Some recent screen shots from Martha Coakley’s Facebook wall, subsequently removed by the campaign (thank goodness). Ugly stuff, but of a piece with Scott Brown’s response to threats shouted by his supporters. A pitiful way to try to win an election.
Please share widely!
Both are high school students.
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p>The girl is in Arizona; the boy attends Acton-Boxborough Regional High.
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p>Intervention by concerned adults would be good.
These are extreme, but Martha’s facebook page is chockablock with out of staters spewing garbage. It’s really creepy.
But the dreadful utterances of these two young creatures have been selected for display and archiving. Given the ease with which they may be identified, their vulnerability and incomplete prefrontal cortex development, I’m just urging some caution rather than any equally reptilian-brained responses directed back at them.
Making threats against elected officials-even if you’re a dumbass high school student-is a crime. Maybe a visit from the FBI will get her the attention and help that she is lacking.
and I would hope that our federal security agencies (assorted branches of law enforcement, etc) are clever enough to know better and not waste resources following up.
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p>Facebook, of course, has different standards, as might their parents. Some of those posts are by facebookers who keep their information available to everybody. It wouldn’t be hard to locate their parents and let them know what their overly-excited, underly-sociable children are writing in public forums.
There was a guy in CA that posted all kinds of benign threats all over Free Republic and then acted on it. Granted it was a fake anthax host, but the signs were there all over the place that this guy was unstable.
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p>http://www.rawstory.com/news/2…
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p>I’m sure the federal security agencies are smart enough to figure out a threat from a poor choice of words from a dumb kid.
The first comment certainly isn’t “I, Amelia, hope to shoot [Coakley] and the second certainly isn’t I, Michael, should rape Martha Coakley and then deny her emergency contraceptives. Those are threats.
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p>The first is a “hope”. Hey — I hope the children of Republican congressmen all fall in love with people of a different skin color and religion but the same gender… methinks we’d have a much more tolerant GOP. But, it certainly isn’t a threat.
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p>The second comment isn’t a threat either. The BMG Editors should stare Scott Brown down until he pees his pants, and then not offer him Depends. That’s certainly not a threat from me either.
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p>Both comments involved physical harm to Martha Coakley — but neither could possibly be interpreted as a suggestion that the person who made the statement has any intention of performing that action. They are terrible things to say, but they aren’t threats.
Too late.
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p>These idiots need to realize that words have meaning, and sometimes have consequences. I’m fine with her being interrogated.
She graduated from a high school in W Mass in 2006. She’s in college.
Hmm, I looked too hastily, I guess. Strangely, there seems to be a lot more publicly-available info on her profile now than before she changed the photo to the Scott Brown icon today.
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p>Anyway, I’m glad she’s been interrogated.
are the people we are going to let “invade” over our state?
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p>No chance.
Probably a function of the negative ads, attack ads (largely by outsiders, which Brown called upon at the outset to stay out of Massachusetts….no similar call by Martha btw). There are many threats, jostling, cussing of Brown supporters by Coakley partisans too. Unacceptable by either side. The only bottom line that counts is at the ballot box. If it’s Brown, I predict that he will continue to reach across the aisle as he has done in the State House (wouldn’t it be wonderful if the great thaw in the partisan divide that so hobbles American civic discourse began here?) and be a Senator who in the tradition of Tip and Reagan can have a beer after work with the other guys and celebrate all that unites us as Americans. The real value of the 41st vote is that it forces both sides to talk with each other, listen to each other, and work together to get things done. We’ve seen first-hand in Massachusetts the toxic impact of political monopoly on good government. I remain, respectfully, a Brown supporter and friend.
they NEVER reached across the aisle. So spare me.
And I suspect Brown will, if elected.
:big roll of eyes:
And Kathy, who are your examples of bi-partisan folks on the Democratic side in the Mass Legislature? You seem to be saying that everyone that disagrees with you is a rotten person. What gives?
… the accommodations in the health care bill, I’d say that this has already happened. Of course ‘reaching across’ didn’t get any votes because the GOP business plan is to be the party of NO.
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p>No way in hell that the national GOP let’s brown get away with straying from script. A vote for Brown might as well be a vote for Mitch McConnel.
There are wonderful stories about the friendship that developed between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. We saw the first George Bush and Bill Clinton learn to like and respect each other and yesterday I saw the second George Bush and Clinton on the same stage promising to work together for the sake of the poor folks in Haiti.
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p>Then there is McCain, Hatch and Ted Kennedy. All three willing to work with each other and actually like each other. And then there is my own State Rep., a Democrat. She co sponsored amendments on the poorly named “ed reform” bill with a few Republicans.
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p>NEVER? It actually happens a lot. It happens when the moderates or pragmatists on either side realize that it has to happen. When the loons on the far right and far left get involved then you have gridlock.
The chances of it happening in THIS Congress on anything significant are slim to none. The O’Neill/Reagan friendship was ages ago and partisanship kicked into high gear with Gingrich.
I know you are involved in the Republican senatorial campaign – but I am neither naming nor attacking Martha Coakley’s opponents here or anywhere else- why give them ink? Don’t I wish everyone followed my wise lead in that? You bet I do.
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p>I understand your dream, and agree that a viable, “big tent” Republican party would be better for this state and the country. However, I haven’t seen it. Nelson Rockefeller would be booed out of the Republican Party of today – and the Teabaggers who are contributing to your candidate are narrow, divisive, and anti-democratic.
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p>Further, not one member of the Senate and very few in the house in today’s Republican Party have demonstrated any willingness to “reach”. Not one iota. I have no reason or basis to believe YOUR candidate would behave any differently in DC.
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p>I note that it was under George W. and Delay that the Iron Curtain freezing the minority party OUT was erected.
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p>Tell me, what are your plans to build an inclusive, intellectually honest and rigorously transparent Republican party? I have not seen THAT in THIS campaign though it was refreshing to see signs of life in the Massachusetts Republican party. That MUST be a welcome change.
Sure, as I’ve made clear in past postings, I am a Brown supporter and friend. But I’m no “opponent” of Martha Coakley, whom I admire in many respects. Maybe I’ve been a Republican in Massachusetts so long that my optimism has gotten the better of me. I do think we need to return to bipartisanship in Massachusetts and Washington. Balance is good, political monopoly (by either Party) is bad. But I do not consider the term “teabagger” to be a negative–most such persons are ordinary citizens who decided to get involved in their democracy. We need more of them and they are the source of the strengths of all Americans. So here’s my prediction: Scott Brown will be proven in the next two years to be a source of civility and bipartisanship in the US Senate. He will have a lot of energy and local presence with a Kennedy-like emphasis on constituent service. If I’m wrong, I know you’ll remind me of that in 2012. :0)
It’s a cesspool of homophobic, sexist vitriol.
When his supporters suggest the anal rape of his opponent, Scott Brown suggests they he can do that. You expect better from his supporters?
think the Brown campaign is a clean feel-good movement. What Boston media outlet would report this? They seem all in the tank.
..controversy sells papers and advertisments, after all.