The new normal

 Forget the French Revolution.  Welcome to the Reign of Terror 2024.

Clark County Judge Mary Kay Holthus was attacked and injured in her Las Vegas courtroom as she sentenced Deobra Redden for attempted battery.  I start with this assault because it appears to have no connection to Trump or politics, just another instance of the violence spreading throughout the country.  Such outbreaks used to be rare.

Michael Shapiro of Greenacres, Florida, was arrested for leaving voicemail messages for Rep. Eric Swalwell in which he threatened to kill the Congressman and his children.  Shapiro is 72, no high school incel with a Facebook page.

Bomb threats which proved to be false led to lockdowns and evacuations of state capitols in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan and other states.  

To Perry, Iowa, goes the honor of hosting the first school shooting of 2024.  Details are unclear but only the shooter appears to be dead.  Several victims are reported hospitalized.

All in, indeed.

Brandon Olsen faces charges of robbery, burglary and arson after breaking into the Colorado Supreme Court and taking a security guard hostage.  His family says he is apolitical and was experiencing a mental health crisis, but isn't that a distinction without a difference?

Michael Avery marked the new year by renting a car, filling it with gas canisters and driving it into a crowd in Rochester, New York.  Avery and two other people died in the subsequent fireball.

Imam Hassan Sharif was killed in a drive-by shooting at Masjid-Muhammad Mosque in Newark, New Jersey.  No arrests so far.

The Colorado Republican Party obediently appealed the state Supreme Court's ruling removing Trump from the ballot, saying it would result in "nebulous accusations of insurrection."  Like this one.


Saturday is the third anniversary of the day Putsch nearly came to shove.  Tomorrow Joe Biden will speak in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.  Campaign manager Julia Chavez Rodriguez said, "We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends upon it.  Because it does."







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