Imagine police arrested a man found near Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s home, dressed in a MAGA hat, wearing black clothing, carrying a suitcase and backpack with weapons that included a Glock 17 with two magazines and ammunition, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, a screwdriver, a crowbar, zip ties and duct tape.
And the man said he wanted to kill Sotomayor.
We don’t have to imagine. After the attempted murder of Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011, the entire national conversation became about how high profile federal government leaders weren’t safe from rightwing extremists with blame for the tragedy placed directly on the head and rhetoric of former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Blaming Palin was shameless but also not true. It wasn’t even clear the shooter was rightwing and it still isn’t.
But those two lies sure as hell fit the narrative the media wanted.
So this week when a man was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home, who told police he wanted to kill a Supreme Court judge, who also, according to the Washington Post, “wore black clothing and carried a suitcase and backpack with weapons and other supplies, including a Glock 17 with two magazines and ammunition, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, a screwdriver, a crowbar, zip ties and duct tape, along with other gear, according to court documents…”
Why wasn’t this a top national headline EVERYWHERE?
To be fair, no physical harm came to Kavanaugh, unlike Mrs. Giffords who was shot and barely survived. Also, almost every major news outlet I’m aware of ran a story on Kavanaugh’s attempted murder.
But most major news outlets did not make it a top story – or anything remotely close to it.
No mention of the assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the front pages of USA Today or the Chicago Tribune.
The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times hid the news on the bottom of the page in small font.
Shameful. pic.twitter.com/iDNVkwDmpw
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 9, 2022
There was no analysis or pondering by the center-left media as to which pundit or political figure could have inspired the threat against Kavanaugh, as was done to Palin and more recently Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in the wake of the white supremacist shooting tragedy in Buffalo New York.
He was angry about the Court's leaked ruling in Roe and the lack of gun control, and reportedly sought to kill Justice Kavanaugh in response.
It's vital that we know which cable hosts he likes and which magazines he reads so we know who radicalized him and is to blame for this: https://t.co/KvOswu86UR
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 8, 2022
No one – outside of an army of Republicans and right-leaning influencers and pundits – was asking if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had inspired the threat against Kavanaugh by saying he would “pay the price” for possibly helping overturn Roe v. Wade.
I’ve introduced a resolution today that condemns Chuck Schumer’s inflammatory rhetoric.
His rhetoric may have contributed to the assassination attempt of Justice Kavanaugh and could endanger the lives of other Justices and government officials that disagree with him. pic.twitter.com/dllP5NRnjd
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) June 9, 2022
Ben Sasse says Chuck Schumer should retract his "pay the price" remarks after a suspect was charged with plotting to murder Brett Kavanaugh. https://t.co/TOOj7oDndK
— Jim Antle (@jimantle) June 9, 2022
I’m afraid for our Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch & Kavanaugh
Chuck Schumer threatened them.
Someone tried to kill Brett Kavanaugh today.He said they “Will Pay the Price”
I think the FBI should pay him a visit
HE MUST GOPlease RT or USE this hashtag
👉 #ResignChuckSchumer pic.twitter.com/JptR5SdGV5
— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) June 9, 2022
To note, Palin was blamed for supposedly inciting Giffords’ attacker by saying certain Democratic seats were “targeted” through her political PAC and using bullseye graphics. As if “targeting” a district had not been common political speech for Left and Right since before Palin was born.
Perhaps Schumer’s rhetoric, too, has been taken out of context. At least one progressive pundit made a point to say precisely that.
No, Chuck Schumer was not threatening the Court with violence. Republicans are ignoring the clear context of his remarks. https://t.co/Kfp3TLaaju
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) June 8, 2022
Mind you, Chait is the same lefty who once theorized that former President Donald Trump might have been a secret Russian double agent since the 1980s—which is Alex Jones-level cartoon buffoonery.
But Chait was also one of the few – the very few and maybe just him – who called the left out over a decade ago in their attacks on Palin over the Giffords incident.
I could have left that part out about Chait to make this column more ideologically pleasing to many of our right-leaning readers, but at BASEDPolitics we stick to the facts and Chait deserves credit for standing up to the progressive mob all those years ago as a matter of integrity, journalistic or otherwise.
The reason someone trying to murder a conservative Supreme Court Justice did not make a bigger splash this week is because it didn’t fit a Left narrative. In fact, because the suspect appeared to be a leftwing crazy inspired by the posible overturning of Roe, his targeting of Kavanaugh ran counter to the prevailing Democratic orthodoxy that America is full of rightwing terrorists inspired by Trump as evidenced by the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Of which congressional hearings on are being held this week.
Guess which story you can find EVERYWHERE right now and you couldn’t escape even if you wanted to?
If a crazed MAGA guy attempted to murder Sonia Sotomayor outside her home, what do you think the top news story would be? For a month?
— Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) June 9, 2022
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