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Is the talk of violence regarding the US midterm elections serious or are they just idle threats?

Side note about political violence not directly related to this election...

My sister went to New York a couple weeks ago to celebrate the appointment of a high school friend as a SDNY judge. Huge accomplishment for the daughter of our high school geometry teacher.

She has been instructed to take a different way to work every day for security reasons.
 
Top Democrat Grills Capitol Police About Lawmaker Protection After Pelosi Attack - The New York Times - "Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Administration Committee, raised questions in a lengthy letter to J. Thomas Manger, the Capitol Police chief."
The five-page letter from Ms. Lofgren, whose panel oversees Capitol security, came a day after reports that a review had flagged several lapses in police protection of the Pelosi household. Capitol Police surveillance cameras captured the break-in, but costly minutes went by before any officer reviewed the footage. A security review also found that the San Francisco police stopped posting a car in front of the Pelosi household 24 hours a day, as the agency had after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Mr. Pelosi was badly injured in the assault, suffering a fractured skull. A 42-year-old man, David DePape, has been charged with attempting to kidnap Ms. Pelosi and assaulting a relative of a federal official. Mr. DePape, who had embraced far-right conspiracy theories, told investigators that he wished to break Ms. Pelosi’s kneecaps and see her “wheeled into Congress” as a lesson to other members.

Law enforcement leaders on Capitol Hill said Tuesday they planned to strengthen protections for members of Congress, after the attack highlighted a turbulent threat environment that endangers not only lawmakers, but also their families.
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Elie Mystal on Twitter: "This is the future the Republicans want. It’s the future they’ve literally been calling for on television. This is why they are so excited about the new overlord of Twitter. This, the violence, has always been their endgame. And if they win they will only get worse." / Twitter

Sarah Reese Jones on Twitter: ".@AOC calls out the source of the political violence in America, ..." / Twitter
.@AOC calls out the source of the political violence in America, "There is absolutely no doubt that the data shows that the vast majority of incidents of domestic terror come from white nationalism. And that we are really, truly facing the environment of fascism."

“We have held hearings on this, and there is absolutely no doubt that the data shows that the vast majority of incidents of domestic terror come from white nationalism. And that we are really, truly facing the environment of fascism.”

For the fact challenged who keep saying she's making this stuff up: She mentions they held *hearings* with *data*. That's a big clue that information is available to back up what she's saying.

"DATA: facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis." Good luck!
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With a clip from when she recently appeared on Chris Hayes's show All In on MSNBC.

The numbers?
Domestic terrorism data shows right-wing violence on the rise - Washington Post - 2021 Apr 12
The surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left and causing more deaths, the analysis shows.

The number of all domestic terrorism incidents in the data peaked in 2020.

Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

...
More than a quarter of right-wing incidents and just under half of the deaths in those incidents were caused by people who showed support for white supremacy or claimed to belong to groups espousing that ideology, the analysis shows.

Victims of all incidents in recent years represent a broad cross-section of American society, including Blacks, Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, Asians and other people of color who have been attacked by right-wing extremists wielding vehicles, guns, knives and fists.

Dozens of religious institutions — including mosques, synagogues and Black churches — as well as abortion clinics and government buildings, have been threatened, burned, bombed and hit with gunfire over the past six years.
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So David LePape has a LOT of company. But what about the left?
Left-wing attacks reached 25 in 2020. Those incidents include multiple attempts by extremists to derail trains to hinder oil pipeline construction and at least seven incidents in which police and their facilities were targeted with guns, firebombs and graffiti. The incidents included the burning of a Minneapolis police precinct during protests over the death of George Floyd.
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Compared to 73 right-wing attacks. Also in 2020, there was one left-wing killing and two right-wing killings.
 
AOC Calls Out Republican White Nationalists And Fascists For Political Violence
While also really having to acknowledge a very central fact that reporting from the FBI, in terms of homeland security, Jamie and I sit, and he is the chair and the vice chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. We have held hearings on this, and there is absolutely no doubt that the data shows that the vast majority of incidents of domestic terror come from white nationalism. And that we are really, truly facing the environment of fascism.

