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      Teenager canvassing for Warnock shot in Savannah ahead of Georgia runoff

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      Teenager canvassing for Warnock shot in Savannah ahead of Georgia runoffPolice say no indication shooting politically motivated as teen working for Democrat is treated for non-life threatening injuries A teenager was shot outside a home in Georgia while campaigning for Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democratic senator who faces a runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker on Tuesday, police said.Georgia runoff: full steam ahead for Democrats as they aim to solidify Senate majorityRead moreThe Savannah police department said a 42-year-old man shot at the teenager through a closed door on Thursday, striking the teen in the leg.The 15-year-old victim was taken to Memorial Medical Center for treatment of non-life threatening injuries, police said. A suspect, Jimmy Paiz, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.“At this point, there is no indication the shooting was politically motivated,” Savannah police said in a statement.Warnock and Walker are locked in a tight race that was triggered when Warnock won the first vote on midterms polling day last month but did not pass 50%. Polling now shows Warnock with a slight lead over Walker, a Trump-endorsed former NFL star, ahead of the vote on Tuesday.“I am saddened to learn about this incident. I am praying for the victim and their family and wish them a full recovery,” Warnock told the Savannah Morning News.The shooting took place on Thursday evening, police said.“While at the front door of one of the residences on Hartridge Street,” the statement said, “the suspect fired a shot through the closed door, striking the teen.”A victory for Warnock in the runoff would secure a 51-49 majority for Democrats in the Senate. They currently control an evenly split chamber by virtue of Kamala Harris, the vice-president, holding a tie-breaking vote.Walker’s campaign has been marked by accusations that he has abused girlfriends and paid for abortions, despite his current anti-abortion stance.The former running back, who has never served in office, has also faced claims that he actually lives in Texas, not Georgia. Walker has denied all allegations against him.TopicsGeorgiaUS crimeUS midterm elections 2022US CongressUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Rightwing election robocall fraudsters must spend 500 hours registering voters

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      Rightwing election robocall fraudsters must spend 500 hours registering votersJacob Wohl, 24, and Jack Burkman, 56, targeted Black voters with phony telephone messages before 2020 election Two men convicted of fraud for targeting Black voters with phony robocalls before the 2020 election must spend 500 hours registering voters in low-income neighborhoods of Washington DC, an Ohio judge ruled.The calls told people they could be arrested or forced to receive vaccinations based on information they submitted in votes by mail.Jacob Wohl, 24, of Irvine, California, and Jack Burkman, 56, of Arlington, Virginia – rightwing operatives with a history of targeting Democrats and other public figures – pleaded guilty last month, each to a single felony count of telecommunications fraud.The judge in Cuyahoga county common pleas court, John Sutula, also fined each man $2,500 and placed them on two years’ probation. They were ordered to spend six months in home confinement, beginning at 8pm each day.“I think it’s a despicable thing that you guys have done,” Sutula said, comparing their actions to violence used to suppress Black voters in the south in the 1960s.Wohl and Burkman were indicted in October 2020, accused of arranging for a voice broadcast service to make about 85,000 robocalls to predominantly Black neighborhoods in Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois in the run-up to the 2020 general election.Prosecutors said the pair were responsible for 3,500 calls to residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland.According to James Gutierrez, an assistant Cuyahoga county prosecutor, the robocalls warned voters that police, credit card companies and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would use personal information obtained from mail-in ballots to find individuals with arrest warrants and credit card debt, Cleveland.com reported.Some calls told voters personal information would be used to carry out forced vaccinations.According to a script published by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, one call said: “Hi, this is Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl. Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts?“The CDC is even pushing to use records for mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man, stay safe and beware of vote by mail.”Gutierrez said: “All of that is false … there is not one kernel of truth into what they said in that recording.”Wohl told the court he wanted “to express my absolute regret and shame over all of this”. Burkman, a Swissvale native, said he wanted to “echo” that sentiment.Another prosecutor, Michael O’Malley, called the sentence appropriate, saying the defendants “attempted to disrupt the foundation of our democracy”.Wohl and Burkman have also been sued in federal court in New York and face a $5.1m fine from the Federal Communications Commission. They are appealing criminal charges in Detroit, stemming from a similar bogus robocall scheme targeting Black voters.
