The man who was convicted of assaulting then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022 was re-sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, with no change in the original sentence after the case was reopened so he could speak during his sentencing hearing, local news reported.

David DePape was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison on May 17 for forcibly entering Pelosi’s home in San Francisco early on Oct. 28, 2022 and clubbing her husband Paul in the head with a hammer in a politically motivated attack.

During the original sentencing, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley failed to give DePape a chance to address the court, a “clear error” under the federal judicial rules, the judge wrote in a court filing the next day.

She also scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to resolve the issue, allowing DePape to speak on his own behalf. He did, apologizing for the attack, before Corley sentenced him again to 30 years in prison, reported ABC7, a local ABC affiliate in San Francisco.

In November, a jury found DePape guilty of attempting to kidnap a federal officer and assaulting an immediate family member of a federal officer. Prosecutors said the 44-year-old was driven by the far-right conspiracy theories known as QAnon.

Paul Pelosi, 82, suffered skull fractures and other injuries that have continued to affect him, according to a letter filed in court. In addition to dizziness and a metal plate that remains in his head, Pelosi said he has struggled with balance and has permanent nerve damage in his left hand.

Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives at the time of the attack, was in Washington when it occurred.

DePape still faces separate state charges stemming from the Pelosi break-in and attack, including attempted murder. Those charges carry a potential sentence of 13 years to life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

The man who broke into former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and clubbed her husband with a hammer should serve 40 years in prison for his conviction on federal offenses that amount to a crime of terrorism, prosecutors urged on Friday.

In a sentencing memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, prosecutors said David Wayne DePape has shown no remorse, deserves no leniency and should receive the statutory maximum penalties for each of the two counts on which he was convicted last year.

“At a time when extremism has led to attacks on public and elected officials, this case presents a moment to speak to others harboring ideologically motivated violent dreams and plans,” the memorandum said.

Sentencing is set for May 17.

In November, a federal court jury found DePape guilty of attempting to kidnap Pelosi, then speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi, both on account of her official duties as a member of Congress.

Prosecutors recommended that DePape receive the maximum jail term for each count – 20 years for attempted kidnapping and 30 years for assault – with 20 years of the second count consecutive to the first, for a total of 40 years behind bars.

Although he was not convicted of committing terrorism, DePape’s offenses — a week before the 2022 congressional midterm elections — met the federal definition of terrorism as a crime “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion,” prosecutors argued.

Prosecutors counted that circumstance as a sentencing “enhancement.”

DePape forced his way into Pelosi’s San Francisco home in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, confronted her husband and clubbed him over the head with a hammer before police who were called to the scene managed to subdue the intruder.

The House speaker, second in the constitutional line of succession to the presidency, was away in Washington at the time. Paul Pelosi, then 82, was hospitalized for several days with skull fractures and injuries to his hands and right arm.

Evidence at trial showed that DePape, a Canadian citizen who had been in the United States illegally for 14 years at the time of the attack, was driven by far right-wing conspiracy theories, embracing the fictions spread by the extremist QAnon movement.

The sentencing memorandum cited DePape’s own trial testimony, in which he acknowledged his intention was to kidnap Nancy Pelosi, interrogate her and break her kneecaps if she were found to be lying.

The jury also heard the recording of an interview DePape gave to a television station in 2023, saying he was “sorry I didn’t get more of them. … I should have come better prepared.”

In addition to asserting DePape’s lack of remorse, prosecutors said the toughest possible sentence was warranted because of the gravity of the crime and to deter similar acts by others.

DePape still faces separate state charges stemming from the Pelosi break-in and attack, including attempted murder, that carry a potential sentence of 13 years to life in prison.

He has pleaded not guilty.

A man who clubbed U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s husband over the head with a hammer, shouting, “Where is Nancy?”, faced charges of attempted murder and other felonies a day after the violent break-in at the couple’s San Francisco home.

Police initially declined to offer a motive for Friday’s attack on Paul Pelosi, 82, who according to his wife’s office underwent surgery for a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, though doctors expect a full recovery.

But the assault stoked fears about political violence less than two weeks ahead of midterm elections on Nov. 8 that will decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, coming amid the most vitriolic and polarized U.S. political climate in decades.

The 82-year-old House speaker herself, a Democrat who is second in the constitutional line of succession to the U.S. presidency, was in Washington with her protective detail at the time of the assault.

She flew to San Francisco to be with her husband.

Police identified the man arrested at the scene by officers who intervened in the attack as David Depape, 42. He, too, was taken to a San Francisco hospital.

Online sheriff’s records showed he was booked into custody on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, battery, burglary, and several other felonies. Formal charges were expected to be filed by the San Francisco district attorney’s office.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott told a Friday night news briefing that police detectives, assisted by FBI agents, had yet to determine what precipitated the home invasion but said, “We know this was not a random act.”

A statement from Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill, said Pelosi’s husband had been attacked “by an assailant who acted with force, and threatened his life while demanding to see the Speaker.”