And in the United States of America, this type of intimidation at the polls brings us to Jim Crow, it brings us back and brings us back to a very unique form of American apartheid that is not that long passed ago. And we have never fully healed from that.
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Katie Hill on Twitter: "When I was running for and in Congress I had so many threats that we had to hire private security. A big part of my decision to resign in the wake of my scandal was because of the threats to me and my family, and knowing they wouldn’t stop until I left." / Twitter
then
Katie Hill on Twitter: "It shouldn’t require such a risk of harm to yourself and your family in order to serve as a lawmaker in what’s supposed to be a civilized country.
My heart goes out to the Pelosi family and I pray daily for the safety of everyone who remains in this fight." / Twitter


Paul Pelosi attack follows years of GOP demonizing Nancy Pelosi - The Washington Post
In 2010, Republicans launched a “Fire Pelosi” project — complete with a bus tour, a #FIREPELOSI hashtag and images of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) engulfed in Hades-style flames — devoted to retaking the House and demoting Pelosi from her perch as speaker.

Eleven years later, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) joked that if he becomes the next leader of the House, it will be hard not to hit Pelosi with the speaker’s gavel.

And this year, Pelosi — whom Republicans have long demonized as the face of progressive policies and who was a target of rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — emerged as the top member of Congress maligned in political ads, with Republicans spending nearly $40 million on ads that mention Pelosi in the final stretch of the campaign, according to AdImpact, which tracks television and digital ad spending.
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I don't know if any of David DePape's writings are still online. Their hosting companies ought to leave them online but in a read-only state.
In a single day earlier this month, the blog had seven new posts. The titles included: “Balcks Nda jEwS,” “Were the Germans so Stupid?” “Who FINANCED Hitler’s rise to Power” and “Gas chamber doors.”

For many Democrats, the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband represents the all-but-inevitable conclusion of Republicans’ increasingly violent and threatening rhetoric toward their political opponents — a phenomenon that escalated under former president Donald Trump, who prided himself on his inflammatory oratory and who was often reluctant to denounce white nationalists and others spewing hate speech.

“Sadly this attack was inevitable. Political violence is on the rise,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said. “And instead of GOP leaders condemning it, they condone it with silence or, even worse, glorification.”
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After the Friday hammer attack, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tweeted, “Horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi’s home last night.” McCarthy said he contacted the speaker “to check in on Paul and said he’s praying for a full recovery and is thankful they caught the assailant,” according to a statement.

But McConnell and McCarthy declined to respond to Democratic accusations that GOP rhetoric has crossed the line into fomenting violence.

For a wide swath of Republicans, Pelosi is Enemy No. 1 — a target of the collective rage, conspiratorial thinking and overt misogyny that have marked the party’s hard-right turn in recent years.
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David DePape filled blog with delusional thoughts in days before Pelosi attack - The Washington Post
The San Francisco Bay area man arrested in the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband filled a blog a week before the incident with delusional thoughts, including that an invisible fairy attacked an acquaintance and sometimes appeared to him in the form of a bird, according to online writings under his name.

David DePape, 42, also published hundreds of blog posts in recent months sharing memes in support of fringe commentators and far-right personalities. Many of the posts were filled with screeds against Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people.

...
He published a drawing of the Devil kneeling and asking a caricature of a Jewish person to teach him the arts of “lying, deception, cheating and incitement.” Several contain lifelike images of rotting human flesh and blood, including a zombified Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton. Others depict headless bodies against bleak, dystopian landscapes.
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After the Pelosi attack, Republicans have quit pretending they oppose political violence | Salon.com
There are ever so many ways Republicans can admit they were delighted by the attempted assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which resulted in severe injuries to her husband, who had the misfortune of being home when apparent right-wing nut David DePape broke into the couple's San Francisco home. They can pretend to condemn the attack while promoting conspiracy theories denying that it was right-wing political violence, as did Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk. They can make jokes about it in public appearances, the classy path pioneered by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. They can do both at the same time, as Donald Trump Jr. did. They can share vicious memes mocking the victim, as a Facebook page did that is evidently owned by Pennsylania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Or they can deflect blame by casting the villains as the victims, as Tucker Carlson did in a Fox News segment equating criticism of hate speech with censorship.

