Well, the congressional race in California’s 15thcongressional district took a violent turn; someone tried to stab the Republican candidate, who successfully defended himself. Leah wrote about this earlier this morning. The race is between incumbent Democrat Eric Swalwell and Rudy Peters. Peters survived the attack, using a campaign sign to thwart is assaulter. Farzad Fazeli was arrested on a slew of charges, including felony assault, brandishing a weapon, and possession of a switchblade. CBS San Francisco interviewed Peters after the attempted assault. (via Sacramento Bee):
U.S. House of Representatives hopeful Rudy Peters was “minding his own business with his family” at his campaign booth during the Castro Valley Fall Festival just before 4 p.m. when a man came up and began insulting Peters’ political party and the president, Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, told McClatchy.
That’s when the interaction grew violent: The man making disparaging comments, Farzad Fazeli, 35, became “aggressive,” pulled out a switchblade and tried to attack Peters, the sheriff’s office said. Kelly said Fazeli may have also thrown a glass mug at the candidate.
But the knife malfunctioned, “in part because Mr. Peters was able to defend himself and stop the suspect from deploying the knife,” Kelly said.
Kelly said Peters used a campaign sign to defend himself during the struggle.
“You’re dealing with a knife — a deadly weapon,” Kelly said. “Anything you can use, including a sign, would be a good option. It would provide you some level of protection.”
Eventually, Peters managed to bring Fazeli to the ground, Kelly said. He added that Peters was defending himself, and did not attack Fazeli.
Fazeli then fled the scene and “may have changed his clothes to disguise his identity,” Kelly said. But deputies were nearby at the fair and detained him.
On Sunday, my opponent @PetersCongress was attacked at his campaign booth in Castro Valley. I’m glad to hear Mr. Peters is okay. But it’s NEVER okay to use violence to settle political disagreements (or any disagreement). Fortunately, @ACSOSheriffs arrested the suspect.
— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) September 11, 2018
Swalwell condemned the attack, as he should, but there was silence across the elite news media about this politically motivated attack (via Newsbusters):
Republican Congressional candidate Rudy Peters, who’s running against Democratic incumbent Eric Swalwell in California, was attacked by an assailant wielding a “switchblade” while campaigning at the Castro Valley Falls Festival on Sunday. The news of the attack reached national attention Tuesday afternoon yet none of the major network broadcasters (ABC, CBS, and NBC) thought it was worth mentioning.
[…]
Since news of this threat broke after the network newscasts were off the air, it will be interesting to see if they report it Wednesday morning. But given their recent omissions, it’s unlikely.
A man with anti-Trump/GOP views assaulted a Republican candidate, yet conservatives are the true radicals, right? If the roles were switched, you bet this would have wall-to-wall coverage, MSNBC would have another documentary about the radical right, CNN would nix coverage of Hurricane Florence to push this, and the rest of the liberal blogosphere will dole out their usual mind-numbing drivel, spewing every insane theory that inhabits the progressive cesspool. The Left is inciting violence against their enemies. That’s quite fascist, don’t you think? It is, but because the victim is a Republican, the media decided to suffocate it with a pillow. Now, if high-ranking Republican is assaulted and becomes a victim of polticial violence, well, they're blamed for it.
If the partisan roles were reversed, we’d be having a national conversation about conservative rhetoric https://t.co/aXwsp8aYgi
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 12, 2018
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