The intruder shouted, “Where is Nancy?” before attacking, according to a person briefed on the incident but who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

From Hemp to Hate

In the search for a motive, attention turned to the suspect’s apparent internet profile.

In recent posts on several websites, an internet user named “daviddepape” expressed support for former President Donald Trump and embraced the cult-like conspiracy theory QAnon. The posts included references to “satanic pedophilia,” anti-Semitic tropes and criticism of women, transgender people and censorship by tech companies.

Older messages promoted quartz crystals and hemp bracelets. Reuters could not confirm that the posts were created by the man arrested on Friday.

The San Francisco Chronicle posted a photo of a man it identified as Depape dancing at the 2013 wedding of two nudist activists in San Francisco, though he was clothed. Depape, then a hemp jewelry maker who lived with the couple in Berkeley, was the best man, the newspaper reported.

Scott said the intruder forced his way into the Pelosis’ three-story red brick townhouse through a rear door. Aerial photos showed shattered glass at the back of the house in the city’s affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood.

The chief said police were dispatched for an “A-priority wellbeing check” at about 2:30 a.m. on the basis of a somewhat cryptic emergency-911 call from the residence. Other news outlets reported the call was placed by Paul Pelosi.

Scott credited the 911 operator with using her experience and intuition to “figure out that there was more to this incident than what she was being told” by the caller, so she dispatched the call at a higher priority than normal. Scott called her decision “life-saving.”

According to Scott, police arriving at the scene caught a glimpse through the front door of Depape and Pelosi struggling over a hammer. As the officers yelled at both men to drop the tool, Depape yanked the hammer away and was seen striking Pelosi at least once, the chief said.

The officers then tackled, disarmed and arrested Depape and took both men to hospital, Scott said.

Season of Extremism

The incident came a day after New York City police warned that extremists could target politicians, political events and polling sites ahead of the midterm elections.

The U.S. Capitol Police said they investigated 9,625 threats against lawmakers from both parties in 2021, nearly a threefold increase from 2017.

As a Democratic leader in Washington and a longtime representative from one of America’s most liberal cities, Nancy Pelosi is a frequent target of Republican criticism.

Her office was ransacked during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Republican then-President Trump, some of whom hunted for her during the assault.

In January 2021, her home was vandalized with graffiti saying “Cancel rent” and “We want everything” painted on the house and a pig’s head left in front of the garage, media reported.

The home of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was also vandalized around that time.

McConnell said he was “horrified and disgusted” by Friday’s violence, and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said he reached out to Nancy Pelosi.

But one of the most forceful reactions came from U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack, who condemned the rise of incendiary rhetoric vilifying political opponents and promoting falsehoods about voter fraud.

“When you convince people that politicians are rigging elections, drink babies blood, etc, you will get violence. This must be rejected,” he wrote on Twitter.

Speaking at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, President Joe Biden told the crowd, “Enough is enough.”

“Every person of good conscience needs to clearly and unambiguously stand up against violence in our politics, regardless of what your politics are,” Biden said.

Updated at 4:55 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022

Depending on where you go and who you ask, Holy Scripture can be interpreted and put into practice in myriad ways, all well-intentioned and in keeping with the spirit in which it was written. But there is one unequivocal and universal truth contained in Holy Scripture for the church: Christians are to be about “loving God, self and neighbor.”

Tragically, late last month, proclaimed church leaders and religious zealots descended upon San Diego County, and twisted this scriptural truth for specific political purposes. In speaking to thousands of vulnerable attendees, this group spewed dangerous falsehood after falsehood about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. 

In so doing, leaders abused the very name and message of Jesus Christ, and continued to do immense harm to neighbor after neighbor after neighbor.

The event at a church in San Marcos was the latest stop on disgraced, retired General Michael Flynn’s “ReAwaken America Tour,” a nationwide series of megachurch engagements featuring a who’s who of far-right religious extremists, Trump aides, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other reckless figures. At every stop along the way, the Christian nationalist tour has left in its wake a trail of dangerous disinformation that leads to bigotry, hate, and, at its most extreme, violence.

A staple of these tour stops, Pastor Greg Locke has made a name for himself by peddling QAnon conspiracy theories from his pulpit, and even kicking people out of his church if they wore a mask.  More recently, Locke has taken up the latest cause célèbre among the radical far-right — book burning.

While conservatives took up arms against civil rights books about Ruby Bridges and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Locke held a bonfire outside his church in March and called on worshippers to cast their copies of Harry Potter, Twilight, and other children’s books into the fire.

The reality is, nothing could be further from the loving teachings of Jesus Christ than the anti-democracy spectacle that Flynn and Locke brought to San Diego County. While it’s easy to laugh and dismiss much of the blatant nonsense that was spoken from the stage, doing so perpetuates the pernicious strand of deadly disinformation that the tour helps to spread and further foment. 

Disregarding these religious extremists’ gatherings and injurious rants allows their particular voice to be the loudest (and often only) voice: inflicting continued harm upon all of our neighbors across the political and faith spectrum. 

As a pastor, it’s my job to speak out, call for an end to the harm being done to our neighbors, and provide the truth.