      Associated Press contributed reporting
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      Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes found guilty of seditious conspiracy

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      Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes found guilty of seditious conspiracyJury convicts leader of rightwing group which supported Trump’s attempt to overturn 2020 election Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia, has been found guilty of seditious conspiracy, a charge arising from the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.Rhodes and co-defendant Kelly Meggs are the first people in nearly three decades to be found guilty of the rarely used civil war-era charge at trial. The trial was the biggest test yet for the US justice department in its efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the attack that shook the foundations of US democracy.US courts ruling in favor of justice department turns legal tide on TrumpRead moreOn social media, Harry Litman, a former US attorney turned legal analyst, said the guilty verdicts represented “a huge huge victory for the US [justice department] in a challenging and deeply important, even historic, case”.Rhodes is a Yale Law-educated former paratrooper and disbarred attorney. In an eight-week trial, he and four associates were accused of fomenting a plot to use force to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.It was the most significant trial arising from the Capitol riot of 6 January 2021, which has been linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement officers. A US district judge, Amit Mehta, presided. The 12-member jury deliberated for three days.Rhodes’ four co-defendants were Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell.Meggs was convicted of seditious conspiracy. Harrelson, Caldwell and Watkins were acquitted.During the trial, Watkins admitted impeding police officers, and apologized. All five defendants were convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding, with mixed verdicts on a handful of other charges. Rhodes was acquitted of two other conspiracy charges.Rhodes intends to appeal, defense attorney James Lee Bright told reporters. Another Rhodes lawyer, Ed Tarpley, described the verdict as a “mixed bag”, adding, “This is not a total victory for the government in any way, shape or form.”“We feel like we presented a case that showed through evidence and testimony that Mr Rhodes did not commit the crime of seditious conspiracy,” Tarpley said.Rhodes, who wears an eye patch after accidentally shooting himself in the face, was one of the most prominent defendants of around 900 charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack.He founded the Oath Keepers, whose members include current and retired military personnel, law enforcement officers and first responders, in 2009. Members have showed up, often heavily armed, at protests and political events including demonstrations following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.Prosecutors said Rhodes and his co-defendants planned to use force to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win.Rhodes did not go inside the Capitol but was accused of leading the plot. Through recordings and encrypted messages, jurors heard how he rallied followers to fight to keep Trump in office, warned of a “bloody” civil war and expressed regret that the Oath Keepers did not bring rifles on 6 January.Meggs, Watkins and Harrelson entered the Capitol wearing tactical gear. The defendants were accused of creating a “quick reaction force” positioned at a Virginia hotel and equipped with firearms that could be quickly transported to Washington.Fifty witnesses testified. Rhodes and two others testified in their own defense. They denied plotting an attack or seeking to stop Congress from certifying results. Rhodes insisted that his followers who went inside went rogue.Prosecutors sought to paint Rhodes as a liar, showing him his own inflammatory text messages, videos, photos and recordings. These included Rhodes saying he could have hanged the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, from a lamppost.Watkins, a transgender woman who fled the US army, and Caldwell, a disabled navy veteran, were the others who chose to testify.Watkins admitted “criminal liability” for impeding officers inside the Capitol but denied any plan to storm the building, instead describing being “swept up” in the moment, just as enthusiastic shoppers behave when they rush into stores to purchase discounted holiday gifts.Caldwell, who like Rhodes did not enter the Capitol, never formally joined the Oath Keepers. He tried to downplay inflammatory texts he sent in connection with the attack, saying some of the lines were adapted from or inspired by movies such as The Princess Bride or cartoons such as Bugs Bunny.Four other Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy are due to go to trial in December. Members of another rightwing group, the Proud Boys, including its former chairman Enrique Tarrio, also are due for trial on seditious conspiracy charges in December.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpUS crimeThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      US is failing to address ‘persistent and lethal threat’ of domestic terrorism, report finds

