Latest news with #MinnesotaShooting
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Amy Klobuchar says she spoke with Sen. Mike Lee about now-deleted social media post
During a press conference Tuesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said she spoke with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, about his now-deleted posts regarding the Minnesota shooting.
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Minnesota shooting renews calls for online privacy laws
Happy Juneteenth! Send news tips to: Minnesota shooting renews calls for online privacy laws. When police searched the Ford Explorer that belonged to the suspect in Saturday's fatal shooting of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, they found in a notebook the hand-scrawled names of more than 45 Minnesota state and federal officials, according to a criminal complaint in the case. Next to the name of the slain lawmaker, state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D), was her home address.
SBS Australia
3 days ago
- Politics
- SBS Australia
Us versus them: Concern as polarised politics turns increasingly violent in US
"We are here today because an unspeakable tragedy has unfolded in Minnesota. My good friend and colleague, Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, were shot and killed in what appears to be a politically motivated assassination. My prayers also go out to state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who were each shot multiple times. The Hoffmans are out of surgery at this time and receiving care and we are cautiously optimistic they will survive this assassination attempt." That is Governor Tim Walz, the governor of the US state of Minnesota. He was delivering the sombre news of the shootings of two Democratic politicians and their partners - two of them fatally - by a suspect identified as a deeply conservative Republican who opposed abortion. "This was an act of targeted political violence. Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. We don't settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint." The shootings have prompted authorities across the US to tighten security. In Colorado, at least 31 elected officials have asked for their personal contact information to be taken down from a public-facing state campaign finance database called TRACER. In North Dakota and New Mexico, members' addresses have been removed from their biographical and legislature websites - though in the latter's case, personal information had already been limited after drive-by shootings at the homes of four Democratic state and local politicians in Albuquerque in 2022 and 2023. Florida Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has told Fox News these precautions are a good thing, in case anyone else gets any ideas. "And there's other copycats across this nation, I fear, that are just as evil and just as deranged, that there may be a subsequent event." They're also talking about security at the federal level. In Washington DC, an emergency session has been held on security measures, some of the meeting centering around cuts earlier this year to a Department of Homeland Security program known as CP3, a program that focused on understanding and preventing grievance-based incidents of violence and mass shootings. Their concerns appear to be well-founded - because as George Washington University Professor Matthew Dallek has told CBS News, there's been a steady rise in political violence in America in the last decade. "So this is I think going to be a debate many decades from now - when did this period start. And Gabby Giffords is I think a reasonable place - a reasonable starting point. The white supremacist riots in Charlottesville is another, I think, signature moment." A number of studies and reports have supported this conclusion. In 2023, Reuters filed a special report that found political violence in the US is the worst it's been since the 1970s - with almost 40 people killed and scores of others wounded in politically motivated attacks. A few incidents have been carried out by left-wing activists, including the 2017 attack in Virginia against Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise, among others. Excerpt of US news report: "It was an ambush. Several republican members of Congress targeted while practising for a charity baseball game." But the Reuters report concluded - as others have done - that most of this violence has come from extremists on the right in the form of shootings and physical attacks. Targets have often been well known figures like the husband of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, attacked in their California home in 2022 by a man who was angry that the former Democratic Speaker of the House supported an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yet there have been ordinary people touched by politically motivated violence too, like the King family in Ohio. Operator: "Fowler County 911, what is your emergency?" Young man: "My neighbour just shot my dad...." Kristen: "He's come over, like, four times confronting my husband because he thought he was a Democrat." Perhaps the best known example of political violence is the now infamous January 6, 2021 attack on Washington DC by Donald Trump supporters, encouraged by the then candidate Trump to express their anger over Joe Biden winning the 2020 election. (Sound of glass being smashed and rioters yelling. Fade out underneath.) Officer: "This is now effectively a riot." Dispatch: "1349 hours, declaring it a riot." Later, Donald Trump was himself the target of two assassination attempts during the 2024 election campaign, including in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Sound of Trump being interrupted mid-speech by the shooting) Republican and Democratic politicians across the country have reacted with shock and horror, issuing calls to tone down increasingly heated political rhetoric. Among them is Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer . "When political opponents are treated like enemies, danger follows." Meanwhile, as the world watches events unfold in the US, questions are being asked about political violence in other western countries, and if these trends are being felt in Australia. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw told Senate estimates earlier this year there had been an increase in threats against office holders and electorate offices since last year, with 712 reports of threats in the financial year to date. Some of these tensions were evident during the 2025 election campaign, with multiple instances of volunteers being threatened or attacked, like this incident against a Trumpet of Patriots volunteer at a Melbourne pre-polling station. Man 2: "Oi, oi, oi. Cut it out. Cut it out." There was also a well-documented incident at a prepoll booth in Anthony Albanese's own seat of Marrickville. Greens volunteer Catherine Stuart told Channel 9 it happened when a female volunteer asked a man wearing a Make America Great Again cap to stop scribbling on Labor posters. "He started yelling at the lady and coming towards her, and then out of the blue a young man just came up and yelled something like 'don't attack a woman' - and he punched him in the head." Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna promised extra patrols during the campaign as a precaution against further incidents, saying it seemed to be a common trend for voters and candidates to be on edge. "Right around the world at the moment there are heightened emotions with elections. It's not what we want to see here in Sydney." Back in the US, Professor Matthew Dallek says much of these heightened tensions are the result of heated rhetoric from Donald Trump, who he says has become infamous for extreme language, inflammatory statements, and insults against his opponents. "Trump has been both obviously a victim of violence. I think also an accelerant in terms of his language, the pardons of the convicted January 6 police beaters and other felons." Cynthia Miller-Idriss is the director of American University's Polarisation and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. She has told PBS NewsHour that there is something more fundamental at play, namely an increasing acceptance that it's okay to step outside established moral and legal boundaries if political differences are at stake - in other words, that the end justifies the means. "We're seeing increasing support for political violence and also increasing willingness to engage in it - among ordinary Americans. And that's what I mean about everybody seeing this as a moment of reckoning for themselves and their own behaviour, not just to wag fingers at the elites and politicians who are behaving badly. But to think about what you do across the dining room table, what you're doing in your classrooms, what you're doing with your colleagues and your neighbours. Because any time you're justifying that kind of violence, you never know who is going to overhear that, or how that contributes to the overall climate in which violence is seen as a solution."