Top Trump confidantes like pillow salesman Mike Lindell and political operative Roger Stone are also frequent guests at stops along the ReAwaken Tour. Like Flynn, these men are among the worst offenders of spreading disinformation about the 2020 election, lying to millions of Americans about the outcome of the election and insisting without evidence that the vote was stolen. 

We know what the implications of that are. Many of the ReAwaken America speakers are the very same people who inspired the deadly Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. Several of the attackers have even directly named tour leader Flynn in their testimony, saying he was to blame for their participation in the violent insurrection.

Flynn, Stone, Lindell, and even Eric Trump brought that same “Stop the Steal” message to San Diego County with more Christian nationalist rhetoric than ever. They worked to whip supporters into a frenzy, convincing them that holding onto political power is a holy war worth any cost, potentially fomenting more political violence.

Make no mistake: the ReAwaken America Tour, like Christian nationalism, does not speak for Christianity. On stage were not persons of God but a collection of charlatans and cranks whose only goal is to raise money and seize political power at any cost.

Churches across California should stand united against this injustice, not host its violent, immoral message. Churches across California should proclaim loudly and clearly that we are to be about “loving God, self and neighbor.”

Rev. Melinda Teter Dodge is pastor of community and connection at Los Altos United Methodist Church, part of the Being the Church Movement in Long Beach.

Roughly nine out of 10 members of the San Diego Police Officers Association who responded to a recent survey oppose COVID-19 vaccination mandates, the head of the SDPOA said Friday.

In addition, about 45% of them say they would rather be fired from the San Diego Police Department than comply with such requirements. About two-thirds of respondents said they would consider resigning from their jobs if the city follows through with a plan to require coronavirus inoculations beginning in November.

Those numbers, however, are based on responses from just 733 officers, or about 38% of all personnel represented by the union.

The questionnaire, though, drew hundreds more respondents than usual for one of the union’s surveys. That indicates that the topic is one of intense interest to the city’s law enforcement corps, SDPOA President Jack Schaeffer noted.

“So it’s obviously something that’s on their minds and that they have strong opinions about,” he told City News Service.

Schaeffer described the findings as “concerning for someone in my position,” since the SDPD long has struggled to recruit enough officers and substantially reduce employee attrition.

In negotiations with the city, the police union has taken a stand against mandatory COVID vaccinations. The SDPOA’s leaders “want options,” such as regular coronavirus testing, in lieu of obligatory inoculation, Schaeffer said.

A spokesman for the San Diego Police Department declined to comment on the results of the survey, which were released to the union’s membership at large on Wednesday.

Last month, SDPD officials disclosed that they were conducting an internal investigation into a rambling and frequently cryptic social media posting interspersed with biblical and QAnon references in which an officer spoke of a growing resistance movement among his colleagues.

He described a “coalition of cops who will stand up for our God-given freedoms and are willing to risk it all” by refusing any orders to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or to wear protective masks.

“From this point forward we will never take the vaccine, be tested or wear another face diaper around our heads without our free will to make that choice,” the officer stated on an SDPOA forum.

The author of the post called the issue “the hill to die on, because I promise you if `WE THE PEOPLE’ lose this fight there won’t be another hill to fight on.”

The lawman, who identified himself as a 16-year member of the SDPD, opined that like-minded members of the department “have to be willing to get fired from this job to secure (their) rights and stand by (their) convictions.”

“Our coalition is growing by the day and if the department and city are willing to fire 100-500 cops then so be it,” the officer wrote.

His name has not been publicly released by the SDPD.

The post ended with an acronym, WWG1WGA, which is generally understood as standing for “Where We Go One, We Go All.” The slogan often is used in communications by adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

In a letter to Mayor Todd Gloria, NAACP San Diego President Francine Maxwell said she and her membership were “gravely concerned” about the officer’s statements.

– City News Service

Smallpox is a particularly horrible, particularly lethal disease. It nearly wiped out the native populations in the Americas, and in the eighteenth century, killed about 400,000 Europeans every year, including five monarchs. Anywhere from 30-60% of those infected died from the disease. And those who survived were often either blinded or scarred for life.

So when Edward Jenner in 1796 discovered a means of preventing people from getting smallpox, you would think the discovery would have been greeted with universal huzzahs. But that didn’t happen, and the anti-vaccination movements at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries bear a remarkable resemblance to the anti-COVID vaccination movement today, although with a few twists. As Mark Twain once said, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

In England, the 1853 Vaccination Act made smallpox vaccination compulsory for all infants, and in 1867, compulsory vaccination was extended to age 14. Again, given what smallpox could do, you’d think that everyone would clamor to get the vaccine. But instead, the government faced a tsunami of resistance.

“We are to be leeched, bled, blistered, burned, douched, frozen, pilled, potioned, lotioned, salivated . . . by Act of Parliament,” thundered one anti-vax proponent in 1854. The motivation was not so much anti-science, but a powerful sense that compulsory vaccination contradicted the basic principles underlying the British polity: “no other law in England […] so fundamentally violates the principles of individual liberty” as the Vaccination Act, wrote another anti-vax proponent in 1902. In 1898, a parliamentarian proclaimed that the state had no right to tell anybody “what they should do with their bodies or with their children.” Mandatory vaccination, they argued, amounted to a form of bodily “tyranny.”

