Republican Congressmen threaten female Senators with violence. This is not normal.

In the last three days, Republican men in the House have threatened their female Senate colleagues with shooting and beating.

ON MSNBC, Rep. Buddy Carter said on Lisa Murkowski: "Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass."

Apparently, "snatch a knot in their ass" means to hit someone in punishment or retribution for a wrongdoing. 

The day before, Rep. Blake Farenthold blamed “some female senators from the Northeast” for holding up the healthcare vote process and said that “if it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”

Farenthold is referring to the historic duel in which Vice President Burr mortally wounded Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1804. 

This is a photo (no joke) of Blake Farenthold, by the way, taken in 2010. I thought it might give you a sense of the man.

Murkowski, who voted with Collins against starting the healthcare debate this week, was also specifically called out by President Trump on Twitter and told by a Cabinet official that she and Alaska "could suffer" for her choice. 

I don't agree with them politically on many issues, but Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have consistently been the only two Republican Senators blocking repeal of healthcare from tens of millions of Americans. Other men and women have joined their fight then abandoned it given the day and time, but these two women have remained staunch and principled throughout this process. 

History will recognize them as heroes who stood as against their party and in favor of the American people. 

It's important to note that it's not normal for a member of Congress to even suggest in jest that a disagreement be settled with a duel.

It's not normal for a member of Congress to even suggest in jest that someone should be physically assaulted for voting their conscience. 

This only happens when you elect a President who brags about sexual assault. 

This only happens when you elect a President who suggests that it would be better if protesters were carried out on stretchers.

This only happens when you elect a President who tweets juvenile videos of himself tackling and beating a man with a CNN box superimposed over his head.

These sad, pathetic little men are responsible for their comments, of course, but they also feel emboldened enough to make comments like these because the President has so willingly condoned violence.  

It's a terrible thing, and it should concern us all. We have already seen how Trump's violent and misogynistic rhetoric has filtered down to members of Congress.

Where else might men now feel emboldened enough to speak and even act like this?

Words matter. We need to remain vigilant. We need to rally around those who are intimidated or threatened by people in positions of power. We need to stand against rhetoric that condones, promotes, or exemplifies violence in any way.  

There are no easy answers when it comes to video games and violence. Nor is the research on the issue settled.

Do violent video games result in an increased level of violence among young people?

It's easy to say yes. It seems to make sense. It allows us to direct our efforts  at a specific source. But consider research reported in the New York Times:

The proliferation of violent video games has not coincided with spikes in youth violent crime. The number of violent youth offenders fell by more than half between 1994 and 2010, to 224 per 100,000 population, according to government statistics, while video game sales have more than doubled since 1996.

In a working paper now available online, Dr. Ward and two colleagues examined week-by-week sales data for violent video games, across a wide range of communities. Violence rates are seasonal, generally higher in summer than in winter; so are video game sales, which peak during the holidays. The researchers controlled for those trends and analyzed crime rates in the month or so after surges in sales, in communities with a high concentrations of young people, like college towns.

“We found that higher rates of violent video game sales related to a decrease in crimes, and especially violent crimes,” said Dr. Ward, whose co-authors were A. Scott Cunningham of Baylor University and Benjamin Engelstätter of the Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim, Germany.

This does not mean that violent video games are not contributing to some of the violence that we have recently seen from young men in this country. There are statistics in the New York Times piece that also lend credence to the argument.

It simply means that there are no easy answers to this difficult question, and we must be wary of latching onto the easy answers, lest we ignore the ones more difficult to surmise.