As public anger over hot-button issues like health care reaches a boiling point, threats against lawmakers continue to rise, prompting some to cancel public appearances and others to take extra measures for security.
Threats increased nearly 300 percent over the first three months of 2010 when compared to 2009 and most come from those opposed to the health care bill that pass Congress last month.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi receives the most threats but both Democrats and Republicans have been targeted by those who issue obscenity-laced threats that range from violent retaliation to death.
“The incidents range from very vulgar to serious threats, including death threats,” says Tarrance W. Gainer, Sergeant at Arms of the Senate. Gainer, quoted by The Washington Post, is a former chief of the Capitol Police and said all threats are taken seriously and investigated.
“The ability to carry them out is another question and part of an investigation to determine what, if any, appropriate steps to take,” Gainer said.
In San Francisco, federal agents arrested a man for making threatening phone calls to Pelosi’s home. Another man in Yakima, Washington, faces charges for leaving threatening voice mails at the office of Sen. Patty Murray.
A Philadelphia man is under arrest issuing a threat against Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor and his family in a YouTube video.
Some of the threats have been traced back to Tea Party activists.
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16 thoughts on “Threats continue to escalate against members of Congress”
Ahhh…. the smell of fear on a Spring morn.
It smells like…victory.
They’re on the verge shouting get the ropes, tar, feathers and many sharp edged rails to [ take of ] seemingly necessary business. …extract from post with brackets
Amended to read: [ take care of ]
My apologies for the error. The import of the sentence warranted correction.
Carl Nemo **==
What stuns me about these Congressional hypocrites is that they’ve been conducting themselves in seemingly a “deaf” fashion relative to the will of the American people. This is not unique to the Democrats, but Republicans too.
Both parties have a less than 50% rating with the electorate and they seemingly conduct their business to please the interests of corporations in these times. Their actions are not subtle either, but an in our face message that we simply don’t count regardless of the issues from the ongoing engineered conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to health care legislation.
Now people are getting restless and angry. They’re tired of conducting business in a polite, “Roberts Rules of Order” fashion when interfacing with their elected crimpols in high places. They’re on the verge shouting get the ropes, tar, feathers and many sharp edged rails to take of seemingly necessary business.
It’s these unresponsive, arrogant pols that have sown the wind and now must reap the mighty whirlwind for their duplicity.
Carl Nemo **==
Thousands of miles away we ask our blood and life source to guard greed.
What ?
Walls, Tattered Halls, with agenda flying as a freedom bird, our young men and women are being used by fools that someday will try to reenact the Bible to it’s conclusion…….. ?
Pop said , breath when yer so mad you can’t think, then we did our chores as we walked in the danger zone of the free man.
It is not much, liberty, but “everything” in it’s pursuit !
The one danger is, there is no danger applied to open and honest law. Here is the haunting prospect of war for profit, religion, or selfish human pride, not only innocents suffer, but , “innocence” dies again, and again etc…..
What does an 18 yr old soldier carry on his back ?
Me and You.
May we write a novel ?
A true story of American home style abiding by the warm fires fueled with inarguable resolve ?
From neithercorp.us:
Woody:
If you’re going to put a link in a comment, please do it properly. Having an entire paragraph underlined as a link is distracting to the reader and can screw up the comments that follow yours. I fixed it this time but in the future I will simply delete comments that creates problems with bank html.
Oops. sorry, I thought I closed the tag. I will do it differently in the future.
Speaking of links, I noticed the ‘target=_blank’ attribute doesn’t work on this new comment system. Any way to get that working?
Love is a two way street,
but greed don’t need no stinkin roads !
But we are told people are coming around to embrace health care insurance mandates. Doesn’t this fly in the face of those polls?
You mean USA Today and Gallup stacked the poll to give a predetermined outcome?
Where is the truth?
You can’t have it both ways.
Strong partisan debate is one thing but the vigilante thug-like behavior cropping up over passed legislation is inexcusable and damaging to our country. The Tea Party movement is gathering increasing numbers of nutty followers who are easily pushed into the worst of behavior by the weaknesses and provocations of others. The Republican Party would do well to repudiate all these violent actions that are continuing to occur.
From a purely partisan viewpoint, you’re correct in saying the Republicans should repudiate violence and threats thereof, along with racist undertones.
From an independent viewpoint, I see the Republican infiltration and near takeover of the tea parties as the reason for their radicalization.
When the tea parties were but a few people picketing a Fed or IRS building no one paid them much mind, in the media or either party. As they grew, the Republicans saw a chance to co-opt the movement, particularly because the libertarian-leaning, small government stance of the tea parties bear a resemblance to classical Republican positions, as well as current Republican rhetoric.
And we have the obvious provocateurs.
The major problem with this is that we all know the Republicans no longer stand for these principles, and I highly doubt that they’ll be changing their tune on most issues. They’ll campaign on repeal this fall, but if given the chance, they won’t lift a finger to stop Obamacare.
The main concern I have with this unholy alliance is the growing influence from people I call ‘national security conservatives.’ You can claim to be as conservative as you like concerning domestic and economic policy (Limbaugh, Beck, et al), but these are meaningless when we spend more than a trillion dollars per year on military aggression.
The tea parties would do well to get back to their roots in being anti-tax, anti-Fed, and anti-war – if it’s not too late.
Partisan politics – the ties that blind.
The root cause of all this is the fact that the ” people ” are threatened by the politicians inaction that allows the continued Wars, the meltdown of our way of life, and the crap and hate spewed daily over the airwaves.
I don’t condone the violence or the thought of it as the way out, but I have nary an ounce of pity for the bejeweled , bauble peddling, wannabe so called royalty that passes for statesman in D.C..
If they want safety then it’s as easy to attain as simply following their oath of office to the letter.
Nary a nano-ounce (yeah, so I made it up).
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