Tag: pelosi
Donald Trump

You'll Love Trump's Perfect Excuse For Mixing Up Pelosi And Haley

Donald Trump held a rally on Wednesday in North Charleston, South Carolina, in the run-up to the state’s Republican primary. Trump decided to address one of his many recent forgetful moments, when he confused his primary opponent Nikki Haley with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, saying Haley was in charge of security on January 6, 2021.

When I interpose, because I'm not a Nikki fan and I'm not a Pelosi fan. And when I purposely interpose names, they said, ‘He didn't know Pelosi from Nikki, from Tricky Nikki, Tricky Dickie. He didn't know.’ I interpose and they make a big deal out of it. I said no, no. I think they both stink, they have something in common, they both stink.

Let me interpose myself here, between Trump and the actual definition of the word “interpose.” What would the betting line be that Trump vaguely remembered the word “interchange” and the word “transpose,” but then was too afraid to mutter “trans,” and thought he created a portmanteau?

Nothing says “speculation about my cognitive abilities and forgetfulness in recent months is totally not bothering me” like blathering to an audience while accidentally transposing words to prove it doesn’t bother you.

Trump wants everyone to forget that he personally picked former South Carolina Gov. Haley to be his United Nations ambassador. That’s who he mistakenly named and blamed as Speaker of the House for the Capitol insurrection.

Other people and things Trump has recently interposed:

  • Joe Biden and Barack Obama
  • Ex-wife Marla Maples and E. Jean Carroll (who accused him of rape)
  • World War II and World War III
  • North Korea and China
  • Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
  • Jeb Bush and George W. Bush

Trump also threw water on any hope that he might choose Haley as a running mate, saying, “When I make a statement like that about Nikki, that means she will never be running for vice president.”

Here’s a clip of Donald “interposing” the two women, whose only similarity is a willingness to challenge his narcissism.

Republicans demanded border security, worked on a compromise deal with Democrats, and now want to blow the whole thing up. Biden is promising to remind Americans every day that the Republican Party is at fault for the lack of solutions to the problems they claim are most important.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Justice Department Filing Includes Details Of Pelosi Attacker's Motives And Plan

Justice Department Filing Includes Details Of Pelosi Attacker's Motives And Plan

The Justice Department formally announced charges against David DePape, the man who broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home on Oct. 28 looking for Pelosi and, not finding her, assaulted her husband, Paul.

DePape has been charged with “one count of assault of an immediate family member of a United States official with the intent to retaliate against the official on account of the performance of official duties,” and “one count of attempted kidnapping of a United States official on account of the performance of official duties.” The maximum sentences for the two charges are 30 years and 20 years, respectively.

In the affidavit supporting the charges, Special Agent Stephanie Minor offers details about the break-in and attack. According to the affidavit:

“When officers removed DEPAPE from Pelosi’s residence, police body worn camera footage showed a glass door that appeared to be laminated glass, broken near the door handle. San Francisco Police Department recovered zip ties in Pelosi’s bedroom and in the hallway near the front door of the Pelosi residence. In addition, law enforcement searched DEPAPE’s backpack at the Pelosi residence, and they found, among other things, a roll of tape, white rope, one hammer, one pair of rubber and cloth gloves, and a journal.”

Paul Pelosi told a local police officer he had never seen DePape before.

“Pelosi was asleep when DEPAPE came into Pelosi’s bedroom and stated he wanted to talk to ‘Nancy.’ When Pelosi told him that Nancy was not there, DEPAPE stated that he would sit and wait. Pelosi stated that his wife would not be home for several days and then DEPAPE reiterated that he would wait.”

Depape, according to the affidavit, told officers “that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DEPAPE the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps.’ DEPAPE was certain that Nancy would not have told the ‘truth.’” And this is what he’s telling law enforcement he had planned.

He admitted to having broken into the house through the glass door using his hammer. None of this will stop Republicans from promoting conspiracy theories about how DePape ended up in the Pelosi house.

DePape will face prosecution and is virtually certain to be convicted of something if he’s found competent to stand trial. But the people who fueled his rage by spreading the conspiracy theories he bought into are unlikely to face any kind of justice, and they will remain dangerous.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

'Too Soon?' Don Jr. Mocks Brutal Attack With 'Paul Pelosi Costume' Meme

'Too Soon?' Don Jr. Mocks Brutal Attack With 'Paul Pelosi Costume' Meme

Donald Trump Jr. mocked the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul on social media by sharing a "Halloween costume" intended to represent the hammer-wielding intruder.

Trump Jr. shared an image Sunday night showing a hammer lying on top of a pair of Hanes underwear with the comment: "Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready."

"The internet remains undefeated … Also if you switch out the hammer for a red feather boa you could be Hunter Biden in an instant," Trump Jr. wrote.

He also posted a screenshot of the image on his Instagram, racking 88,000 likes. The underwear in his post appears to reflect a debunked rumor that the intruder was in his underwear at the time of the attack.

Paul Pelosi was "violently assaulted" with a hammer in his California home on October 28, according to San Francisco Police Chief William Scott. He suffered a fractured skull and injuries to his right arm and hands and underwent surgery on Friday.