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      US is failing to address ‘persistent and lethal threat’ of domestic terrorism, report findsFederal government has continued to focus ‘disproportionately’ on international terrorist threats despite spate of racist shootings The FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are failing to properly address the threat of domestic terrorism, predominantly from white supremacist and anti-government extremists, according to a Senate committee report released on Monday.The Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee spent three years investigating domestic terrorism and the federal response.Biden vows to combat ‘venom and violence’ of white supremacy Read moreIt found that the FBI and the DHS have “failed to systematically track and report data on domestic terrorism” and have not allocated sufficient resources to countering the threat.The report comes after a spate of racist shootings in 2022. On Monday, a white man who shot 10 Black people to death in a Buffalo grocery store in May pleaded guilty to murder and hate-crime charges.Both the FBI and the DHS have identified domestic terrorism, in particular white supremacist violence, as the “most persistent and lethal terrorist threat” to the US, the committee said.But the federal government has continued to focus “disproportionately” on international terrorist threats, it found.“Despite this acknowledgement and multiple analyses, plans, and national strategies across multiple administrations, this investigation found that the federal government has continued to allocate resources disproportionately aligned to international terrorist threats over domestic terrorist threats,” the report said.The report added that the federal government “still fails to comprehensively track and report data on domestic terrorism despite a requirement from Congress to do so”.According to the Anti-Defamation League there have been 333 “right-wing extremist-related killings” in the last 10 years, with 73% of those at the hands of white supremacists.Black Americans have increasingly found themselves the target of hate crimes. Between 2019 and 2020, hate crimes against Black Americans rose by 46%, the New York Times reported. Earlier this year, 57 historically Black colleges and houses of worship were targeted by bomb threats.The Senate committee report cites a 2021 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which found there were 110 domestic terrorist plots and attacks in 2020, compared with 65 such cases in 2019 and 70 in 2017 – the previous high.The report found that the FBI and DHS have “different definitions for ‘domestic terrorism’, which could lead to the two agencies categorizing the same event as different types of terrorism”.It said that in 2019 the FBI changed its reporting procedures to combine all forms of racially motivated extremism, including the pre-existing category of “white supremacist violence”, into one category called “racially motivated violent extremists”.“This change obscures the full scope of white supremacist terrorist attacks, and it has prevented the federal government from accurately measuring domestic terrorism threats,” the report said.TopicsUS newsUS politicsRaceUS crimeFBInewsReuse this content More

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      Crime coverage on Fox News halved once US midterms were over

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      Crime coverage on Fox News halved once US midterms were overJust a week after elections, number of weekly segments focused on crime slashed in half on Rupert Murdoch’s flagship network In the weeks leading up to the US midterm elections, the message from Fox News was clear: violent crime is surging, cities are dangerous hellscapes and Democrats are responsible.With the vote over, however, the rightwing news channel appeared to decide things weren’t that bad after all, and decreased its coverage of violent crime by 50% compared with the pre-election average.Murdoch v Trump: Rupert’s papers kick Donald, but Fox won’t play ballRead moreMedia Matters for America, a media watchdog, found that each week from Labor Day until the Friday before the Tuesday 8 November vote, the network averaged 141 segments on crime across weekdays. The blanket crime coverage matched the Republican party’s efforts to depict violent crime as out of control, and portray Democrats as responsible.In the week of the midterms, however, once voting was over, Fox News aired just 71 segments on violent crime, Media Matters reported.“I think this shows pretty clearly that the amount of Fox coverage of violent crime doesn’t really have anything to do with the level of violent crime in America – it has to do with the political benefits,” said Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters.