As we've noted before, ever since last year, the Republican party has become increasingly more violent in its rhetoric about then presidential candidate Obama, and Democrats more generally. Disturbingly, the violent rhetoric has coincided with a seemingly coordinated Republican effort to get the Department of Homeland Security to back off of investigating domestic extremists who are prone to violence (today lead religious right groups joined GOP congressmen in calling on DHS to no longer investigate such extremists).
The latest Republican to seemingly call for violence is GOP Congressman Mark Kirk of Illinois. Kirk says the people of Illinois are ready to assassinate their governor for having raised taxes to make up for the state's budget deficit.
Yglesias explains:
Conservatives can cry and moan all they want about the DHS warning of violence on the part of right-wing extremists, but the fact of the matter is that sooner or later someone is going to take this kind of talk seriously and do something that’s really regrettable. If this were just a matter of ugly signs from a handful of people at protests, there’d be nothing to really worry about. But the rank and file is being egged on by some very irresponsible politicians and media figures.The Trib says Kirk sticks by his assassination talk.