A similar set of protests occurred in the United States at roughly the same time. The historian Robert D. Johnston observed that by the end of the 19th century, “opposition to vaccination achieved the status of a genuine and effective, if intermittent, mass movement.” As in England, the resistance was based on compulsory vaccination violating fundamental freedoms. Forcing the vaccine on everyone, wrote Lora Little, the leader of the anti-vax movement in the US, “is an outrage and a gross interference in land of freedom.”

A 1920 pamphlet stated bluntly that compulsory vaccination “violates the principles of democracy and is antagonistic to American ideals.” It was tantamount to decreeing that everyone attend the same church. Another declared that the state had no right to make decisions like that for their children: “If I want to take a chance with my child, why is it any of the health authorities’ business?” And there was a new, particularly American element: distrust of expertise, and calling the vaccination program a plot by corporations to make money: Little accused “slick doctors,” imbued with “corporation spirit,” of lying about statistics so they could make huge profits.

We see many of the same arguments today. A group of parents is suing California to halt the school mask mandate object because it takes away parental choice: “The bottom line is the government should not be doing parents’ jobs. We’re the parents; we know what’s best for our children.” At an anti-vaccine rally in Massachusetts, a woman draped in an American flag held up a sign saying: “Let me call my own shots,” repeating the notion that a vaccine mandate violates fundamental American liberties.

Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis issued an executive order banning a vaccine mandate and vaccine passports because they will “reduce individual liberty.” He even called a mask mandate “the most significant threat to freedom in [his] lifetime.” When the University of Wisconsin’s interim-president, Tommy Thompson, defied Republican lawmakers by putting in place various COVID-19 protocols, including encouraging but not requiring vaccines, one state senator objected because: “Thompson has once again shown his belief in big government control over the rights of individuals to make their own health related decisions.”

It looks like the past is repeating itself, but there are key differences between then and now. The original resistance to the smallpox vaccine was in its own way understandable. Inserting  pus from an infected cow or an infected person into one’s arm is not an enticing prospect, and the production conditions for serum were not exactly sterile. In the absence of regulations, “dust, hair, and even dung” contaminated the serum, which was “equally a product of the barnyard and the laboratory.”

 But vaccines and even vaccine mandates have long since stopped being controversial. When the polio vaccine came out in 1955, people “could not get it fast enough.” Today, everyone accepts that children must receive various vaccines before they go to school, and you have to get a yellow fever vaccine before travelling to sub-Saharan Africa and tropical South America. Nobody claims that the mumps or measles vaccine, or getting a tetanus shot, somehow violates their fundamental rights. So what changed?

In short, America changed. When the polio vaccine came out, faith in science and government was at an all-time high, due in part to the Cold War. But America today is awash in conspiracy theories. According to a recent poll, 15% of Americans believe in QAnon, which holds that the government is run by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. That’s over 30 million people. 53% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump won the election, and 25% of all Americans buy into The Big Lie. Again, that’s millions and millions of people.

Even those who may not believe in fairy tales don’t necessarily trust the government. According to the Pew Research Center, faith in government has plummeted to historic lows. Only 36% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans say they trust the government. Only slightly more trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even a United States Senator, Susan Collins, said that while she once considered the CDC the gold standard, “I don’t anymore.”

But while the loss of faith in reason is appalling, and while maybe we should pity those who genuinely believe COVID-19 is either a hoax or a plot to remove Trump, there’s another group who deserve contempt: Republicans who cynically use COVID for political advantage. You can identify them by how these politicians suddenly abandon what used to be core Republican principles when it comes to the virus. 

For example, even though Republicans generally hate regulations, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order fining businesses up to $1,000 for requiring masks or vaccination. Similarly, the Florida legislature, dominated by Republicans, passed a law forbidding businesses to require patrons be vaccinated, despite the earlier distaste for “burdensome regulations.” It seems they hate governments telling businesses how to conduct their affairs until they want to tell businesses how to conduct their affairs.

Surely if a baker can discriminate against gay people because they offend his religious sensibilities, a business can protect the health of its employees and customers by requiring patrons to either mask up or be vaccinated. Or maybe not. Other Republicans have simply abandoned the public good. John Cox, a Republican candidate for governor of California (should Gavin Newsom be recalled), opposes mandates because other people don’t matter: “If I’m vaccinated — which I am — do I really care if someone is unvaccinated?” I’ve got mine; who cares about you?

It’s true that some Republicans have either been silent on the matter or voiced qualified approval of mandates. Minority leader Mitch McConnell, for example, when asked about mandates, said that he’d leave the matter up to school boards and employers, but not before stating that “I don’t think it’s the business of the government, certainly not the federal government, [to make that recommendation].” And Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has said he opposes an anti-mandate bill currently working its way through the legislature.