“It crescendoed right before election day, and then once the election was over, so was America’s crime crisis no longer the subject of maximum concern that it had been in the previous weeks.”Media Matters noted that Fox News crime coverage had increased somewhat in recent days after the shooting at the University of Virginia and the student killings in Idaho, but said “the coverage was notably less focused on painting Democratic cities as crime-infested”.Fox News declined to comment.Gertz said Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ most-watched host, had a big part to play in the coverage – and in how Republicans across the country used crime as an issue. In a monologue in August, Carlson advised Republican politicians to focus their campaigns on “law and order”, which he said would result in a “red wave” in the midterms.Republicans did just that, spending millions on ads which highlighted instances of violent crime and portrayed Democrats, like John Fetterman, running for US Senate in Pennsylvania, as responsible. The Washington Post reported that Republicans spent nearly $50m on ads focused on crime between 5 September and 25 October, far outspending Democrats on the issue.The network’s focus on a singular issue in the lead-up to an election is nothing new, Gertz said. He said ahead of the 2014 midterm elections the Ebola outbreak became a repeated issue on Fox News, with the network blaming Barack Obama for the spread of the virus.In 2016 Hillary Clinton’s emails became the hot topic, while in 2018 Fox News picked up on a so-called “migrant caravan”, using it to bolster Donald Trump’s midterm election sell that the country needed to elect more Republicans to enact tougher immigration laws.“It’s a play that they’ve run over and over again in elections over the past decade,” Gertz said.“Fox does this every time they come up with some sort of message that they want to push, and they try to get Republicans to adopt it, and they try to get the mainstream press to adopt it as well,” he added.“And so the question becomes: to what extent is the mainstream press going to take the bait and turn it into a multiplier effect – where they are repeating Fox’s message and the debate in the final days of the elections is turning on whatever Fox wanted to talk about?”It seems this time neither the mainstream media nor voters took the bait.Carlson’s “red wave” failed to materialize in the midterm vote, as Republican candidates largely underperformed expectations.Fetterman, the target of repeated attacks by Fox News and numerous crime ads from his opponent, Mehmet Oz, won his race by almost 5%, and while having been predicted to make significant gains in Congress, Republicans only narrowly took control of the House, and Democrats retained the Senate.TopicsFox NewsUS crimeUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Delaware man sentenced for joining US Capitol riots while on Tinder date

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      Delaware man sentenced for joining US Capitol riots while on Tinder dateAfter news of attack was reported on TV at his date’s house, man took Uber to Capitol and climbed through broken window to enter A Delaware man was sentenced to jail time for joining the January 6 Capitol attacks after seeing the violence unfold on a Tinder date’s television.Jeffrey Schaefer was sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine on Friday after prosecutors argued that he participated in the Capitol attacks after watching the rioting happen on TV while at his date’s house.Oath Keepers called for ‘violent overthrow’ of US government, trial hearsRead moreAccording to court filings, Schaefer was initially at the house of a woman he had met on Tinder on 6 January 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia, about 20 minutes outside of Washington DC.Schaefer then reportedly saw the attack on the Capitol on television and called an Uber to take him there so he could participate.When Schaefer arrived at the Capitol, prosecutors say that he climbed a short wall and gained access to the Capitol building through a broken window.Schaefer stayed in the Capitol building for about 28 minutes, chanting with other rioters and taking several photos and videos before exiting.“THIS IS UNREAL,” Schaefer wrote in one Facebook post that included a picture of rioters outside the Capitol.Prosecutors pieced together Schaefer’s time spent in the Capitol based on surveillance footage and social media posts he made leading up to the January 6 riots and while inside the building.During an interview with the FBI in June 2022, Schaefer admitted that he was interested in the rioting before going to see his Tinder date on 6 January.Schaefer was arrested on 13 January 2022. On 2 August 2022, Schaefer pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, with three additional charges against him dropped as part of a plea deal.During his defense argument, Schaefer’s lawyer, Joshua Insley, criticized Donald Trump and said Schaefer was manipulated by lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, reported KSL-TV, a local news affiliate.“While Mr Schaefer accepts responsibility for his actions, he was guided and urged every step of the way by no less of an authority than the president of the United States and a majority of Republican senators and congressman that continued to repeat the ‘big lie’ that the election had been stolen by the Democrats,” Insley argued.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS crimeDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The attack on Paul Pelosi should be a moment of national reckoning | Jill Filipovic

