Tag: halloween
'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.

The Salem Witch Trials Were Atrocious, Not Amusing

The Salem Witch Trials Were Atrocious, Not Amusing

Tourism in Salem is wild with 100,000 visitors descending on this historic Massachusetts town on any given day. Traffic is gridlocked, and there are virtually no parking spaces left. The mayor told visitors to go to satellite parking lots and take shuttle buses downtown. Then the satellite lots got maxed out.

Salem is famous for the 1692 witch trials, which has made "Halloween in Salem" a bucket list item. That's good for the Halloween-themed businesses, which have taken over downtown. Not so good for locals wanting to pick up groceries or do early voting at the City Hall Annex. And certainly not good for an understanding of the tragedy behind the merrymaking.

The Halloween festivities no longer limited to a day or a week, the "pointy hats" start showing up in early September. Joining them are characters dressed as goths, ghost hunters in top hats and tarot card readers.

The party scene is so good for business that Salem has branded itself as "Witch City." (The city's police car doors feature silhouettes of witches on broomsticks.)

Some local objections go beyond the inconvenience and kitsch overtaking this beautiful colonial-era city. They include the history being celebrated. It may be three centuries in the past, but the witch trials ended in a mass execution of innocents.

"I don't want to be an old curmudgeon," a Salem resident named Patrick told me, "but it seems like we have this horrific crime committed against the women on one hand and the Disney version of witchcraft on the other. The women weren't wearing those hats, I'm sure."

The Salem witch hunts ended in 24 executions, largely on charges of devil worship. Almost all involved women who died by hanging. But a male victim, an 81-year-old farmer named Giles Corey, was pressed to death after refusing to plead either way.

Nowadays, the town runs a month-long celebration called Haunted Happenings. The participants include costumed celebrants cruising the main pedestrian street. A few dress up as Hollywood witch characters offering to pose for photos, they hope, for money. Buses blaring music ply the streets.

There are Salemites who would like a rebranding around the city's fabulous Peabody Essex Museum and stunning colonial architecture. Also, the waterfront, which once served as the nation's biggest port, its tall ships venturing to and from all four corners.

But you can't escape Halloween, even at historically significant locations. The House of the Seven Gables is the real thing, a fine structure built in 1668. But as the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne's gothic tale of the same name, it feeds into the Halloween theme.

Architectural dignity is obviously hard to maintain. Mobs gather at the 18th-century Ropes Mansion because it was featured in the 1993 movie "Hocus Pocus." (Ghost City Tours will take you there.) And enthusiastic crowds pile into the pirate museum, basically a converted old storefront.

One shudders to think what the Puritans who held the witch trials would have thought of all this frivolity built around bar hopping and puddles of fake blood. The Puritans, after all, banned celebrations of Christmas "as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others" — an order of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1659.

All right. People are having fun, Halloween tourism fills Salem's town coffers, and the residents can use the back roads. Far be it for we starchy moderns to deny access to the Witch Dungeon Museum.

But let us recognize that all those executed "witches" were real people caught up in a mass hysteria. They were, in essence, murdered. The witch trials were really not funny.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.

Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws


Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.