirement and the shifting dynamics of the House For Jackie Speier, the growing threat of political violence in America is personal.Before becoming a member of the House of Representatives in 2009, Speier served as a staffer to congressman Leo Ryan. When Speier joined Ryan for a 1978 trip to Guyana to investigate the Jonestown settlement, she was shot five times.Speier survived the attack, but Ryan and four other members of their delegation did not.So when one of her Republican colleagues recently shared a threatening video about the president and another House member, Speier knew she needed to act. The Democratic congresswoman spearheaded an effort to censure Paul Gosar, who had tweeted an altered anime video showing him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden.‘Inciting violence begets violence’: Paul Gosar censured over video aimed at AOCRead moreThe censure resolution passed the House last week, in a vote of 223 to 207. All but three House Republicans voted against the resolution, with the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, condemning the measure as a Democratic “abuse of power”.The Guardian spoke to Speier to discuss the censure resolution, her coming retirement and the shifting dynamics of the House as lawmakers face more threats of violence. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.Why was it so important for the House to censure Gosar?The ramping up of vitriol on the House floor has been demonstrable for a number of years now. It was like a match got lit during Donald Trump’s presidency, and it was seen as benefiting members to be provocative and then fundraising off of statements they made on the House floor.It’s very clear that, if you are silent about a member of Congress wanting to murder another member of Congress, even in a “cartoon”, you are inciting violence. And if you incite violence, it begets violence.So that’s why I felt so strongly that we had to draw the red line. This has got to be a red line. And obviously my colleagues agreed, and we passed the resolution.We saw some of your Republican colleagues either trying to justify Gosar’s behavior or downplay it. Do you feel like some of your colleagues have not learned the lessons of the Capitol insurrection, when we saw that violent rhetoric can escalate to potentially deadly violence?The facts don’t matter. That’s the problem. The facts don’t matter. I heard one of the Republicans on a show this morning say she thought it was reprehensible, but she voted against the censure because it also stripped him of his committee assignments. So they always will come up with a rationale to allow them to continue to follow the lead of former President Trump or Kevin McCarthy. It’s not about doing what’s right any more. It’s about doing what’s going to give them power.Specifically in terms of Kevin McCarthy, do you think that his rationalization for this behavior makes it inevitable that this is going to happen again?He’s got a number of radical extremists in his caucus that are very effective communicators to the right fringe, and he can’t really rein them in because reining them in means they will attack him. So they have become the face of the House Republicans. You might as well put a brass ring in Kevin McCarthy’s nose because they’re pulling him around.Politics is politics, but we’re talking about taking the life of another member of Congress. How is that not appropriate for censure?Does it feel like there’s a disconnect between Republicans’ rationalizations and the very real violence we saw earlier this year [during the Capitol insurrection] that could have resulted in the death of a member?Not to mention the fact that they’re eating their young. They’ve got one member, one of these fringe rightwing members, who was giving out the telephone numbers of members who voted for their districts and voted for what is a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and [Republican congressman Fred] Upton gets death threats.You’ve got to have an alligator’s skin to do this job. We know that. I’ve been doing this for 38 years. I’m very accustomed to it. I’m also accustomed to getting death threats. And some are seen as credible, and some are not.So that happens. There has to be a repercussion for that. And, as someone said, if in corporate America, you put out an animated video killing one of your co-workers, you would be fired.There’s a lack of reality in Congress right now. And anything goes. The more hyperbolic you are, the more extremist you are, the more successful you are because it’s all about raising money. Raising money gets you clout and power within the caucus.They have made Minority Leader McCarthy impotent in terms of disciplining anyone in his caucus who strays, who crosses that red line.What is your response to suggestions that Republicans will strip Democrats of committee assignments when they come back into power?If one of my colleagues put up an animated video or a tweet that said they wanted to kill a Republican colleague, I would introduce a censure motion for that. You cannot excuse away that kind of conduct. Someone is going to get injured or be killed. That’s how serious that conduct was.You have been in and around the House for decades now. Do you think that the increased number of threats against members has changed the dynamics of the House in any way?I think it’s become a bloodsport. And if a bipartisan bill like the infrastructure bill that had bipartisan support in the Senate and has bipartisan support in the House is then turned on the members that worked in consensus-building, then that suggests that we don’t want to legislate any more.I know that you announced your retirement this week. As you prepare for your next steps, would you say that this resolution was one way to protect the House as an institution?I love this institution. It’s such a privilege to serve. And I think when you’re in the heat of doing your everyday job here, you might lose sight of the fact that this is such a privilege. We’re given the opportunity to fashion legislation to make lives better for the American people. And that’s what we should be doing.When we get sidetracked into wanting to just disparage each other, then we’re not doing our jobs.I introduced the resolution because it just hit me so dramatically. And it’s yet again another example of women becoming the subject of attacks – physical attacks, psychological attacks – women of color in politics even more. I’ve worked on this issue for years now. And I see it as a way of silencing women and discouraging women from running for office.So for all those reasons, it was really important to take action.TopicsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesAlexandria Ocasio-CortezRepublicansCaliforniainterviewsReuse this content More

