Husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attacked in his home.

[Coughdrop addict]

People who call for dictatorship are naive. When they imagine dictatorship, they put themselves in the role of the dictator and assume he will do what they want. They don't realize that they will be slaves just like everyone else, at best. The dictator is far more likely to put them against the wall or in a camp once the glorious people's revolution of the master race succeeds and he no longer needs them.

[Roma_Victrix]

Of course it does, making themselves look like victims shortly before elections they are projected to lose.
Especially given how fairy-tale-like is the "official" story with a geriatric man quickly recovering from a hammer (!) attack.

What? Paul Pelosi is still in the hospital for the injuries from the attack that fractured his skull. Just do basic fact-checking before hinting at a silly conspiracy theory, which is ironic considering how the guy who attacked Mr. Pelosi was a lunatic nutcase consumed by conspiracy theories.

In either case Sumskilz is right, this David DePape guy appears to be a psycho who was on the left for a long time but then switched to being a right-winger, probably because there are more welcoming voices on the right for conspiracy theories these days generally speaking. I do miss the days when most conspiracy theories were about Area 51 and aliens, but 9/11 changed a lot of that. Most of the 9/11 conspiracy theories were lefty ones, though. It really took Trump and Q-Anon for the coalescing of most conspiracy theorists to gravitate towards the right wing. The COVID-19 Pandemic pretty much ensured all the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists would solidly join the rightwing movement.

Also, DePape - a Canadian national - appears to have been in the country illegally when he attacked Pelosi. When I read that headline at first I thought he might be from Italy or something. Italian-on-Italian Guido violence, which I know about since I'm part Sicilian and I've played countless hours of Super Mario Brothers.

@Alhoon: the BLM protests caused a lot of property damage in 2020, but aside from a police station being burned down without any casualties, none of the BLM protesters targeted government officials, certainly not the highest in the land like in the January 6th riots, or with this most recent attack. That's a fairly substantive difference. The last lefty assassination attempt I can think of in recent memory was that attack on GOP Rep. Steve Scalise, but before that, was the only other recent one the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s? It's pretty rare. Meanwhile, stochastic terrorism on the right is a serious problem with a big body count that includes everything from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller ("the Baby Killer" as Bill O'Reilly often called him on Fox News), oddly enough while he was attending a local church service. This is not exactly the appropriate thread to do both-sides-ism, unless it's in the context of the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi being a general crazy paranoid schizo who has evolved from having leftwing to rightwing political views over time (whichever side conveniently fed validation for conspiracy theories, and these days Q-Anon is king).

[alhoon]

Also, DePape - a Canadian national - appears to have been in the country illegally

So, it was illegal immigration catching up on the Pelosis! (I am kidding!)
Now, can someone tell me why on earth a foreigner would be so angry with a different country's leadership that would take a hammer and go chase them?

@Alhoon: the BLM protests caused a lot of property damage in 2020, but aside from a police station being burned down without any casualties, none of the BLM protesters targeted government officials, certainly not the highest in the land like in the January 6th riots, or with this most recent attack. That's a fairly substantive difference. The last lefty assassination attempt I can think of in recent memory was that attack on GOP Rep. Steve Scalise, but before that, was the only other recent one the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s? It's pretty rare. Meanwhile, stochastic terrorism on the right is a serious problem with a big body count that includes everything from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller ("the Baby Killer" as Bill O'Reilly often called him on Fox News), oddly enough while he was attending a local church service. This is not exactly the appropriate thread to do both-sides-ism, unless it's in the context of the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi being a general crazy paranoid schizo who has evolved from having leftwing to rightwing political views over time (whichever side conveniently fed validation for conspiracy theories, and these days Q-Anon is king).

The most recent memory I can think of is the attempt on Kavanaugh and Rand Paul.
Reagan in the 80s was... not politically motivated at all, IIRC. Some guy wanting to impress an actress, I think.

I would also respectfully disagree that this is not an appropriate thread to talk political violence. Even if it is discussions of "Let's be clear: Rightwing Terrorism is worse" (which is something we agree on - as far as USA goes. In other places it's not so).

[Heathen Hammer]

Now, can someone tell me why on earth a foreigner would be so angry with a different country's leadership that would take a hammer and go chase them?

Given how the outside of perp's house looks like a DNC rally, I assume right-wing terrorism is just a journalistic cope or something made up for damage control. Especially since the perp was in his underwear, I'm under impression that it was some kind of personal quarrel or some sort of solicitation gone wrong.