...
How rapidly the GOP jokes and conspiracy theories began to emerge was especially alarming, as that represents a shift in attitudes toward fascist violence in the past couple of years. Contrast this with the aftermath of the insurrection of Jan. 6, when even the biggest jackasses among elected Republicans, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, took their time before starting to signal explicit approval of the riot. The PR stunt when those two declared that those arrested for the attack were "political prisoners," for example, came a full six months after the assault.
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I like this.
Brynn Tannehill on Twitter: "The credible, close-call attempt to kill or maim Speaker Nancy Pelosi ..." / Twitter
The credible, close-call attempt to kill or maim Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a second time, and the GOP response, signals how close the US is to the end of the road as a Democracy. It also tells us about what comes after the fall.

The GOP has generally treated it as a joke, denied that DePape was conservative, or spread conspiracy theories that it was a gay quarrel during a hookup. There's been a lot of wink and nudge, "Sure it was bad, but whatever gets Nancy out, amiright?" comments like Youngkin's. There has been almost NOTHING done to deter other would be assassins from killing Democratic officials. When people protested outside homes of SCOTUS justices, security was immediately increased. Dead silence now.

The difference is that Dems and Republicans are willing to protect conservative officials, but Republicans aren't willing to protect Dems, because they know that actual violence against officials is driven by the right wing base. There is the implicit assumption by Republican leaders that violence will come for their opponents, and not for them. And at the moment, they're correct.
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Then discussing what happened in Iraq. After Sunni Arabs were shut out of power, they viciously attacked Shiite Arabs, then Shiite ones retaliated attacking Sunni ones, and Baghdad ended up sorting out by religion. Much the same thing happened with the Kurds in the north.
One lesson I took away is that once political murders are normalized, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

...
In the US, the GOP intends to seize power, and never let go, much as Saddam did with the Ba'ath Party. They're not hiding it. I'm not engaging in hyperbole or putting words in people's mouths. This is coming straight from their candidates.

If the GOP does win, they're promising to settle scores. Here we have the former President, and likely the next administration, promising to lock up journalists and have them raped until they give up confidential sources. The repeated violence against Pelosi, and ongoing stochastic terror, is a promise of what is to come. If the GOP seizes power, you can be sure that they will do as little as possible to prevent, stop, deter, or prosecute political killings. The DoJ will become a tool for imprisoning political opponents. It also won't lift a finger to do anything about assassinations of Democrats, journalists, or political enemies or disfavored minorities (like trans people or doctors treating them). They'll claw back control of the City of DC, and prevent prosecutions of violence against Dems there, while blaming the murders on the victims for being soft on crime.

Most Republican leaders are smart enough to know that it isn't really leftists driving the political violence. They'll yell about Antifa and BLM, but they're not stupid (Ok, true believers like MTG, Jordan, and Boebert are), but Cotton and Cruz can do math. The problem with their thinking is that they assume that the status quo will hold: that their opponents will continue to feel like they can vote their way out of the problem, the threat is not perceived as existential, and they will eschew targeted violence.

I've had front row seats when a country tears itself apart. I also learned that an insurgent group only needs maybe 10-15% of the population supporting it for it to be self sustaining. And, like Iraq, it's about religion. 45% of Americans are ready to end democracy to make the US an explicitly Christian nation. People under the age of 40 are much more likely to be secular. This creates a situation in which the unaccountable theocratic government engaging in stochastic terror against political enemies is hated by the largely secular majority of young people who have little economic prospects, no say in government, and no hope of peaceful change.

WTF do you think is going to happen? Because this is pretty much an exact description of the situation in Iran, except there are ~390 million guns just lying around. Republican leaders by and large tend to believe that they can manage whatever response happens to their complete take-over of government, and institution of theocratic rule, or that people will quietly accept it the way they have in Hungary, Russia, Turkey, and Poland.

The semblance of democracy, using elections rigged against the opposition as an anesthetic for the population, pretending "vote harder" might remove the authoritarians from office, or simply presenting it as a fait accompli, has worked elsewhere to prevent unrest. So maybe it's even better than 50-50 bet.

But it's not a sure one: they're creating the necessary conditions. It's worth remembering that in Iraq, once the toothpaste was out, 150k US troops struggled for almost a decade to restore some semblance of order. Thus, by tolerating or encouraging political assassinations, the GOP is raising the risks, and the potential consequences, of their authoritarian drive to end democracy and punish those they see as political enemies.