CNN
3 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
GOP senator deletes inflammatory social media posts about Minnesota shootings
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee on Tuesday deleted a series of inflammatory social media posts from over the weekend in which he reacted to the shooting deaths of Minnesota state representatives, prompting a confrontation with the state's Democratic US senator. Lee provoked controversy when he made a series of posts on X speculating about the political affiliations of the alleged shooter. In one post he wrote, 'This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way.' And in another he appeared to link the suspect to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, posting: 'Nightmare on Waltz Street.' As of Tuesday afternoon, the posts no longer appeared on Lee's X profile. CNN has reached out to Lee's office for comment. The senator's posts – made in the wake of the deadly attacks on Minnesota state representatives and their families that have raised concerns about lawmaker safety – ignited a firestorm of criticism. And Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota confronted Lee about his rhetoric on Monday. 'I told him that I thought it was brutal and cruel. He should think about the implications of what he's saying and doing,' Smith said Monday evening. 'It just further fuels this hatred and misinformation.' Smith said at the time that she had wanted Lee 'to hear from me directly how painful that was and how brutal that was to see that on what was just a horribly brutal weekend.' CNN has reached out to Smith for comment. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota also criticized Lee's posts on Monday, telling MSNBC that morning: 'I have condemned what Mike Lee did here at home, and I will speak to him about this when I return [to Washington] and what I'm going to tell him is, you know, this isn't funny what happened here.' Klobuchar and Lee had a 'good conversation' Tuesday morning and she's glad he took the post down, the Minnesota senator's office told CNN. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut added to the criticism Tuesday while speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill after a briefing on lawmaker safety. 'I feel that a lot of the MAGA rhetoric is an accelerant to this kind of political violence that is burning and metastasizing in our society. And adding fuel to the fire is really irresponsible on the part of not just people in public life, but people who are members of these fringe groups that are increasingly a threat,' Blumenthal said. Blumenthal avoided chastising Lee by name, saying: 'I really think that the problem is much broader than any single public official. And I feel that a lot of the MAGA rhetoric which is so threatening, or other kinds of fuel to the fire is – a real clear and present danger.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump tears into 'whacked out' governor Tim Walz and reveals why he hasn't called him after Minnesota assassinations
President Donald Trump expressed zero interest in calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband were gunned down by an assassin. As the president was departing the G7 Summit in Canada, due to the current turmoil in the Middle East, he was asked on board Air Force One if he planned to dial Walz to express his condolences over the Saturday killings. Walz had been Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris ' running mate last year, losing the race to Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. 'I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I'm not calling him,' Trump said. 'Why would I call him? I could call him and say "hey, how you doing?" The guy doesn't have a clue, he's a mess.' 'So I could be nice and call him but why waste time?' the president added. Trump also pointed out that the Minnesota shooting suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, who was apprehended late Sunday, had been a Walz appointee. The state's former Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton had in 2016 appointed Boelter to the Minnesota Governor's Workforce Development Board. Walz later reappointed Boelter to the 41-member board. Boelter served on the board alongside one of his victims, State Sen. John Hoffman, who was wounded, along with his wife Yvette. Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed. Boelter pretended to be a police officer to gain access to the Democratic lawmakers' properties. Walz led a press conference with law enforcement on Saturday in the aftermath of Hortman's assassination. He said the shootings were politically motivated. 'We must all in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,' Walz said. 'Those responsible for this will be held accountable.' In Minnesota, voters do not declare a political affiliation when they register to vote, but a friend of Boelter's told The New York Times that he voted for Trump in the last election and was particularly passionate about his anti-abortion views. Another Republican, Sen. Mike Lee, had speculated that Boelter was a member of the political far-left. 'This is what happens When Marxists don't get their way,' the Utah Republican posted to X, prompting criticism from Minnesota's two Democratic senators. Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith went so far as to find Lee on Capitol Hill and chide him publicly for his comments, as Smith was close friends with Hortman. Smith told reporters that she confronted Lee for his 'cruel' post in the aftermath of Saturday's shootings. 'I wanted him to know how much pain that caused me and the other people in my state and I think around the country, who think that this was a brutal attack,' Smith said, according to NBC News. She added that the Utah Republican needed to hear from her 'directly' about the 'impact his actions had.' 'I don't know whether Sen. Lee thought fully through what it was, you'd have to ask him, but I needed him to hear from me directly what impact I think his cruel statement had on me, his colleague,' Smith said.
