What violent rhetoric? Another right-wing nutcase arrested for threatening congressman. Was O’Reilly the inspiration?
Click here to view this media Gee, and here I thought that all this talk about violent rhetoric was just a figment of our liberal imaginations: One arrested in threats against Seattle congressman A California man accused of threatening to kill Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott has been arrested and charged in federal court. Charles Turner Habermann — a 32-year-old Palm Springs, Calif., resident with a $3 million trust fund — was arrested Wednesday morning on allegations that he made threatening phone calls to the office of the Seattle Democrat late last year. Federal authorities contend Habermann admitted to making the calls because he was angry about taxes, but said he wouldn’t risk losing his trust fund by attacking McDermott. Federal prosecutors in Seattle described statements left by Habermann in two Dec. 9 phone calls as an “expletive-laden” effort to influence McDermott’s vote on tax policy. According to charging documents, Habermann to have threatened to kill McDermott’s friends and family, then, in the second call, threatened to put McDermott “in the trash.” Contacted by the investigators the day after the messages were left, Habermann allegedly admitted to threatening McDermott and an congresswoman not identified in court documents. This guy was also quite obviously a Tea Party loving patriot, because he referred to the Founding Fathers frequently in his expletive-laden rant: A McDermott staffer contacted the FBI on Dec. 10, reporting that the congressman’s Seattle office had received the offending phone calls. In one, the caller was heard calling McDermott “a piece of human filth,” “a communist,” and a “piece of (expletive) garbage.” “Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met uh, uh Jim McDermott, they would all blow his brains out,” Habermann said in the first rambling message, according to charging documents. “They’d shoot him, in the head. They’d kill him, because he’s a piece of, of, of disgusting garbage. … “Any you let that (expletive) scum bag know, that if he ever (expletive) with my money, ever the (expletive) again, I’ll (expletive) kill him, okay,” Habermann continued, according to charges. “I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he (expletive) knows.” Here’s what’s really pretty remarkable about this: Remember that bizarre Bill O’Reilly column attacking McDermott for daring to suggest (while discussing whether to extend the Bush tax cuts) that Jesus might have been more concerned about helping the poor get their unemployment checks than he would in ensuring rich guys get their tax cuts? It was published at BillOReilly.com, by pure coincidence, on December 9 : enlarge Which just COINCIDENTALLY happens to be the day that Habermann called and unleashed this rant from California. Far be it from me to suggest that there might be some connection there. Heavens no. That would be uncivil and unfair. O’Reilly might unleash the Flying Monkey Ambush Squad Featuring Jesse Watters on me. Lord only knows what kind of hate-filled death threats I’d get then.
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on January 13, 2011. Filed under