Take it from someone who spent most of the aughts studying insurgency, counter insurgency, destabilized countries, hybrid governments, and evaluating the risks of civil war: what is happening with Pelosi is playing with fire.
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“We” Don’t Have a Political Violence Problem. Republicans Do. | The New Republic - "The Paul Pelosi attack was no aberration. Only one party counts violent insurrectionists as a constituency it dare not alienate."
“Reasonable” Republicans like New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu say America has a problem with political violence “on both sides of the aisle.” That isn’t true. America has a problem with political violence against Democrats.

The proof lies in what unreasonable Republicans have been saying since Paul Pelosi, 82, got his skull cracked at 2:30 a.m. Friday morning by a hammer-wielding QAnon enthusiast shouting, “Where is Nancy?” Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a photograph of a hammer and a pair of underwear—an early news report, since corrected, said the attacker was stripped to his underwear—captioned, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” Representative Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, posted and then deleted a tweet saying Pelosi’s assailant was a male prostitute whom Pelosi had hired (which of course wasn’t true). Elon Musk, who is not a Republican but appears drawn to the GOP’s more fetid precincts, tweeted along the same lines, later removed the tweet, and still later joked about it rather than apologize. Charlie Kirk suggested the whole story was intended “to smear millions of conservatives.” (For a fuller review of such stomach-turning statements, see Michael Tomasky’s piece, “Paul Pelosi Almost Died, and Most Republicans Don’t Have A Big Problem With That.”)
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Then noting some research that finds that since World War II, the Right is over twice as murderous as the Left, even counting the Sixties-era extreme-Left groups' murders.

UMD-Led Study Shows Disparities in Violence Among Extremist Groups | CCJS l Criminology and Criminal Justice Department l University of Maryland
A comparison of political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the United States and the world | PNAS
You would think Republican politicians would want to distance themselves from the group that poses the greatest domestic terrorist threat. You would be wrong. White supremacy, rebranded “white nationalism,” has been embraced at the party’s highest levels. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented Trump White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller’s support for white nationalism. Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon cited favorably, on multiple occasions, The Camp of the Saints, a notoriously racist 1973 novel in which brown people overthrow Western civilization. President Donald Trump himself famously said in 2017, after a white supremacist named James Alex Fields Jr. killed counterprotester Heather Heyer at a Charlottesville, Virginia, rally organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis, that there were “very fine people on both sides.” In 2020 Trump declined debate moderator Chris Wallace’s invitation to disassociate himself with white supremacists (“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by”).
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Paul Pelosi Almost Died, and Most Republicans Don’t Have a Big Problem With That | The New Republic - "In fact, some of them have even suggested committing violence against his wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
... McCarthy was in Nashville at a fundraising event, and the state’s House Republicans presented him with an oversize gavel. Then he “joked”: “I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It’ll be hard not to hit her with it.” You can hear the audio here, and listen as the crowd laughs.

This is the man the voters of America are likely to make the next speaker of the House. But wait. The man in charge of this year’s House GOP effort, Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, has gone McCarthy one better. Last week, with political emotions at a fever pitch, he posted to Twitter a video of himself firing a weapon at a range, under which he wrote: “Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights with @KellyCooperAZ & General @JackBergman_MI1. 13 days to make history. Let’s #FirePelosi.” Two days later, David DePape broke into Nancy Pelosi’s house, and you know what happened next.

On Face the Nation Sunday, host Margaret Brennan destroyed Emmer. “A tweet. Hashtag Fire Pelosi with a weapon. Wouldn’t a pink slip be more fitting if it’s about firing her? Why a gun?” she asked him. He hemmed and hawed, Second Amendment this, Steve Scalise that. Yes, his GOP colleague Steve Scalise was almost killed by a deranged person who was a Bernie Sanders supporter. But … remind me of that time when Sanders joked about shooting GOP House members. Oh, right. Didn’t happen.
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Then Elon Musk tweeting some right-wing conspiracy theory then soon retracting it.
The reaction of course extends well beyond the vile Musk. In classic totalitarian fashion, figures on the right are interpreting the Pelosi attack as a moment of liberation. Dinesh D’Souza suggested—on Twitter, natch—that the Pelosi attack was a false flag operation, and then, of the discrepancy between the mainstream reporting on the incident (that is to say, the gathering of facts) versus the extremist conspiracy, he wrote: “The Left is going crazy because not only are we not BUYING the wacky, implausible Paul Pelosi story but we are even LAUGHING over how ridiculous it is. What this means is that we are no longer intimidated by their fake pieties. Their control over us has finally been broken.”