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      The attack on Paul Pelosi should be a moment of national reckoning Jill FilipovicAll political violence is a problem, but in terms of sheer numbers, rightwing extremism is a much more significant problem than leftwing radicalism Much of American life has gotten coarser, uglier and crueler in the years since Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. Even with Trump out of office, his legacy persists, and it erodes American life every day.On Friday, in a grisly act of political violence, a man broke into the home of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, one of the US right’s most vilified political figures, and attacked her husband with a hammer, fracturing his skull and leaving him with serious injuries. The attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, was reportedly carrying zip ties and duct tape and yelling: “Where’s Nancy?”Paul Pelosi is lucky he wasn’t killed – a hammer to the skull can certainly do the job, especially when the victim is an elderly man. And while I imagine that Nancy Pelosi is feeling enormous grief and guilt over the fact that her husband was nearly murdered in an attack that seemed aimed at her, she’s also lucky she wasn’t home at the time of the assault.Such an extreme act should shock the conscience of the nation. Instead, it has shown just how immune to human decency and empathy the Trumpist right has become. Trump’s son Donald Jr tweeted an image of a pair of men’s underwear and a hammer with the caption “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready”.His father has thus far remained silent, as have many Republican elected officials. Conservatives in the media, meanwhile, are working overtime to deny that the right holds any responsibility here, chalking this up to a random act of violence and arguing that sometimes leftists are violent, too.That’s not totally wrong: a mentally disturbed man was arrested outside supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house with a gun this past summer, and another shot at a bunch of Republican congressmen at baseball practice in 2017, nearly killing Representative Steve Scalise.But there are a few major differences, not least among them the fact that rightwing political violence is much more common than leftwing political violence, and that rightwing violence is much more likely to be fatal than leftwing violence. In the US, rightwing extremists aren’t just more dangerous than leftwing ones, but are more dangerous than Islamic radicals and those inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaida. Since 1994, a majority of terrorist plots within the US were hatched by rightwing radicals.All political violence is a problem. But in terms of sheer numbers, rightwing violence is a much more significant problem than leftwing violence.That may be, in part, because of the right wing’s broad permission structure when it comes to unchecked misogyny, threatening and menacing political opponents, and refusing to forcefully condemn violent acts. When Scalise was shot and Kavanaugh was threatened, prominent Democrats didn’t sit in silence. Bernie Sanders, who was reportedly the favored candidate of the man who shot Scalise, immediately came out after the shooting to say, “I am sickened by this despicable act,” and emphasized that “real change can only come about through nonviolent action.” When the man menacing Kavanaugh was arrested, Joe Biden condemned the man’s actions in no uncertain terms, and supported expanded security measures for supreme court justices.And prominent liberals with national platforms and connections to Democratic administrations didn’t suggest dressing up as a bloody Steve Scalise or a dead Brett Kavanaugh on Halloween. The only prominent liberal to make such a tasteless joke – which had nothing to do with an actual assassination attempt – was the famously vulgar comedian Kathy Griffin, who posted a gory photo of herself holding the fake severed head of Donald Trump; for that, she lost most of her professional work and was booted from her television gigs, investigated by the Secret Service and, according to her, threatened with a charge of conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States.By contrast, threatening and menacing Democrats has become a staple not just of conservative big mouths on YouTube and talk radio, but of Republicans seeking office. Trump, notoriously, used his rallies to encourage supporters to chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. Republican representative Paul Gosar tweeted a bizarre cartoon video of him killing the Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and threatening President Biden; he refused to apologize for it, and his actions were not broadly condemned on the right.The Republican representative from Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that Pelosi