“If your taste in politics tends toward the partisan and the absurd, there may be no better place for you in America right now than Wisconsin. There is no state with more acrimony or more members of opposite parties staring daggers at each other. After Republicans passed Gov. Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill without any Democrats present, Wisconsin Democrats turned their party into a 24/7 machine armed to recall as many Republican senators as they can. Wisconsin Republicans, meanwhile, are aiding ad hoc groups of Tea Party activists who are trying to pull the same thing on Democrats…

“‘We’re right at the 50 percent mark in all of the districts we’re targeting,’ Bartes said.

“That’s exactly what Democrats are saying about their own campaign…

“‘These big, bad Tea Party groups?’ says Zielinski. ‘We’re lapping them. We’re absolutely lapping them.'”

***
“It was these freshman legislators who stood on the assembly floor following Knilans’ speech that day, while their orange-T-shirt-clad Democratic colleagues shouted ‘SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!’ in their faces. They could feel the ambient rumble of the thousands of pro-union protesters that stood mere feet outside the assembly chamber. Newly elected representative Michelle Litjens had earlier been the target of a threat from a Democratic assemblyman, who pointed at her and said, ‘You’re f***ing dead.’

“Knilans himself felt the intimidation. In his capitol office one day, he heard a group outside his door say, ‘We know where you live.’ Picketers showed up at his house. He said he didn’t personally feel threatened, but he was anxious about the safety of his wife and two small children at home. One day, his five-year-old son asked him, ‘Do they hate you, Dad?’…

“Voters always say they want politicians who vote without their reelection in mind; they favor elected officials whose conscience is their guide. Yet the GOP assembly freshman class of 2010 has been rewarded for the leadership with verbal abuse, death threats, demonstrations at their homes, and promises they will be yanked out of office via recall. Certainly, some of them know they will not keep their jobs in 2012 as a result of their vote last week.”

***
“Wisconsin Senate Republican Dan Kapanke has called off public meetings in his La Crosse area district, after his property was vandalized and had death threats.

“His chief of staff Rose Smyrski tells the La Crosse Tribune that Kapanke’s car window was broken in Madison. And nails were scattered in the driveway of his house on La Crosse’s French Island…

“Smyrski also said Kapanke received his own unique threat that was, ‘un-nerving.’ She says Kapanke is limiting his public appearances to larger groups for now.”

***
“We have the numbers and we don’t back down from anyone. We all know each other. We all know each other. We know each other from Service Industry Night at the Orpheum, because we’re regulars at the same coffee shops, restaurants and bars, we know each other from the co-ops, we know each other because we’ve had a million jobs each (and we all worked at CapTel at least once), because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are young and horny and screw each other incessantly, because we’re all on facebook, and because we aren’t anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL FUCK YOU UP.”

***
“Just before writing this article, I did a Google search and it’s stunning to find out that the right wing media really isn’t exaggerating — proven death threats against politicians are being ignored by the supposedly honest media. If you’ve never agreed with a single thing that Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly et al have said about anything, you can’t in any good conscience say that they don’t have a point here. Death threats are wrong and if a story like Wisconsin is national news for days, then so are death threats…

“Since working with Breitbart, my position on political issues hasn’t changed but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m deeply disappointed by the virulent, lockstep attitude I see on the left. My experience in the last few months tells me what I would not have believed possible; on any number of issues (including Pigford, by the way) I’ve seen liberals act much nastier and with less factual honesty than the conservatives… and this includes on issues where I disagree with conservatives.

“Burying the death threat story is a clear example of intellectual dishonesty and journalistic bias.”

***
“One woman, who identified herself as Carol but wouldn’t tell The Daily Caller her last name, had a slew of homemade colorful cardboard lollipop-looking signs to give to each conservative she saw. On each, she wrote: ‘Koch Sucker,’ adding that whoever gave money to Republican candidates was a ‘Koch Sucker.’”