But these Republican voices are rare, and having created the anti-vax monster for their own gain, like Victor Frankenstein’s creature, they can no longer control it. At a recent rally in Alabama, disgraced former president Donald Trump actually endorsed vaccines, and he got booed! MAGA-verse oracle Alex Jones even called Trump a “dumbass” for endorsing vaccines, implying that Trump was ruining his electoral chances: “if you don’t have the good sense to save yourself and your political career, that’s OK.”

On the one hand, it certainly seems as if the tide is turning. More and more companies are demanding that their employees get vaccinated. Delta Airlines announced they will give their employees a choice: get jabbed, or pay an extra $200 a month for their healthcare. A recent Post-ABC poll showed that vaccine hesitancy has substantially declined.

But the damage is done. Despite FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine, many still refuse to get the shot. Having been marinated in conspiracy theories, they justify their skepticism through another conspiracy theory. This time: the vaccine breaks down healthy cells. Or that the approval was rushed at Biden’s behest. So says the QAnon diva, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Or that the FDA didn’t really approve the Pfizer vaccine, that it’s still “experimental.”

COVID-19 will in time fade. Like all previous pandemics, be it bubonic plague, the sweating sickness, SARS, etc., this too will run its course. But when and how the conspiracy theory pandemic will end is not so clear. This too has infected the world. For example, a vendor in Bethlehem refused the vaccine because “I read online that people will die two years after they take the vaccine.”

There is no vaccine against unreason.

Peter C. Herman is professor of English literature at San Diego State University. He has published on Shakespeare, Milton and the literature of terrorism, and has published essays in Salon, Inside Higher Ed, as well as Times of San Diego. His most recent book is “Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11” (Routledge, 2020).

Gov. Gavin Newsom officially launched a campaign this week against the effort to oust him from office, as fellow Democrats closed ranks to support him and his opponents plan to submit the last batch of signatures needed to trigger a recall election.

Since Newsom’s flashy State of the State speech last week that looked like an unofficial campaign kickoff, prominent Democrats across California and the nation have thrown their weight behind the governor and against the attempt to recall him.

Their strategy in this deep-blue state that twice resoundingly rejected Republican former President Donald Trump: Portray the recall as a MAGA-inspired movement full of QAnon conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers and try to unify Democrats against it.

Whether Newsom’s game plan will work will likely depend on how quickly California bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic that’s shuttered many businesses and schools — as well as who steps up to try to replace Newsom on the recall ballot. His campaign launch seemed designed to thwart potential challengers from the left, featuring support from progressive national Democrats including U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and former Georgia lawmaker Stacey Abrams.

Warren promoted the new anti-recall website and told her 5.7 million Twitter followers that “extreme right-wing Republicans” are trying to recall Newsom “because he dares to listen to scientists and fights to put power in the hands of working people.” 

“Let’s have Gavin’s back,” Warren added.

The California Democratic Party dumped $250,000 into the anti-recall effort Monday and Newsom took to friendly national TV shows to hammer the message the GOP-led recall is a “partisan political power grab.” 

On MSNBC, Newsom highlighted the Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups that took part in the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and that he said are supporting the recall. “I’m taking it very seriously,” said the governor.

California Democrats, meanwhile, went to work trying to unite the party’s diverse constituencies. 

“If the recall should qualify, we will organize a statewide campaign to ensure that African-American voters understand that recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom is not in our interest,” said Los Angeles Rep. Karen Bass, one of several Black Democrats who participated in a Zoom press conference to denounce the recall.

“We will crush it because we will be united,” Bass said.

Bass and Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland made clear they’re with Newsom, after many African Americans expressed disappointment that the governor didn’t pick one of them to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Vice President Kamala Harris. (For good measure, Newsom said in his MSNBC appearance that he will appoint a Black woman to the Senate if Sen. Dianne Feinstein retires.) 

LGBT and Asian-American Democrats held similar events in recent days to tout Newsom’s record and attempt to mitigate potential fissures in the Democratic coalition. State Treasurer Fiona Ma and Controller Betty Yee spoke out in favor of Newsom, after being seen as potential candidates to replace him on the recall ballot. 

“I stand with my brothers and sisters and ask everyone to spread the word and vote no on the recall,” Ma said at a recent press conference. She then backed it up with a $10,000 donation to a committee opposing the recall. 

Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon also gave $10,000 to fight the recall — a sign that more money to help Newsom is likely on the way from the Legislature’s supermajority Democrats. 

It’s the opposite of what’s happening in New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now facing an impeachment inquiry over allegations that he sexually harassed several women and covered up nursing home deaths from COVID-19. Cuomo is facing calls to resign from his fellow Democrats, while Newsom’s fellow Democrats — even those who have been critical of his pandemic response — are lining up to support him.

The recall election has not officially been declared. Election officials must first verify the submitted signatures and determine that at least 1.5 million of them are legit; they’re expected to issue a final count next month. But recall supporters say they’re submitting more than 2 million signatures, so it’s likely to land on the ballot this fall. 