has committed treason, a crime “punishable by death”. The Minnesota Republican representative Tom Emmer tweeted a video of himself shooting a gun, along with the words “Exercising my Second Amendment rights” and the hashtag #FirePelosi. Blake Masters, a Republican who is running for a Senate seat in Arizona, has published campaign ads in which he is holding guns (in one of the ads, he specifies: “It wasn’t designed for hunting – this is designed to kill people”) and has said that when it comes to what he believes is a war between left and right, “You can recite an eloquent poem about pacifism right before they line you up against the wall and shoot you.”Republican Eric Greitens ran for Senate with an ad featuring him armed and breaking down a door, saying: “Get a Rino-hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.” (Rino stands for “Republican in name only”, slang for moderate members of the GOP.)There is also the fact of rightwing violence against women, which seems less and less like a political liability. Republicans do not have a total lock on misogynist violence, but the number of GOP candidates accused of abuse and assault is truly stunning – and so too is the party’s general shrug in response. This seems to be another outcome of the presidency of a man who bragged on video about sexually assaulting women: abusing women and girls is simply not a disqualifier for those on the Republican ticket.And finally, there is the rightwing conspiracy-mongering that predictably draws in those who are untethered to reality, and the related rhetoric that makes fixing the invented problem a kind of life-and-death battle of good versus evil. The anti-abortion movement truly pioneered this strategy, claiming abortion is murder and likening abortion clinics to Hitler’s extermination factories during the Holocaust.The outcome of telling people that millions of babies were being literally murdered in this clinic down the street was a predictable one: clinics attacked, women menaced and harassed, doctors and other workers murdered. And instead of losing, the anti-abortion terrorists won: the Republican party agreed with their political aims and Republican presidents appointed anti-abortion supreme court justices, and abortion is no longer a protected constitutional right.The US right has gotten even more unhinged in recent years, with many Trump supporters embracing the QAnon conspiracy theories, believing Democrats are trafficking children through pizza restaurants and in Wayfair furniture, and even mainstream Republicans are joining in on Trump’s “Stop the Steal” refrain that the 2020 election was stolen (it wasn’t).When you promulgate totally baseless, crazy ideas and convince your followers that the mainstream media are lying to them and that political opponents aren’t just ideologically different but are literally a threat to your life, and then you insist on living in a country where people can be armed to the teeth, it’s tough to act surprised when your followers are crazy and violent.There is a pattern here that you just don’t see on the left: the fetishization of deadly weapons; violence against women that goes unpunished by the party and its supporters; the kind of troubling conspiracy theories that are catnip for crazies and that demand extreme action in response; and the fantasizing about murdering one’s political opponents, all tossed into the cauldron together.It’s not a coincidence, given the hyper-masculine misogyny element to all of this, that much of the violent rightwing fantasizing is directed at women, Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chief among them. This isn’t the first time Nancy Pelosi was targeted by violent rightwing men. During the January 6 insurrection in 2021, she was a target of the rioters who broke into the Capitol building and wandered the halls calling her name in the kind of singsong voices usually reserved for horror movies: “Nancy, oh Nancy! Where are you, Nancy?”Republicans have largely refused to reckon with what happened on January 6. And even now, they are treating the Pelosi attack like a sideshow instead of the real warning it is. Just hours after Pelosi’s husband took a hammer to the head and as he was undergoing surgery to repair his cracked skull, Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, told an audience of rally-goers: “There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send [Pelosi] back to be with him in California.”The attack on Paul Pelosi should be a moment of reckoning. For the past several years, it has felt like the wheels on this bus are getting progressively looser, and the risks of conflict, both political and interpersonal, rising higher. Depending on how Republicans react to this moment, it could simply be a footnote – a bad and tragic act, but one without lasting national effects – or one of those historical inflection points we look back on as indicative of the dangerous turn the nation was about to make.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk
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      Paul Pelosi attack suspect charged with attempted kidnapping and assault

