Democratic Offices Vandalized In Days Surrounding Health Care Vote

By Amanda Terkel

Rhetoric surrounding the health care debate has often been very violent, with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) just yesterday promising to “beat that other side to a pulp” and at least one Tea Party sign threatening gun violence if health care reform passes.

In recent days, several Democratic offices around the nation have also been vandalized. Although it’s unclear who the perpetrators are, all the incidents took place shortly before or after the House’s vote on health care yesterday:

– The glass front door of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-AZ) Tuscon office was “smashed out” a “few hours after she voted in favor of health care reform.” Giffords’ spokesman C.J. Karamargin “said it was unclear if the glass had been shot out with a kind of pellet gun, if it had been kicked or smashed with an object. The door has been covered with plywood.”

– On the morning of March 19, someone threw a brick through the front window of Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Niagara Falls office. Monroe County Democratic Committee officials also said that a brick shattered the glass doors at their party’s headquarters in Rochester, NY on Saturday or Sunday.

In a more confusing incident, someone spray-painted the word “DORKS” on the window of the Knox County Democratic Headquarters in Mount Vernon, OH. ThinkProgress spoke to Jim Zak, Democratic Party chairman, who said that this morning, he received a call about the vandalism, which seems to have happened sometime after midnight last night. He said that he has “no idea who would have done it,” but noted that “things are running pretty high here in Knox County, as far as the health care reform bill was concerned.”

At the Code Red protest this weekend, Tea Party activists also spat on a lawmaker and shouted racist and homophobic slurs at others.

Update Politics Extra reports, "Someone reportedly threw a fist-sized rock through the front window of the Hamilton County Democratic Party headquarters Sunday night after Congress passed the landmark health insurance overhaul. Caleb Faux, the party’s executive director, finds it hard to believe the incident wasn’t related to the legislation’s passing." M.C.L Comment: The Republicans and the right wing media should be ashamed of themselves they know they don't care about what deficits the last eight years is proof of that. I bet if you brought up the amount of spending that went on during the Bush administration to Steve King that mental midget would spin it. The Republicans and the right wing media are playing a dangerous game here, due to two massive ass kicking they got in 2006 and 2008 the Republican base has been less then fired up by the brand and the Republican brand in a whole has taken a rough beating for the last eight years. So the Republicans and their media street walkers have decided to do is tap in that racism in their base to win, socialism is the new n-word right and right wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck scaring his listeners and viewers by talking about President Obama as if he was a mysterious black man hell bent on changing the way his zombies live or Rush Limbaugh saying health care reform is another way to give those lazy black people a way to mooch off hard working, tax payin, white Americans. And Republicans have got in the act to incite the nuts themselves, Repugs usually hang back and let their buddies in the press do it but when you got douchebags like Steve King and Jim DeMint egging on people something has to be done. Because when one of these right wing loons step over the line and actually harm or even kill elected Democratic official, those forces that incited the person to kill will act like they have nothing to do with it and a few weeks later go back telling people their way of life is jeopardy.