“Newsom has got to be held accountable for what’s happened the last 12 months,” said Dave Gilliard, a Republican consultant working on the recall campaign. He pointed to California’s slow vaccine rollout, fraud-plagued unemployment system and delays in reopening most schools — as well as Newsom’s infamous French Laundry soiree.  

Gilliard said 65% of the people who signed the petitions are Republicans, 9% are Democrats and 25% are registered without a party preference. 

Funding for the recall campaign has largely come from Republicans, including the California GOP, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businessman John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018. Cox and Kevin Faulconer, the Republican former mayor of San Diego, have said they will run to replace Newsom. Former Rep. Doug Ose has also announced he will run.

But the recall is not only backed by Republicans. Silicon Valley executives David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, independents who have previously supported Democrats, also donated to the recall campaign. Some parents who said they voted for Newsom in the past are supporting the recall because they’re angry about school closures.   

So a key question in the coming months is whether a candidate will emerge who could attract support from Democrats, or liberal independent voters.

“The Republicans are in favor of the recall regardless of which candidate they put up and the Democrats are still with Newsom, but there is a weaker support for the governor among younger Democrats, and if a fresh new face emerges on the left that could be a game-changer in Newsom’s Democrat support and a boost in the recall effort,” Spencer Kimball, director of polling at Emerson College, said in a statement.

Progressive tech investor Joe Sanberg — who’s flirted with running for office in the past — said during a press conference Monday with legislators supporting a wealth tax that he opposes the recall. But he didn’t explicitly rule out running.  

In a new poll from Emerson and Nextstar Media Group, 38% of California voters said they would vote to recall Newsom and 42% said they would vote to keep him in office. The poll showed a heavy split along party lines, with recall favored by about 12% of Democrats and 86% of Republicans. But 39% of independents favored a recall, indicating that the big fight for both camps will probably be for voters who aren’t registered with either party.

A major wild card that will shape the race is how many people throw in their names to replace Newsom. The rules of a recall election are different from a regular election because there is no run-off. Voters are asked two questions: If they want to recall the governor, and who they want to replace him. If more than 50% of voters say “yes” to the first question, the person who gets the most votes on the second question wins. With votes split up among dozens — or even hundreds of candidates — it may not take many votes to win. It’s even possible that the winner could get fewer votes than Newsom. 

CalMatters reporter Ben Christopher contributed to this report. CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.

New San Diego Rep. Sara Jacobs is joining Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams to introduce legislation to censure another Georgia Congresswoman, controversial Trump-supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene, who represents a rural district in northwest Georgia, has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, which advances the baseless claim that prominent Democrats are part of a cabal of pedophiles.

She caused new outrage this week with the revelation that she liked Facebook posts calling for the execution of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Williams-Jacobs resolution condemns Greene’s previous actions and statements, calls for her to be censured in the House chamber, and seeks her resignation from Congress.

The legislation to censure Greene requires only a simple majority vote to succeed.

“We saw on Jan. 6th what can happen when elected leaders use their positions of public trust to encourage and incite violence,” said Jacobs. “Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has repeatedly demonstrated her support for the execution of leaders of the Democratic Party, and her presence in Congress is a threat to our democracy, our institutions, and the safety of every person who works in the Capitol.”

Greene said some of her social media posts “did not represent my views” and accused CNN, which reported the Facebook likes, of “writing yet another hit piece on me focused on my time before running for political office.”

Jacobs and Williams, who are both Democrats, and Green, who is a Republican, are all newly elected members of Congress.

The House of Representatives has charged Donald Trump with “incitement of insurrection.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her caucus, “The president chose to be an insurrectionist.” Should she have added that the president also chose to be terrorist?

Terrorism depends on a paradox. On the one hand, the whole point of terrorist violence is to deliver message. It may be to strike a blow against a perceived oppressor, to deliver a nation from its colonial overlords, to start a race war, or revenge an outrage committed against a particular group.

When in 1605, a group of disaffected Catholics, including Guy Fawkes, tried to blow up the English Parliament along with the royal family, they did it in response to James’ oppression of their co-religionists. After they were captured, the plotters spoke openly and at length about their motivations.

In the nineteenth century, Irish nationalists were equally upfront about why they were planting dynamite bombs in the London underground, a variety of train stations, and Westminster Abbey: they wanted England out of Ireland.

After Osama bin Laden crashed three fully loaded planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (a fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania), he released an essay explaining his actions, “Why We are Fighting You.” Similarly, Timothy Earnest and Patrick Cruisius, white nationalists responsible for the shootings at the Chabad in Poway, California and a WalMart in El Paso, Texas respectively, released manifestos explaining and justifying their actions.

To gain maximum attention, each iteration of terrorism tries to outdo the previous one. While monarchs had died violently before 1605, nobody before thought to “decapitate the nation,” as Sir Edward Coke put it, by slaughtering the entire government in one fell swoop. Nobody before the Fenians targeted cultural monuments instead of people. Before the 1972 Munich Massacre, the Olympic Games were largely considered an apolitical event and the athletes off-limits as targets. Nobody before Al Qaeda thought to use commercial airplanes as guided missiles.