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      Paul Gosar retweets same video aimed at AOC after House censures him – report

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      Paul Gosar retweets same video aimed at AOC after House censures him – reportRepublican congressman retweeted conservative podcaster Elijah Schaffer’s tweet of the violent video Just minutes after being censured by the US House, the Republican congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona retweeted the violent video that depicts him murdering Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, US media reported.While Gosar had previously deleted the video, after the House voted to censure him, Gosar retweeted the conservative podcaster Elijah Schaffer’s tweet of the video that was captioned: “Really well done. We love @DrPaulGosar, don’t we folks?” The retweet appears to have since been undone.Gosar also retweeted other Republican politicians and public figures, both on his personal and congressional Twitter accounts, that have called Gosar a political “martyr” and denounced his censure.Gosar has not apologized for the video and called the censure “kabuki theater” and a “hysterical mob” in a series of new tweets published after the vote.Following the censure vote, Gosar also released a statement saying that his censure could incite violence, comparing the censure to the events that led up to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre.“I remind everyone that pretending to be upset over a cartoon is what happened to the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France,” said Gosar. “All right-thinking people condemned that then, and they should condemn the Democrats now for their violation of free speech.”On Wednesday the House voted to censure Gosar, with 223 in favor and 207 against. While the vote occurred mostly along party lines, three Republicans broke with their party line. Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming voted in favor of censuring Gosar, and Congressman David Joyce of Ohio voted “present”, the lone Republican member to do so.Republican members have been called out in the past for threatening violence against Democratic representatives, particularly women of color. In February, the House stripped the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments after her social media posts were flagged for supporting violence against Ocasio-Cortez, the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsAlexandria Ocasio-CorteznewsReuse this content More

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      ‘What is so hard about saying this is wrong?’, says AOC over Paul Gosar’s violent tweet – video

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      Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has blasted Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy for failing to condemn the violent tweet of fellow Republican Paul Gosar ahead of a censure vote against him. The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives was poised to punish a Republican lawmaker over an anime video that depicted him killing Ocasio-Cortez and swinging two swords at President Joe Biden. ‘What is so hard, what is so hard about saying that this is wrong?’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘This is not about me. This is not about representative Gosar. But, this is about what we are willing to accept.’ 

      ‘This is not about me,’ AOC says as House debates censuring Paul Gosar over violent video – live More

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      ‘Inciting violence begets violence’: Paul Gosar censured over video aimed at AOC