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      Paul Pelosi attack suspect charged with attempted kidnapping and assaultSuspect who faces state and federal charges told police he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and ‘break her kneecaps’ The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi, the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told police he wanted to hold the congresswoman hostage and “break her kneecaps”, authorities in California said on Monday afternoon.David DePape, 42, confronted a sleeping Paul Pelosi in the couple’s San Francisco townhouse bedroom shortly before 2.30am last Friday morning, according to a federal affidavit filed in court on Monday.Federal prosecutors have filed two charges against DePape, days after police say he broke into the Pelosis’ home and struck the Democratic House of Representatives leader’s 82-year-old husband in the head with a hammer.Paul Pelosi was left seriously injured in the attack and was in surgery for several hours on Friday, as his wife hurried back from Washington DC to the hospital where he was taken. He was operated on for a fractured skull as well as suffering serious wounding to his arms and hands.DePape is charged federally with influencing, impeding or retaliating against a federal official by threatening or injuring a family member. He also faces one count of attempted kidnapping of a US official on account of the performance of official duties. The charges carry sentences of up to 30 years if there is a conviction.DePape also faces multiple charges at the state level – including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, elder abuse and threatening a public official. Those charges were filed separately by the San Francisco district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, on Monday.Jenkins called the attack “politically motivated” and said the state charges are punishable by a prison sentence of 13 years to life.Jenkins rejected numerous conspiracy theories that swirled into the public domain over the weekend and on Monday, despite bipartisan condemnation of the attack from national political leaders on Friday, and an outcry over the rise in political violence and threats to lawmakers, their staff and families in a bitterly divided society.Jenkins confirmed that the assailant was targeting Nancy Pelosi when he broke into the couple’s home. She wasn’t there and DePape, after calling out “Where’s Nancy?”, confronted Paul Pelosi with a hammer.The justice department’s complaint contained some harrowing details, including more information about Paul Pelosi and DePape wrestling over a hammer when police showed up, which officers shouted at them to drop.“DePape pulled the hammer from Pelosi’s hand and swung the hammer, striking Pelosi in the head. Officers immediately went inside and were able to restrain DePape,” the complaint stated.Police found zip ties in the Pelosi residence that they said belonged to DePape, as well as retrieving from the suspect’s backpack “a roll of tape, white rope, one hammer, one pair of rubber and cloth gloves, and a journal”.The justice department reported that Paul Pelosi said he had never seen DePape before. “DePape came into Pelosi’s bedroom and stated he wanted to talk to Nancy.“When Pelosi told him that Nancy was not there, DePape stated that he would sit and wait. Pelosi stated that his wife would not be home for several days and then DePape reiterated that he would wait. Pelosi was able to go into the bathroom which is when he was able to call 911.”San Francisco police further reported, according to the justice department, that DePape said he was going to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and talk to her.“If Nancy were to tell DePape the ‘truth’, he would let her go, and if she ‘lied’, he was going to break ‘her kneecaps’,” the police recounted, adding that: “‘DePape was certain that Nancy would not have told the “truth’. In the course of the interview, DePape articulated he viewed Nancy as the ‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic party. DePape also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other members of Congress there were consequences to actions,” according to the complaint.When Paul Pelosi managed to dial 911, officials have highlighted how the quick actions of the dispatcher may have saved his life.With the line left open by Pelosi, the dispatcher could hear the conversation between him and his assailant. Two minutes later, the police arrived.“I truly believe, based on what I know, that it was lifesaving,” Jenkins told ABC News.She had told reporters on Sunday that there was no evidence of any connection between the assailant and his victim, despite far-fetched theories being peddled by the right, amplified by the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, which drew criticism from liberals.The FBI on Monday bolstered Jenkins’s countering of conspiratorial claims.Congressman Eric Swalwell decried a rising tide of violent threats against lawmakers and said his chief of staff spends many hours each week dealing with it.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsNancy PelosiCaliforniaUS crimeSan FranciscoUS politicsnewsReuse this content More