But because each new iteration of terrorism breaks with previously accepted rules and limits on political violence, the act is so overwhelming that the message gets lost. Literally, the deed becomes “unspeakable.” Coke said that he had no idea what to call the Gunpowder Plot: “This treason doth want a name.” Despite the Fenian openness about the reasons for the dynamite campaign, nineteenth century commentators regularly condemned their attacks as senseless, unprecedented, and beyond reason: “a course of scoundrelism for which barbarism has no parallel and the English tongue no words strong enough to describe.” 9/11 elicited similar responses. The New York Times described New Yorkers as witnessing “the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the unthinkable.”

Which brings us to Donald Trump and his instigating an attack on the Capitol that left five people dead, including a policeman who died from a fire extinguisher to the head. Was the Capitol riot an act of terrorism?

Certainly, if the point of terrorism is to terrify, then yes, a mob rampaging through the Capitol definitely qualifies. As reported in the Washington Post, an unnamed advisor to Mitch McConnell heard a “cacophony of screaming, shouting and banging” from the floor below and walked to the Rotunda to see what was happening. He met a Capitol Police Officer sprinting in the opposite direction who advised the aide to “run!” He found an open office, lunged inside, and barricaded the door while a howling crowd rushed by. This man was terrified. Anyone would be.

But terrorism also requires a message, a purpose to the violence. The Fenians wanted Irish independence. The PLO and Black September want a Palestinian nation.  Similarly, participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection all had their reasons. Some rioted for the same reason terrorists often give to justify their action. Feeling ignored by those in power, they demanded the world hear their voices: “We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!” said a retired landscaper from North Carolina. Others joined the crowd to support various flavors of white supremacy, such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. Some waved Confederate flags. Believers in the QAnon conspiracy theories also stormed through the halls of power. But they were all united in a single goal: to “stop the steal.”

Did Trump instigate an insurrection? In his speech to the crowd that day, Trump said that they had to “fight much harder” against “bad people,” to show strength at the Capitol,” and “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” While Trump added that he wanted his followers to be peaceful, that was not the message they heard. A man who threw a fire extinguisher at police said that he was “instructed” by Trump. Another man tried to excuse his actions by claiming “I thought I was following my president.”

Trump’s words plus the response fit perfectly the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism: “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

By telling the crowd “you’ll never take back our country with weakness — you have to show strength and you have to be strong,” causing a rampage through the Capitol, with some demanding “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” while a gallows loomed outside, and others shouted “Tell Pelosi we’re coming after that bitch,” Trump and his followers crossed the line separating political action from terrorism.

But there’s more. Joseph Conrad perfectly captured the essence of terrorism in The Secret Agent (1907) when M. Vladimir gives the hapless Verloc a lecture on “the philosophy of bomb throwing.” Random acts of violence don’t qualify. Neither would a massacre or a “mere butchery” because “Murder is always with us. It is almost an institution.” For the desired effect, you not only have to do something original, something that had not been done before, you have to attack “the sacrosanct fetish” of the age. Only then will get the desired result, “an act of destructive ferocity so absurd as to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, almost unthinkable.”

For Conrad, the fetish of the age was science, and so, M. Vladimir urges Verloc to bomb the Greenwich Observatory. But for Americans, perhaps surprisingly, it is the Capitol. Over and over again, we hear that the insurrectionists did not just invade government buildings; rather, they invaded “the inner sanctum of American government.” An article at Politico described the uploaded videos as recording “the invasion of the inner sanctum of American democracy.” Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne mourns “the desecration of our nation’s Capitol.” The use of “sanctum” and “desecration” are not accidents, but indicative of how these buildings represent ideals that go well beyond the moment. They recall the original meaning of “sanctum,” which is holy. The Capitol is, for Americans, literally a sacred space, and it should be inviolable.

The Jan. 6 rampage got exactly the response M. Vladimir wanted. The spectacle of a President rejecting, against all evidence, the results of an election he lost, urging his followers to sack Capitol Hill, which they quickly did, was so unprecedented, broke so many rules, so many conventions, that no words seemed adequate to describe the event.

For Sen. Pat Toomey, Trump “engaged in activity that was absolutely unthinkable and unforgivable.” Nancy Pelosi stated that “the president has committed an unspeakable assault.” The Republican Party of Virginia condemned the mob’s sacking of the Capitol as “unspeakable, disturbing, and horrifying acts of violence.” Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow called the rampage “an incomprehensible spectacle.” Even Betsy DeVos, a Trump loyalist if there ever was one, denounced both the insurrection and Trump as “an unspeakable assault on our nation and our people.

By every definition, then, Donald J. Trump fomented a terrorist attack on the Capitol. Using the FBI definition, Trump encouraged his followers “to intimidate or coerce a government … in furtherance of a political goal,” i.e. overturning the election results and giving Trump a second term.

