Maxine Waters responds to death threats: "You better shoot straight" - Polidicks

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/395016-maxine-waters-responds-to-serious-death-threats-you-better-shoot-straight Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has addressed a series of recent death threats she said she has received, telling would-be threateners to "shoot straight" during an immigration rally on Saturday. “I know that there are those who are talking about censuring me, talking about kicking me out of Congress, talking about shooting me, talking about hanging me,” Waters told the crowd in Los Angeles. “All I have to say is this, if you shoot me you better shoot straight, there’s nothing like a wounded animal,” she added to cheers. Waters was forced to cancel a pair of events in Alabama and Texas this week after a “very serious death threat.” She said she has been getting harassed after she called for protesters to confront Trump administration officials in public over its "zero tolerance" immigration policy. President Trump slammed Waters during a campaign rally earlier this week after inaccurately claiming in a tweet that Waters called for protesters to harm his supporters. "As the President has continued to lie and falsely claim that I encouraged people to assault his supporters, while also offering a veiled threat that I should 'be careful', even more individuals are leaving (threatening) messages and sending hostile mail to my office," Waters said in the statement, according to CNN. Waters insisted that she was not calling for harm and said she believes in “peaceful protest.” The Democrat then appeared on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” on Monday and read a list of times when Trump has used physically charged rhetoric.

From what I've learned, it's usually not smart to mock someone who is actively threatening you. Case in point: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132/67fdc5d1-f82c-487d-bab4-d9aeae93d8fa/image.png

Challenging a bunch of rednecks to shoot straight is like challenging water to be wet. Seriously, don't give some idiot out there a reason to say, "Oh, so its a challenge now?"

As the President has continued to lie and falsely claim that I encouraged people to assault his supporters, while also offering a veiled threat that I should 'be careful', even more individuals are leaving" (threatening) messages and sending hostile mail to my office," Waters said in the statement, according to CNN. FREE SPEECH ONLY WHEN IT'S WHAT I AGREE WITH TRUMP IS ABOVE CRITICISM

Ah fuck here we fucking go

At the same time its also a way of showing that you are serious and are not going to back down.

God, that's badass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6l_9reaLz0 ?

Waters is fucking awesome.

At the same time, I feel that backing down to threats of violence and intimidation also sends the wrong message.

challenging water to be wet Gross.

People who make death threats rarely have the opportunity to follow them through, hence why they make threats instead of straight up capping fools. They want to threaten her into backing down and hiding away, and she's straight up refusing. SQUAD BROKEN!

Well, let's hope she hasn't just painted one huge target on her back for some radical nutcase to aim at...

If only we could make this woman the new face of the Democratic party.

I suppose it could be worse. challenging water to be moist

It's fucking disgusting that this has to be a trait at all, but white nationalists will pretend there's no correlation with their hate speech and these actions. Even though there is...

One of the current heads, Schumer criticized her and she responded with this: “You know, I was surprised at Chuck Schumer, you know reached into the other house to do that,” Waters said when asked by MSNBC host Joy Reid if she was surprised to see leaders in her own party criticizing her. “I’ve not quite seen that done before. But one of the things I recognize, being an elected official, is in the final analysis, you know, leadership will do anything that they think is necessary to protect their leadership.” Many lawmakers, including Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), condemned her remarks as well. But Waters said she's choosing not to focus on other lawmakers' comments. “I’ve got to keep the focus on the children and the fact that this administration is endangering children in the worst kind of way,” she said.

It's good she recognizes this. The people currently in power in the DNC are just being complicit in enabling all this garbage. We can just stop with this false idea that maintaining civility with GOP in power will lead to anything good, this is the biggest lie americans have been fed for a long time. They showed that when we picked Hilary, the "less extreme" of two options that was supposed to win us the election. Obviously that didn't work. Lets just get real and push the democratic party back to the actual left rather than this neo liberal garbage.

Not just party brass, source Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) on Sunday warned against Democrats shifting “too far to the left,” saying it could ostracize Midwestern voters. Duckworth made the comments on CNN's "State of the Union" when pressed about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's upset win over longtime Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley in New York last week. “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper asked Duckworth on Sunday if she felt Ocasio-Cortez represents the future of the Democratic Party. “I think it's the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is,” Duckworth said. “I think that you can’t win the White House without the Midwest and I don’t think you can go too far to the left and still win the Midwest,” Duckworth said during the interview. “You need to talk to the industrial Midwest, you need to listen to the people there,” she added. Though she may genuinely believe that about the midwest, heck I can't say if she's wrong or not I don't know the demographics there

Yes, we need to throw out the influence of the neoliberal donor class on the party and give it a real working class message. Also, strict adherence to civility is just the rhetoric of people detached from the spirit of protest movements and activism, and direct action is the best way to stimulate excitement to vote among younger demographics that traditionally stay at home.

It's a reasonable concern, but I say if you actually go and lay out your platform in a way that these voters can understand how it benefits them, you'll be okay. Are many Midwesterners ignorant and misinformed? Are they prideful? Sure. But I don't think they're necessarily stupid and I think if you actually go in with an honest message of "Hey, this is how we're trying to help" you'll get more support than you expect. Voter education comes in more ways than just reforming the schools (which - to be fair - still needs to happen). This is why Bernie had a lot of support even in those areas but they got turned off when the DNC went with Clinton. Not that she didn't have a point when she said that many Trump voters were just a pack of "deplorables" - God knows she was dead on - but you can't talk down to the people you're trying to win the support of and you can't just insult their guy as your entire platform, no matter how much Trump does indeed deserve it. Because even Trump's moronic "soda in the water fountains" delusions were still promises; all Hillary had went on is "I'm a woman and not Trump", and I fear that the Democrats are falling back into that same pattern for these upcoming midterms. We can't beat Trump at his own game - we can't just attack and sling mud at him and his party because they've got that down to an art form; they've been refining their techniques at that for years. We need to prove them wrong. That's how Obama won: hope and change.

i think that's a fair take on Ocasio's win honestly - the Democrats have long been a big tent party, and what that means first and foremost is to represent their constituents, whether that calls for a social democrat in the Bronx or a blue dog in Alabama

Yeah politicians should reflect their constituents and not blindly vote along party lines, would reduce the insane polarization as well. Tbh guess that was a bit of fluff I added, guess to make Duckworth seem more sympathetic and less like Pelosi.

Oh shit Ocasio responded to Duckworth. https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1013540404879396865

Ocasio is the voice progressive grassroots candidates needed.

Go fuck yourselves, establishment democrats. The country didn't deserve to lose Trump, but you fucks sure did.