The intruder planned to keep him tied up until the speaker returned home, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

The suspect, who was identified as David Wayne DePape, had a list of people he wanted to target, according to law enforcement sources that spoke with CBS News.

DePape's social media revealed memes and conspiracy theories he posted about Holocaust denial, COVID vaccines, pedophiles in the government and claims that Democratic officials run child sex rings.

The speaker posted a statement on Twitter saying that her family is "heartbroken and traumatized" by the "life threatening attack" on her husband.

But right-wing personalities on Twitter mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi — with some even spreading falsehoods and amplifying misinformation.

Larry Elder, a conservative radio host, reacted to the assault by ridiculing Pelosi for his prior charge of driving under the influence.

"First, he's busted for DUI, and then gets attacked in his home. Hammered twice in six months," he wrote, adding, "Too soon?"

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)., called the media a "source of misinformation" and continued to promote the falsehood that the intruder was Paul Pelosi's friend.

"The same mainstream media democrat activists that sold conspiracy theories for years about President Trump and Russia are now blaming @elonmusk for 'internet misinformation' about Paul Pelosi's friend attacking him with a hammer," Greene tweeted.

Others went as far as suggesting the attack was fake. Dinesh D'Souza, whose widely-debunked recent film "2000 Mules" pushed Trumpist election conspiracy theories, continued to spread misinformation on Twitter.

"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," D'Souza wrote.

Far-right Arizona Republican lawmaker Wendy Rogers retweeted a post mocking the attack as "fake" and displaying a bloody hammer.


The skepticism regarding the incident seems to have grown after Evan Sernoffsky, a reporter at the Fox-affiliated local news outlet KTVU, tweeted that the attacker was in his underwear at the time of his arrest. Sernoffsky deleted the tweet and said that sources told him this was untrue.

Some people have even floated the baseless conspiracy theory that Paul Pelosi and DePape were lovers.

The Telegram channel for Bannon's "War Room" show shared a story from "The Republic Brief" that repeated some of "the same uncorroborated details about the encounter, including that the suspect was found in his underwear," the Washington Post reported.

D'souza also amplified the theory on his Twitter.

"Were Paul Pelosi and his attacker BOTH in their underwear? BOTH holding hammers? And the attacker didn't strike until AFTER police were on the scene? As a movie-maker, I gotta say this script must be rejected. Nothing about the public account so far makes any sense," he wrote.

Some conservatives have tried to spin the apparently politically motivated attack by tying it to crime in San Francisco. "Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver on Sunday called out right-wing claims linking the attack to bail reform after Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), complained on Fox News about letting "dangerous criminals" roam free and commit violence. McCaul suggested that the intruder who attacked Paul Pelosi was out on bail.

"Now, he's wrong about a few things there. Again, the suspect was not out on bail. Also, no one gets bailed out of prison—that's where convicted people go," Oliver said.

People have continued to spread falsehoods about the hammer attack, including new Twitter owner Elon Musk, who amplified a baseless conspiracy theory from a site suggesting that Paul Pelosi was drunk and in a fight with a male prostitute. "There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye," Musk wrote before deleting the tweet hours later.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Republicans Hit Pelosi After Attempted Murder That Left Husband's Skull Fractured

Republicans Hit Pelosi After Attempted Murder That Left Husband's Skull Fractured

Of course.


For Republicans on the campaign trail, the early-morning brutal attack on Paul Pelosi did not mean a break in attacking the real target of that attack, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And the appalling taste, the wink-wink at an assassination attempt on the second in line for the presidency, was not remotely restricted to Republicans generally understood as extremists.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who was widely portrayed in the media as a calm, moderate kind of guy during his campaign last year, said, at a campaign stop for House candidate Yesli Vega, “There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California.”

Are we supposed to let the fact that he opened with “There’s no room for violence” obscure that Youngkin used an attempted attack on the speaker that hospitalized her husband as the hook for a ha-ha-we’re-going-to-beat-her line? Not a line that makes any sense, mind you, since there is no Republican wave imaginable that would remove Pelosi from Congress altogether.

As a side note, Yesli Vega, the candidate Youngkin was campaigning for, in May suggested that pregnancy might be less common in cases of rape, as part of an argument against rape exceptions in abortion bans. Like I say, Youngkin’s a real moderate kind of guy.

Youngkin wasn’t alone. Speaking at an Ohio Republican GOTV event, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel rallied the crowd with the question, “Are you ready to fire Nancy Pelosi?” This was, again, a nonsensical call to arms since McDaniel said it while standing in front of a banner for Senate nominee J.D. Vance and at an event in a House district already represented by a Republican. It’s not like she was in some swing district currently held by a Democrat, seeking to win control of the House. It was just a gratuitous shot at a woman whose husband is hospitalized after a violent assault that was aimed at her.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer also targeted Pelosi specifically on Friday afternoon, tweeting a link to an article about the upcoming elections with the text, “In 11 days we are going to make history and #FirePelosi.” It is at least Emmer’s job to with the House for Republicans, but … he couldn’t take a single day off of specifically making it personal against Pelosi? Not one single day? In the name of basic decency?

But that’s the thing. Republicans have spent years building up Nancy Pelosi as the evil witch-lady whose name alone can rile up their base. Using her name is like a reflex for them, something they just can’t do without. And basic decency? That long ago left the Republican Party.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.