The mob’s invasion of the Capitol, however, was such an enormous breach with previous norms that even though the aims were clearly stated, their acts had “the shocking senselessness of gratuitous blasphemy.” Like the Gunpowder Plot, like 9/11, the Jan. 6 insurrection is “unspeakable.”

Even though the violation of the Capitol on Jan. 6 may leave us speechless and raw, nonetheless we have the tools to respond appropriately. Trump has been impeached by the House. Now, it is up to the Senate to complete the job, convict Trump, and ban him from holding public office ever again. Then, once Trump is no longer president, he should be indicted under Section 802 of the Patriot Act for domestic terrorism, as Trump intended “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”

Trump allies such as Lindsay Graham claim that the Senate should dismiss the House’s article of impeachment because trying the ex-President would an act of “vengeance and political retaliation” and would only exacerbate the nation’s divisions.

They are wrong. This nation will not heal by ignoring Trump’s crimes and hoping he slinks away in disgrace, but by making him fully accountable for his crimes and for instigating an insurrection.

Because Donald J. Trump is a terrorist.

Peter C. Herman is professor of English literature at San Diego State University. He has published on Shakespeare, Milton and the literature of terrorism, and has essays in Salon, Inside Higher Ed, as well as Times of San Diego. His most recent book is “Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11” (Routledge, 2020).

The San Diego woman shot dead by police during Wednesday’s siege of the U.S. Capitol was an Air Force veteran whose social media activity indicates she embraced far-fetched right-wing conspiracy theories.

Ashli Babbitt, 35, was an ardent supporter of President Trump, and her posts on Twitter endorsed Trump’s false assertions that he was defeated because Democrats elaborately rigged the Nov. 3 election.

The Twitter account @Ashli_Babbitt, which includes photographs of her, shared many posts in recent weeks flagging her excitement over attending the Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6.

The day before, she wrote: “Nothing will stop us … they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours … dark to light!”

Babbitt lashed out at government-enforced COVID-19 restrictions on her Twitter page. At the pool cleaning service that public records indicate she ran with her husband in Spring Valley, California, a sign was pasted to the door on Thursday, reading: ‘MASK FREE AUTONOMOUS ZONE BETTER KNOWN AS AMERICA … tyranny, lawlessness, disrespect and hate for your fellow man will not be tolerated.’

There was also a picture of California Gov. Gavin Newsom with a slash through it.

Ashli Babbitt had traveled to Washington with friends to join Wednesday’s rally, her husband, Aaron, told Fox 5 News in San Diego. He said he sent her a text message checking her status about 30 minutes before the shooting but never heard back.

At the rally near the White House, Trump gave an incendiary speech filled with falsehoods for more than an hour that ended with exhortations to his supporters to march on the Capitol. Shortly after, some of them began smashing their way in while Congress met to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Videos of the shooting recorded by people at the scene show a woman draped in a Trump flag clambering up a doorway with smashed glass windows in a chaotic confrontation between the Trump-supporting intruders and police in an ornate hallway in the Capitol.

A Capitol Police officer on the other side of the doorway then fires his handgun, and the woman – whose appearance matches that of Babbitt’s photos — falls backwards onto the ground, bleeding profusely and visibly in shock. People around her scream and try to tend to her injuries.

The U.S. Capitol Police confirmed in a statement on Thursday that a woman identified as Ashli Babbitt had been shot by an officer as protesters were forcing their way into the House Chamber. They said she later died of her injuries in a hospital.

Three other people — two men and a woman — who were on the Capitol grounds died as a result of unspecified “medical emergencies,” Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said. A Capitol Police officer also died in the riot.

“She loved her country and she was doing what she thought was right to support her country, joining up with like-minded people that also love their president and their country,” her husband told Fox 5 News. “She was voicing her opinion and she got killed for it.”

Babbitt served in the U.S. Air Force as a senior airman while on active duty from 2004 to 2008, the Air Force said in a statement. She also served in the Air Force Reserve between 2008 and 2010, and in the Air National Guard from 2010 until 2016, the statement said.

She served in the military with her ex-husband, Timothy McEntee, and did at least one tour in Iraq, Sean McEntee, her former brother-in-law, said in a telephone interview, adding he felt “shock and sadness” at the news of her death.

Babbitt posted a picture of herself on Twitter at a Trump boat rally in September, smiling with another person, both of them wearing tops bearing the slogans and imagery of QAnon, a sprawling cult-like conspiracy theory that has been embraced by some Trump supporters.

QAnon adherents believe claims by one or more unidentified people posting on Internet message boards under the name ‘Q’ who say that Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes powerful U.S. elites.

She also took to Twitter to express enthusiasm for guns and the U.S.-Mexico border wall that Trump vowed to build, saying in a video posted in 2018 that she was concerned migrants were bringing drugs over the border “in droves.”

Robin Babbitt, who identified herself as Ashli Babbitt’s mother-in-law on Twitter on Thursday, wrote: “Can’t stop crying. … She was such a wonderful kind person, and a serious military woman. Strong, Smart, Kind.”

The officer who killed Babbitt, whose identity has not been released, is on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, the Capitol Police said in a statement.

— Reuters