Days after his address was posted online by a Virginia Tea Party activist, the FBI and local law enforcement officials are investigating a "suspicious incident" at the home of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother.Yeah, good luck getting a Republican to acknowledge this ever happened. Also, this article got it wrong. These are not "activists," these are terrorists.
A line to the propane tank on his brother's gas grill had been "severed," an aide to the Democratic congressman told CNN.
[...]
Politico reported Monday that a Tea Party activist in Lynchburg, angry over Perriello's vote in favor of health care reform legislation, had posted the address of Perriello's brother online and encouraged other activists to "stop by" and weigh in on the bill. The activist had apparently meant to post the congressman's home address but mistakenly published his brother's.
Perriello, who represents Virginia's conservative-leaning 5th congressional district, encompassing central and southern parts of the state. He was narrowly elected to his first term in 2008 and is considered one of the most vulnerable House Democrats in 2010.
On Wednesday, Perriello's office issued the following statement:
“My number one priority right now is ensuring the safety of my brother’s family, and I am grateful to law enforcement for their excellent work. While it is too early to say anything definitive regarding political motivations behind this act, it’s never too early for political leaders to condemn threats of violence, particularly as threats to other Members of Congress and their children escalate. And so I ask every member of House and Senate leadership to state unequivocally tonight that it is never OK to harm or threaten elected officials and their families with anything more than political retribution. Here in America, we settle our political differences at the ballot box.”
Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Ala., former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform. Since then, vandals have struck several offices, including the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita.Vanderboegh has yet to be arrested.
“There’s glass everywhere,” said Lyndsay Stauble, executive director of the Sedgwick County Democratic Party. “A brick took out the whole floor-to-ceiling window and put a gouge in my desk.”
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Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats.
“We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”
Vanderboegh told The Kansas City Star that the action was meant to “get everyone’s attention.”
“What I was trying to get across was that people do not understand how on the edge of civil conflict this country is,” he said.
- Republicans are preventing the government from functioning
There is a little-known rule in the Senate stating that hearings can’t happen after 2:00 p.m. each day without unanimous consent. However, every day, at the start of business, the Senate generally agrees, by unanimous consent, to waive this rule and continue with the necessary business of holding hearings.... Republicans, however, are now refusing to give unanimous consent and are blocking the hearings.
Henry Reid: "Ironically, as they make false claims about transparency regarding health reform, they're shutting down a committee hearing today on transparency in government."
- Former Bush speechwriter David Frum: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."
- Republican Chuck Grassley, promoter of the death panel lie, takes credit for the health care bill
At the start of the process, Grassley was expected to be among those Senators working to craft a bipartisan bill. But it wasn't long before he abandoned that effort, and helped to start the "death panel" meme heard at town halls across the country throughout last summer.
Later on, Grassley joined with the Republicans in condemning the bill's medicare provisions. He jumped through several rhetorical hoops when he tried to explain his position in support Medicare while also attacking the idea of a public option last September.
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In the memo send out to reporters by his staff on on the Senate Finance Commitee, Grassley claims that the bill will ensure that "Congress, the IRS, and the public will now have additional tools and information to ensure that charitable hospitals act charitably."
There's a reason the bill is so good when it comes to hospitals, Grassley's staff writes -- bipartisanship.
"The health care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time," his Finance Committee press staff writes.
I won't end this on a bad note though. The tea partier who mocked the man with Parkinson's has apologized.
"I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can't explain it any other way... He's got every right to do what he did and some may say I did too (you're a piece of shit), but what I did was shameful. I haven't slept since that day... I made a donation (to a local Parkinson's disease group) and that starts the healing process... I wanted this to go away, but it won't and I'm paying the consequences... I've been looking at the web sites. People are hunting for me... That was my first time at any political rally and I'm never going to another one. I will never ever, ever go to another one." (lol).
This sounds like a King of the Hill episode.
If what he says is sincere and not just an excuse to get out of negative backlash, then it's a perfect example of how dangerous mob mentality can be. Propaganda's a hell of a drug.
By the way, the guy's name is Bob. He's got two masters' and a PhD. He was a nuclear engineer.
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