It wasn’t. Suspect identified.
Edit: attacker’s recent pro se and forma pauperis lawsuit against the CIA alleging mind control type stuff.
… that article doesn’t say “no MAGA hats”
Thanks @Fefelo. It appears this guy had mental problems long before Trumpism became a thing.
Congressional member office (and I think committee) staff don’t get typical Federal employee pay or benefits. For health insurance, they get a partial subsidy toward buying health insurance on the DC Health small business market. See How will Members of Congress and designated staff obtain health coverage? - OPM.gov (edited to add link).
And imagining that because the shooter had a history of mental illness entirely negates the dangerous political environment that has one political party literally encouraging shooting the other side as possibly playing a role here is, frankly, dangerous.
And as @smulder noted, there is nothing said about his political views. He very well could be both. But the media is so fucking eager to ignore the political violence being encouraged by one political party, that they jump on something like that as quickly as they can.
[eta] But at this point, no motive has been theorized by the media…
In a press release shared with Jezebel, Fairfax Police Department, which responded to the attack, identified the assailant as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, and said “no motive has been determined” at this time.
So to assume that the current political environment played no role is really jumping the gun here. Most people will mental illness do not go out and commit acts of violence for no reason. Nor are they immune to influence by what is happening in the larger world around them. It’s been shown that often, the delusions people have when suffering from these sorts of mental illness are shaped by the larger world.
I would think the incident happening on the job would be ground for being covered. However, the devil is in the details and it might be an additional health opt-in coverage situation.
Either way my heart goes out to them.
The Brownshirts are really not well organized yet.
This attacker has also been charged with a hate crime because of a racially motivated attack he did hours before the attack on the Congressman.
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