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      ‘Inciting violence begets violence’: Paul Gosar censured over video aimed at AOCTrump loyalist removed from committee assignments for video showing him killing Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden The House delivered an extraordinary rebuke of congressman Paul Gosar on Wednesday, by formally censuring the Arizona Republican and removing his committee assignments for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden.Gosar, a loyalist of Donald Trump and one of the most far-right members of Congress, sat in the chamber and listened as his colleagues debated the censure against him – the harshest form of punishment the chamber can mete short of expulsion.“This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech before the vote. “This is about what we are willing to accept.”“What is so hard about saying that this is wrong?” she asked.03:04The sanction was approved on a largely party-line vote, 223 to 207, with all Democrats and just two Republicans – Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – voting in favor. Gosar was also stripped of his membership on the House Oversight Committee, where he serves alongside Ocasio-Cortez, and the Natural Resources Committee, which deals with issues critical to his state.Shortly after the vote, Gosar was called to stand in the “well” of the chamber as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi read aloud the resolution. The formal ritual, intended as a public rebuke of the censured member, was over moments later. Republicans encircled Gosar, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.Gosar posted the video earlier this month from his congressional Twitter account, asking, “Any anime fans out there?” The video, which Gosar called a “cartoon” and has since removed, depicts the Arizona congressman as an anime character slashing another figure with the face of Ocasio-Cortez in the neck with a sword. The cartoon version of Gosar then menaces his swords at Biden.The censure comes just 10 months after pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January hunting for lawmakers and threatening to “hang” the vice-president. As supporters of continue to Trump lash out and threaten Republican lawmakers who they deem insufficiently loyal, party leaders have become increasingly tolerant of violent rhetoric within their ranks.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, condemned Republicans’ overwhelming silence as “outrageous”.“These actions demand a response,” she said.House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders have refused to publicly condemn Gosar for sharing the video and urged their caucus to oppose the sanction.McCarthy called the censure vote an “abuse of power” by Democrats, designed to distract from their legislative agenda and other national issues, such as rising inflation and immigration. He also accused Democrats of imposing a double standard that failed to hold members of their own caucus accountable for controversial rhetoric.Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California who introduced the resolution, said partisanship was not the issue.“Inciting violence begets violence,” said Speier, a survivor of the 1978 Jonestown massacre. “Let me be clear, if a Democrat did the same thing, I would introduce the same resolution.”“Threatening and showing the killing of a member of this House. Can’t that appall you?” asked House majority leader Steny Hoyer, staring at the Republican side of the aisle. “Do you have no shame?”Far from being chastened, Gosar was defiant.“No matter how much the left tries to quiet me, I will continue to speak out,” he said. He did not apologize and instead insisted that the video was not intended as a threat.Democrats argued that depictions of violence and violent rhetoric from public officials can incite actual violence, pointing to the insurrection at the US Capitol as an example.“We cannot dismiss representative Gosar’s violent fantasies as a joke, because in this decade, in this American, someone’s going to take him seriously,” said congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat from Pennsylvania.Gosar, a dentist who was first elected in 2010, has been tied to white nationalist and rightwing militia groups. In Arizona, his own siblings have appeared in campaign videos urging voters to remove their brother from office. On 6 January Gosar objected to the certification of Arizona’s electors for Biden. In the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol, the Arizona congressman amplified the “Big Lie” conspiracy that baselessly claims the election was stolen from Trump. He has since defended the rioters and falsely claimed that the insurrection was a leftwing provocation.In its history, the House has censured members on nearly two dozen occasions, only six of which occurred in the last century.The most recent censure was in 2010, after a lengthy congressional investigation found congressman Charlie Rangel, a Democrat of New York, guilty of a series of ethics violations. Pelosi presided over the censure of Rangel, a member of her own caucus, and a majority of his party supported the sanction.Earlier this year, House Democrats took the unprecedented step of ousting Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Trump ally from Georgia, from her committee assignments for spreading dangerous and hateful conspiracy theories.Ocasio-Cortez has tied Gosar’s behavior to a larger pattern of abuse and harassment by Republican members of Congress. In a floor speech last year, Ocasio-Cortez publicly denounced congressman Ted Yoho of Florida for calling her a “fucking bitch” during a heated exchange over rising crime rates and poverty.In the resolution, Democrats excoriate Gosar for targeting Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.“Violence against women in politics is a global phenomenon meant to silence women and discourage them from seeking positions of authority and participating in public life, with women of color disproportionately impacted,” it states.TopicsHouse of RepresentativesAlexandria Ocasio-CortezUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      What happens when a Congressman threatens a colleague with violence? | Robert Reich

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      What happens when a congressman threatens a colleague with violence?Robert ReichThe US is experiencing increasingly virulent politics and violent political threats. Sometimes, it’s elected officials who foment or encourage violence Last week, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar posted on Twitter and Instagram a photoshopped animated cartoon in which he assassinates Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacks President Joe Biden.Gosar says it “symbolizes the battle for the soul of America” when Congress takes up the president’s economic package, which he said includes immigration provisions he opposes.Gosar represents Arizona’s 4th congressional district. Until 2012, a dear friend of mine, Gabrielle Giffords, represented Arizona’s 8th congressional district.I got to know Gabby shortly before she entered politics as a member of the Arizona state house of representatives in 2001. She then became the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona senate and then, in 2006, the third woman in history to be elected to represent Arizona in the US House of Representatives.On 8 January 2011, during a public gathering outside a Safeway grocery store in Casa Adobes, Arizona, Gabby was shot in the head by a man firing a 9mm pistol with a 33-round magazine.He hit 19 people and killed six, among them federal judge John Roll and a nine-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was detained by bystanders until he was taken into police custody. Eventually, after facing more than 50 federal criminal charges, Loughner pleaded guilty to 19 of them to avoid a death sentence.Gabby was evacuated to the University Medical Center of Tucson in critical condition. By the time I was able to see her the following week, she could say a few words. But even now, a decade later – after the most intense and courageous personal effort at rehabilitation I have ever witnessed – she continues to struggle with language and has lost half her vision in both eyes. Gabby resigned from Congress in 2012.Why did Loughner try to assassinate her? No one will ever know for sure. Authorities found in his safe an envelope that bore the handwritten words “Giffords”, “My assassination” and “I planned ahead.” By all accounts, including his own, he was growing increasingly delusional. He had amplified on his social media accounts several extremist rightwing tropes.In March 2010, 10 months before the shooting, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin had posted a map of 20 congressional districts she and John McCain won in 2008 but whose representatives in Congress had voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act. The map marked each district with a set of crosshairs. Palin promoted the map by tweeting “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD.” One of those crosshairs targeted Gabby.Although no direct connection was ever established between Palin’s map and Gabby’s shooting, surely Palin’s violent rhetoric contributed to a climate of political violence in America in which a delusional man would mark Gabby for assassination. Gabby herself had expressed concern about Palin’s map.Just as surely, Palin’s inflammatory post was a step toward increasingly violent political rhetoric on the way to Donald Trump and the insurrection of 6 January.Last Friday a group of House Democrats introduced a resolution to censure Gosar for posting his video. The motion was introduced by Representative Jackie Speier, co-chair of the Democratic women’s caucus, and nine other lawmakers. “For that Member to post such a video on his official Instagram account and use his official congressional resources in the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials goes beyond the pale,” the group said. “As the events of January 6th have shown, such vicious and vulgar messaging can and does foment actual violence.”The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, has so far been silent on Gosar’s video. The group of House Democrats who introduced the resolution condemned McCarthy’s silence, calling it “tacit approval and just as dangerous”.America is experiencing increasingly virulent politics and violent political threats. The New York Times reports that at a conservative rally in western Idaho last month, a young man stepped up to a microphone to ask when he could start killing Democrats. “When do we get to use the guns?” he said, as the audience applauded. “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” The local state representative, a Republican, later called it a “fair” question.According to the Times, violent threats against lawmakers are on track to double this year. Republicans who break party ranks and defy Trump have come to expect death threats – often incited by their own colleagues, who have denounced them as traitors.Unless those at the highest levels of government who foment or encourage violence – or who remain conspicuously silent as others do – are held accountable, no one in political life will be safe.Censure is not enough for Gosar. He should be expelled from the House.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezOpinionViolence against women and girlsRepublicansUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      White House decries Republican over video depicting violence against AOC