...
Though he would obviously deny it, what D’Souza is doing there is telling his followers: This violence is all right. That was also the message from Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who thought it was appropriate to use the attack as a set-up to a punch line about sending Nancy Pelosi back to California. With his formulation—violence is wrong, “but…”—he was telling people there was no need to take this seriously.

Every Republican who went on Fox News over the weekend to talk about DePape’s attack as just another example of crime gone wild in liberal San Francisco was doing the same.
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Also those who said "but Steve Scalise" and "but Brett Kavanaugh" and "but Lee Zeldin", running for NY Governor.
 
Trump Threatens Journalists With Prison Rape for Not Revealing Supreme Court Leak (Video)
“You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper … and you say ‘Who is the leaker? National security,’” Trump explained to audiences during a rally in Robstown, Texas. “And they say ‘We’re not gonna tell you.’ They say ‘That’s OK, you’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes he’s going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker is!'”
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Last year, a GOP Congressman shared a depiction of himself killing me. When the House rose to censure, @GOPLeader defended him.
Yesterday, a man sharing that member’s rhetoric tried to assassinate the Speaker and her spouse.
What has @GOPLeader said? Nothing. This is who he is." / Twitter

Then
Pete D’Abrosca on Twitter: "@AOC @GOPLeader Steve Scalise and others got shot by a supporter of your hero and mentor Bernie Sanders." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "@pdabrosca And that appalling act of violence was swiftly and rightly condemned.
Still waiting on your boy though. 🕰️ Funny, because he gets loud, fast when defending his members who incite violence against women, but real quiet once that violence occurs.
Wonder why. Must be a coincidence" / Twitter
then
Pete D’Abrosca on Twitter: "@AOC It was literally never condemned, you airhead.
And when Rand Paul’s neighbor (also a Bernie supporter) beat the shit out of him, you people turned it into a joke.
Clutch your pearls elsewhere." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "@pdabrosca “Sanders denounced the shooting rampage at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va.,” (link)" / Twitter
then
Pete D’Abrosca on Twitter: "@AOC Not to mention, Paul Pelosi got beaten up by his gay Grindr date, not because of his politics." / Twitter
then
Zek Hans on Twitter: "@pdabrosca @AOC Oh so you're actually just a MAGA chud conspiracy theorist who's not actually interested in what happened? Color me shocked" / Twitter
 
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Reminder: This is who the Republican Party elects + elevates to positions of power. This is how they act in the halls of Congress, and this the example they set for acolytes to follow. These people want media to “both sides” fascism.
Don’t fall for it. ⬇️ (vid link)" / Twitter
Showing MTG at AOC's Congress-office door calling on AOC to come out.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "For full context, one of Greene’s companions in that video was part of the violent mob on January 6th - in case there was any doubt at all about how closely these fascists work with one another.
Do not give them an inch." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Source, w/ additional links in article: (link)" / Twitter
noting
Since-deleted video shows Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's office during 2019 Capitol Hill visit - CNNPolitics
 
I don't have the link handy, but I read the other day that some voters in Arizona are too frightened to vote. That's really sad.
 
southernhybrid said:
I don't have the link handy, but I read the other day that some voters in Arizona are too frightened to vote. That's really sad.
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Too frightened to use the early voting drop boxes. That doesn't mean they won't vote by other means.
 
Republicans Continue to Spread Baseless Claims About Pelosi Attack - The New York Times - Oct. 31, 2022
Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, continues to post jokes about it.

Dinesh D’Souza, the creator of a discredited film about the 2020 election called “2000 Mules,” accused the San Francisco Police Department on Monday of covering up the facts.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, wrote that the “same mainstream media democrat activists” who questioned former President Donald J. Trump’s ties to Russia were now silencing the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk.

The reason: Mr. Musk deleted a post linking to a newspaper that once claimed Hillary Rodham Clinton was dead when she ran for president in 2016.
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I'm reminded of U.S. Senate: "Have You No Sense of Decency?"
The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch's attorneys had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy's career: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness." When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
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Suspect in Pelosi Attack Charged With Assault and Attempted Kidnapping - The New York Times - Oct. 31, 2022 - "Federal prosecutors filed charges on Monday against the man the police said broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and struck her husband with a hammer."
 
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