‘Mass Assassinations,’ the Supreme Court, and the Unhinged Left
In light of attempts on Donald Trump’s life, threats against six Supreme Court justices are alarming.
The Supreme Court is under assault from within and without.
This week saw a second leak of Court documents targeting Chief Justice John Roberts. That comes two years after the Dobbs decision was leaked in the vain hope of changing the outcome. Clearly, a leftist insider is playing along with the Democrats’ objective to discredit the Court as it is currently constituted.
Part of that strategy has been smearing particular conservative justices. Clarence Thomas was the subject of a “high-tech lynching” in his confirmation hearings, and leftists have never forgiven him for escaping their ideological plantation. Hence the ridiculous ethics allegations last year. More recently, Samuel Alito was targeted with a laughable story about flags at his homes.
But the situation is far more serious than leaks and media hit pieces.
Two years ago, a man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh, where he intended to assassinate the justice. Just yesterday, another man was charged with plotting to assassinate six justices and their family members.
The indictment says, “According to court documents, between March 10, 2023, and July 16, Panos Anastasiou, 76, sent over 465 messages to the Supreme Court through a public website the court maintained. … The messages contained violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric coupled with threats of assassination by torture, hanging, and firearms.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland added, “We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with.”
At a time when two men have taken the Democrats’ inflammatory rhetoric about Donald Trump’s supposed “threat to democracy” to its extreme conclusion with assassination attempts, law enforcement would be derelict in taking such threats lightly. Indeed, the wives of Justices Thomas and Alito were also the subjects of the smear stories.
The justices Anastasiou threatened weren’t named in the indictment, but we all know which six they were. He is, after all, a left-wing activist and 82-time Democrat donor.
Obviously, there are six justices who at least lean conservative. Six justices were appointed by Republican presidents. Six justices overturned Roe v. Wade. Six justices ruled correctly on presidential immunity, a decision that particularly incensed Anastasiou.
Worse, those same six justices have been at the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric from prominent Democrats.
Arguably, it dates back to Barack Obama, who, during a State of the Union address, shattered norms by directly condemning the Supreme Court justices sitting directly in front of him. More recently and more directly, however, it brings to mind Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s disgraceful words.
“I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch. I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” then-Minority Leader Schumer thundered from the steps in front of the Court in 2020.
FLASHBACK: Chuck Schumer in 2020: “I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you.”pic.twitter.com/35rcQVp3sY
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 8, 2022
He denied threatening the justices, of course, but he did admit, “I should not have used the words.”
Did Schumer order anyone to kill a justice? No, of course not. But language about “whirlwinds” and “threats to democracy” resonate differently with people who are already unhinged. If Trump’s words “incited an insurrection,” as Democrats and their media propagandists incessantly claim, then the same rule should apply to their hysterics.
What happens when one of these nutjobs succeeds? In Trump’s case, the presidential race would be thrown into chaos, and it’s quite possible that further violence would erupt. But there would be no change in the current government.
If, on the other hand, someone kills a Supreme Court justice — they don’t have anything remotely like the security detail afforded a presidential candidate — Joe Biden would choose a replacement to serve for the next few decades. That could have profound consequences for generations to come.
Fortunately, at least one Democrat wants to avoid the violence (sarcasm alert):
“I’m going to ask the Justice Department, and I’m going to ask the president to tell us what they’re going to do to protect this country against violence if [Trump] loses,” said Congresswoman Maxine Waters earlier this year. “I want to know about all of those right-wing organizations that he’s connected with who are training up in the hills somewhere and targeting, you know, what communities they’re going to attack.”
The bullets only seem to be flying in one direction these days, but Waters and her ilk are worried about the right-wingers who aren’t trying to hurt or kill anyone. They don’t seem too concerned with the likelihood that, if Trump wins, he’ll be the target of more assassination attempts or that his supporters or allies will be targeted and attacked by the increasingly unhinged Left.
Why would they be concerned when a quarter of Democrats think it would be better if one of the would-be assassins had succeeded?
