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Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) expressed regret for suggesting that Democratic rhetoric about President Donald Trump had inspired a gunman to target Republican lawmakers at a congressional baseball practice on Wednesday morning.

James Hodgkinson,the suspect who allegedly opened fire at the baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, was a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with a record of violent behavior.

Reacting to the shooting shortly after it occurred on Wednesday morning in an interview on Buffalo, New Yorks WBEN radio, Collins identified the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst, and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters as a contributing factor in the rampage.

I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric, Collins added.

Later in the day, however, Collins released a statement calling on all sides, rather than just Democrats, to use more careful language.

Its time for all of us, including myself, to tone down our rhetoric and recognize that we are all of one country and all proud Americans, he said.

On Thursday, Collins went further, admitting it had been a mistake to pin the blame on Democrats in the first place.

I do regret certainly what I said at 8:05 in the morning. Ive been careful to clarify it moving forward, Collins said on MSNBC.

Mark Makela / Reuters

Collins also suggested that he views lawful gun ownership as part of the solution to preventing future violent incidents, because people with the guns could ward off attackers.

I do believe that a law-abiding citizen that is armed, thats out in public, will keep himself, his staff and, in some cases, the public safe. Im a strong believer in the NRA, Collins said. I do have a carry permit. And I have become certainly lax. We sometimes take our security for granted.

Democrats have universally condemned the violent attack on the congressional baseball practice.

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, took to the floor of the Senate to express his revulsionthat the shooter, Hodgkinson,was a supporter of his who had volunteered on his presidential campaign.

I am sickened by this despicable act, and let me be as clear as I can be: Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms, the Vermont senator said.

The annual congressional baseball gameis slated to continue as planned at 7:05 pm on Thursday.

Original post:
GOP Congressman 'Regrets' Blaming Democrats' Rhetoric For Virginia Shooting - HuffPost

It didn't.

And now, less than 36 hours removed from the shots ringing out in Alexandria, Virginia, we are already into the condemnation stage of our all-too-predictable political process.

Pelosi was asked Thursday about "the possibility that this incident could be used against Democrats or the Democratic Party politically" because some conservatives had suggested "vitriolic rhetoric from the left being in some way to blame."

Here's how she responded:

"I think that the comments made by my Republican colleagues are outrageous, beneath the dignity of the job that they hold, beneath the dignity of the respect that we would like Congress to command. How dare they say such thing? How dare they? Well I won't even go into the whole thing. I can't even begin, probably as we sit here, they're running caricatures of me in Georgia once again, earned over a hundred million dollars of vitriolic things that they say, that resulted in calls to my home constantly, threats in front of my grandchildren. Really, predicated on their comments and their paid ads. So this sick individual does something despicable and it was horrible what he did, hateful. But for them to all of a sudden be sanctimonious as if, they don't, never seen such a thing before. And I don't even want to go into the President of the United States. But in terms of some of the language that he has used."

Think the question touched a nerve?

Pelosi's broader point is that demonizing the people who disagree with you isn't unique to Democrats.

And, she's right. Both parties -- particularly in the last decade or so -- have embraced the idea that people who disagree with your political views are, at best, misguided and, at worst, evil. Phrases like "disagree without being disagreeable" or "reasonable people can disagree" have disappeared from our political dialogue. People who disagree with you are to be scorned, shunned and ignored -- not engaged.

People hate the "both sides do it" nature of some corners of mainstream journalism, believing that it creates a sense of equivalency when there is none. Fair enough.

But in this case, both sides do do it! Casting your political opponents as not just wrong but dangerous motivates the bases of the respective parties. And fired-up bases turn out. And that, for most politicians, is plenty of justification to keep playing to the extremes rather than trying to land somewhere in between those two poles.

Until the electorate stops rewarding politicians for saying the most outlandish things about the other party, they will keep right on doing it -- no matter how many attacks like the one Wednesday morning happen. Depressing but true.

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Nancy Pelosi just went off on Republicans attacking Democrats over the Scalise shooting - CNN

Democrats are vowing to make Russian collusion hysteria an issue through the November 2018 midterm elections.

Democrats should absolutely continue to press on Russia in Congress and in the national press, said Josh Schwerin, spokesman for Priorities USA, speaking to McClatchys D.C. news service.

And Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said he would introduce articles of impeachment, to be filed in the House.

It has more senior Democrats concerned. At a caucus meeting on Tuesday, House Democrats reportedly told impeachment-eager Democrats that they were risking the rest of the caucus in their zeal to get President Donald Trump at all costs.

The Russian narrative as far as Trump is concerned was largely seen as having fallenapart after fired FBI Director James Comey's testimony last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Comey told the committee that Trump was not under investigation for any collusion.

Comey even went a bit further than that, dismissing a Feb. 14 story in The New York Times that suggested Trump associates met with Russian intelligence officials in the lead-up to the Nov. 8 election.

The Comey remarks on the Times story seemed to bury the narrative the conspiracy theory that there was collusion between "Trump associates" and Russian hackers.

But thenarrative and many Democrats just can't quit each other, despite the obvious pitfalls and potential for ugly backfire. Here are the top five reasons staying obsessed withRussia through 2018 could get ugly for Democrats.