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      Alexandria Ocasio-CortezWhite House decries Republican over video depicting violence against AOCPaul Gosar condemned for Twitter video that showed him striking congresswoman with sword and appearing to threaten Joe Biden Martin Pengelly in New York@MartinPengellyTue 9 Nov 2021 15.26 ESTFirst published on Tue 9 Nov 2021 09.20 ESTThe White House on Tuesday condemned the Republican congressman Paul Gosar for tweeting a video which depicted him striking the New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and appearing to threaten Joe Biden.AOC says Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘deeply unwell’ after 2019 video surfacesRead more“There is no place for any type of violence or that type of language in the political system,” the principal deputy White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters at a daily briefing. “It should not be happening, and we should be condemning it.”The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said “threats of violence against members of Congress and the president of the United States must not be tolerated” and called on the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, to “join in condemning this horrific video and call on the ethics committee and law enforcement to investigate”.Twitter attached a hateful conduct warning to Gosar’s tweet, which was also posted to Instagram on Sunday, but kept it up online.“This tweet violated the Twitter rules about hateful conduct,” Twitter’s message said. “However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the tweet to remain accessible.”The roughly 90-second video presents an altered version of a Japanese anime series, interspersed with shots of border patrol officers and migrants at the US border with Mexico.In one section, characters whose faces are replaced with those of Gosar and fellow extremist Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado are seen fighting other characters.Gosar’s character strikes another, made to look like Ocasio-Cortez, in the neck with a sword. The video ends with an apparent threat to Biden.Ocasio-Cortez was in Glasgow on Tuesday, attending the Cop26 climate summit.On Twitter, she wrote: “A creepy member I work with who fundraises for neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me and he’ll face no consequences because [McCarthy] cheers him on with excuses … well, back to work because institutions don’t protect women of color.”Ocasio-Cortez listed other instances of threatening behavior from Republicans in Congress.“Remember when [Ted] Yoho accosted me on the Capitol [steps] and called me a f[uck]ing b[itch]. Remember when Greene ran after me a few months ago screaming and reaching. Remember when she stalked my office the first time with insurrectionists and people locked inside. All at my job and nothing ever happens. Anyways, back to business.”The congresswoman also called Gosar “just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway”.“White supremacy,” she said, “is for extremely fragile people and sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself.”Gosar is an ardent Trump ally who in 2018 was the subject of a campaign ad made by six of his siblings, exhorting voters to ditch him.He is also among lawmakers whose phone or computer records are sought by the House committee investigating the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January, in which Trump supporters sought to overturn the former president’s election defeat.On Monday, Eric Swalwell, a House California Democrat, said: “These bloodthirsty losers are more comfortable with violence than voting. Keep exposing them.”The Yale historian Joanne Freeman, author of The Field of Blood, a well-regarded history of violence in Congress before the civil war, wrote: “Threats of violence lead to actual violence. They clear the ground. They cow opposition. They plant the idea. They normalize it. They encourage it. They maim democracy. And run the risk of killing it.”The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More