[chilon]

The most recent memory I can think of is the attempt on Kavanaugh and Rand Paul.
Reagan in the 80s was... not politically motivated at all, IIRC. Some guy wanting to impress an actress, I think.

I would also respectfully disagree that this is not an appropriate thread to talk political violence. Even if it is discussions of "Let's be clear: Rightwing Terrorism is worse" (which is something we agree on - as far as USA goes. In other places it's not so).

Rand Paul getting beat up had nothing to do with politics either. It was a neighborly dispute turned ugly.


And for HH, it's really not hard to break into the house of these people. The Speaker doesn't get secret service protection and they live on an easily accessible street. Even if they lived in a gated community with security it's still fairly easy to break in with Google Maps (see the Bling Ring). Very, very few people actually live somewhere with 24/7 bodyguards where it would really be difficult for the average person to break in if they were motivated.

[Heathen Hammer]

And for HH, it's really not hard to break into the house of these people. The Speaker doesn't get secret service protection and they live on an easily accessible street. Even if they lived in a gated community with security it's still fairly easy to break in with Google Maps (see the Bling Ring). Very, very few people actually live somewhere with 24/7 bodyguards where it would really be difficult for the average person to break in if they were motivated.

Actually in the link I posted on the first page, the video shows that house was under constant guard.
So it appears that perp was let/invited in, while Pelosi himself referred to attacker as an old friend when 911 call was actually made (the recording is played in the video).

[Sir Adrian]

[Laser101]

In either case Sumskilz is right, this David DePape guy appears to be a psycho who was on the left for a long time but then switched to being a right-winger, probably because there are more welcoming voices on the right for conspiracy theories these days generally speaking. I do miss the days when most conspiracy theories were about Area 51 and aliens, but 9/11 changed a lot of that. Most of the 9/11 conspiracy theories were lefty ones, though. It really took Trump and Q-Anon for the coalescing of most conspiracy theorists to gravitate towards the right wing. The COVID-19 Pandemic pretty much ensured all the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists would solidly join the rightwing movement.

As I understand it, it's surprisingly common for radical political views to 'flip' like this. Perhaps a lot of radicals are committed to being 'anti-establishment' (whatever that means) rather than to any specific ideology or belief.

@Alhoon: the BLM protests caused a lot of property damage in 2020, but aside from a police station being burned down without any casualties, none of the BLM protesters targeted government officials, certainly not the highest in the land like in the January 6th riots, or with this most recent attack. That's a fairly substantive difference. The last lefty assassination attempt I can think of in recent memory was that attack on GOP Rep. Steve Scalise, but before that, was the only other recent one the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s? It's pretty rare. Meanwhile, stochastic terrorism on the right is a serious problem with a big body count that includes everything from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller ("the Baby Killer" as Bill O'Reilly often called him on Fox News), oddly enough while he was attending a local church service. This is not exactly the appropriate thread to do both-sides-ism, unless it's in the context of the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi being a general crazy paranoid schizo who has evolved from having leftwing to rightwing political views over time (whichever side conveniently fed validation for conspiracy theories, and these days Q-Anon is king).

I suppose the anarchist or separatist bombings that were 'in vogue' in the mid-to-late 20th century aren't as much of a thing anymore, at least in the West. Again, it may be that Islamist and far-right groups have simply taken over the 'market' with the decline of left-aligned groups.

[Heathen Hammer]

The claims that DePape was right-wing mainly came from unreliable corporate media, which is known for making false or unverified claims that would favor pro-establishment narratives.
His house still flies leftist insignia, and "radicals" rarely fly the other team's colors, especially where they live.
Then we have Pelosi himself saying that he DePape is an old friend, DePape enters Pelosi house without any objection into Pelosi's well-guarded house, it does appear as some sort of routine quarrel that resulted with physical altercation and Smullet-style allegation could have been a very poorly thought through form of damage control.

[Modern Day Roman]

These corporate news networks thrive off partisan politics. They market towards a specific political spectrum, run ads and sponsorships and voila, you have people acting like its the end of the world if XYZ person is elected. This indirectly leads to political agitation because if you feed exactly one kind of opinion towards liberals/conservatives, this creates a stronger bias that goes unchecked. People need to learn that sometimes they are wrong. Not like I'd trust government news as well (mostly).

I'm a radical centrist, so I'm virtually blameless.