Violence

This potential downside would have been lower on any list, until Wednesday morning.

But Democrats have been saying since the 2016 election that Trump was a stoogeto Russia, helping the regime of Vladimir Putin undermine American democracy. Alleging the president was too close with Russia and worked with the Kremlin to win the White House has become a key narrative employedto undermine the president.

But you cannot keep saying the president and his associates conspired with Russians without riling up the wackos and provoking a nasty and violent fringe element.

That's just what many Democrats and liberal commentators did when a gunman took shots at Republican members of Congress practicing their game at an Alexandria baseball park Wednesday. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) remainedin critical condition as of Wednesday night.

Forgetting the Actual Hacking Democrats are also making clear they don't care about the main problem caused by Russian hacking into Democratic campaigns: That foreign governments routinely hack into our political and governmental systems.

In 2015, the Chinese reportedly hacked into the Office of Personnel Management and made off with a massive volume of vital data, such as information on those with top secret clearances.

The issue of foreignhacking is serious business and deserves serious attention. It won't be getting it from Democrats anytime soon.

Political Damage

If the Democrats keep insisting there is some sort of political element within the United States to Russian hacking, they risk repeating their mistake of 2016 losing focus of the jobs issue.

Americans care about the economy, their wages and other important issues like their health care. An intense focus on issues of D.C. intrigue could lose Democrats ground in thehigh-stakes midterm elections in 2018.

One Democratic consultant told LifeZetteit's a gamble worth taking because Democrats have lost most elections, even on their key issues, since 2010.

A Leftward Tilt Democrats also risk moving their party to the left for years to come, also music to Republicans' ears.

Right now, the main people pushing the Russian narrative are far left-wingers such as Sherman, Rep. Maxine Waters and Rep. Ted Lieu all from California.

The angry voices get the Democrats plenty of attention. But the move also risks one thing more: alienating voters outside of California and the Northeast, the only areas where Democrats seem to thrive despite talking the most Russia and about their various left-wing wish lists including universalhealth care and clamping down on energy production.

A Failure to Impeach Thereal ultimate objective for many Democrats pushing the Russian collusion issueis to get Trump removed from office.

But impeachment and removal is unlikely, even if Democrats win the House and Senate in 2018.

Thus, Democrats face disappointing their base, and making Trump a political martyr.

Waiting on such a backfire especially as the economy booms worked for former Democratic President Bill Clinton, whom the House Republicans actually impeached in late 1998 for obstruction of justice and perjury.

The Senate declined to remove Clinton in February 1999, and Republicans lost their Senate majority in 2001 and only won the White House by a few hundred votes in Florida.

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Five Ways Russian Hysteria May Backfire on Democrats - LifeZette

His belief that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting of 2012 was a hoax perpetrated by false flag government agents for the purpose of inhibiting gun ownership in the United States goes beyond distaste. This is a man who has looked parents in the eye and declared their dead children to have never existed.

Free speech is a freedom we enjoy despite the right's continued attacks against the free press (see Republican attempts to prevent congressional interviews during Jeff Sessions' testimony to Congress earlier this week) and to portray Alex Jones as a victim in this context is outright repugnant.

Let us not forget that it was Alex Jones's right-wing website that pushed the "Pizzagate" conspiracy that led to a member of the alt-right threatening the institution with a firearm. As LaVenuta doubtless knows, speech considered to be inciting violence is not protected under the First Amendment.

This goes beyond simply portraying Alex Jones as a "bad guy." His website affords him his First Amendment rights and to give him a platform on a nationwide network is irresponsible and dangerous. The right's consistent self-victimization is hypocritical to the point of being ludicrous, and to push this narrative as an attack on the First Amendment is nothing short of outrageous.

Roth lives in Fargo.

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Letter: First Amendment rights defense of Alex Jones is outrageous - INFORUM

If nothing else, President Trump is putting it in stark, clear terms for us. He is out to destroy the independent press in the United States and replace it with some sort of information system that is subservient to him personally and his version of reality.

Trump continued his deliberate, ongoing assault on the free press Tuesday in yet another early-morning tweet:The Fake News Media has never been so wrong or so dirty. Purposely incorrect stories and phony sources to meet their agenda of hate. Sad!

This nonstop campaign to convince people that the independent press is deliberately making up news puts things to a very simple test. Either:

His assertions that a substantial amount (or the entirety?) of normal, mainstream coverage is somehow deliberately fake is not the utterance of a healthy person. It does not represent a connection to reality and/or it represents an attempt to substitute propaganda for information. He cant make it any plainer. Dont scoff. There is apparently already an audience and appetite for Trumps version of events, whatever that version is on any given day. And Trump is using the presidency of the United States to undermine whats left of a fact-based reality.

Dont think this matters? Then enjoy becoming the subject in the famous Asch Experiment. And heres another test for you: Have you tried recently having a productive conversation with a Trump supporter who is operating off a completely different fact set? How did that go?

When the propaganda model replaces the free press model, you can either go along, or it is you who will be judged insane.

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President Trump hates the First Amendment. He thinks it's sad. - Washington Post