With CHARLIE HARPER

THE stunning home invasion and severe wounding of American House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul last week proved that the U.S. can still shock itself. The assailant’s background and the awful response to the attack by Republicans who should know better are noteworthy for their discouraging revelations about current American society. More on that a bit later.

Political-related violence epitomized by the assault on the U.S. capitol by an armed mob in January seemed both to represent the culmination of long-simmering tensions and to herald a new era of peril for federal elected officials. But political violence has a long-rich tradition in an American culture steeped in literature and cinematic confrontations involving cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers. All of it is underpinned by the prevalence of and reliance upon firearms.

Four American presidents have been assassinated while in office: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901) and John F Kennedy (1963). Ronald Reagan was very lucky to escape a point-blank assassination attempt outside a Washington, DC, hotel lobby in 1981.

Public records indicate that more recently, there were six serious, documented plots against the lives while they held office of US president Bill Clinton; two against George W Bush; seven against Barack Obama and two against Donald Trump.

According to transcripts released to the press by the FBI of its interview with Pelosi attack suspect David De Pape, he “stated that he was going to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps.’ In the course of the interview, De Pape said he viewed Nancy as the ‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic Party. De Pape also later explained that by breaking Nancy’s kneecaps, she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.”

De Pape has been living on the physical and ideological fringes of American society for several years. Investigators found his computer littered with Q’Anon nonsense and other dangerous fantasy thinking. The US Justice Department has charged De Pape with the attempted kidnapping of a federal officer and an assault on the immediate family member of a federal officer. He faces a maximum of 50 years in federal prison if he is convicted on the federal charges.

San Francisco’s district attorney Brooke Jenkins told reporters that “It’s very sad to see that we are once again at a point in history where people believe that it is OK to express their political sentiments through violence. It really demonstrates that we have to calm things down. We have to decide that we are going to be more respectful as an American society, that it is OK to disagree. But it certainly is something that has unnerved us all.”

The attack on Pelosi occurred on Friday night. Over last weekend, Tesla and Space X guru and world’s reputed richest man Elon Musk officially took over at Twitter.

He announced his arrival with a bang, linking to some wild conspiracy theories about De Pape and Paul Pelosi. While top Republican leaders managed to limit their public comments to compassion and sympathy, several leading GOP morons actually gloated over the Pelosi family trauma.

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy Washington suburbanite who was surprisingly elected last year, declared after the incident that “there’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California.”

Of course, Texas Senator Ted Cruz had to jump in.

He retweeted a thread from a far-right activist that challenged the notion that the alleged assailant was a militant right-winger. Trump, starting to seriously stir again on social media, said nothing. Others will find a way to blame liberals for the attack.

There were many disgraceful Tweets and statements. When will the US regain its senses?

HALFWAY POINT IN THE NFL 2022 SCHEDULE

THE giant of American sports, the NFL, has reached the halfway point in its 2022 schedule. The November 1 trading deadline has passed. At this point, the league’s 30 teams are going to have to finish out their schedules with the players they have on their active and reserve rosters, except for injured players that will return when healthy. There is also the potentially notable exception of Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was suspended by league commissioner Roger Goodell for the first 11 games of this season after more than two dozen Houston-area massage therapists accused him of sexual misconduct.

While the Browns have stumbled to a 3 – 5 record so far without Watson, their big win over Cincinnati on Monday night suggests that there’s enough potential on the team for Watson’s return to have a significant affect on the final league standings this year. But how do things look elsewhere now?

Among the biggest stories in the league so far are the significantly sub-par seasons of Hall of Fame quarterbacks Tom Brady, aged 45, and Aaron Rogers, aged 38. Both megastars are at the helm of teams that presently have 3 – 5 records and sit third in their respective divisions. Brady has just divorced supermodel Gisele Bundchen after 13 years of a celebrated marriage, and Rogers split with ineffably cute actress Shailene Woodley earlier this year. So it’s been pretty much of a bummer for both hero QBs.

Much better news comes out of Philadelphia, where the Eagles have soared to a league-leading 7 – 0 record under a new coach, maturing young quarterback Jalen Hurts and brilliant wide receiver A J Brown, acquired in an off-season trade with Tennessee. Given the present overall mediocrity in the league, you’d think the Eagles would have left their division rivals far behind.

That is not so. Dallas and the surprisingly good New York Giants both sit at 6 – 2 and, while most observers still expect the Giants to sag into invisibility at some point, the Cowboys have looked good for most of their games and should win at least a wild-card ticket into the playoffs. Giants’ new coach Brian Daboll is the early coach of the year frontrunner, and the Dallas defense has been impressive.

The Eagles’ NFC East division has the league’s best overall mark, with the equally surprising AFC East now just behind.

Buffalo leads the AFC East and may be the league’s best team now. The Bills seem to have no particular weaknesses, and have already beaten the defending champion Rams and perennial contenders the Kansas City Chiefs, both on the road.

The Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets are only one game behind Buffalo, and although no one expects them to overtake the Bills, both might reach the playoffs in January.

Things didn’t look very good for the Fins during the offseason after their quirky owner fired a popular head coach and their quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, had not shown so far in his career that he was sufficiently consistent to lead a winner. But Miami has inflicted Buffalo’s only loss this year and looks set for a good run to the playoffs. And the Dolphins’ front office acquired star Broncos’ pass rusher Bradley Chubb in a trade this week, signaling that Miami has high hopes in 2022.

Elsewhere, the Minnesota Vikings are running away with their division; Kansas City’s quality is showing in improved performances each Sunday, and the Seattle Seahawks are so far leading their division with career backup QB Geno Smith at the helm of an unexpectedly efficient offence.

Several teams are probably already counting this as a lost season. In the AFC, Houston, Jacksonville, Indianapolis (all playing in the same weak division), along with Pittsburgh, Denver and the Raiders fall into this category so far. Over in the NFC, only Arizona, Carolina (which has already fired its head coach) and Detroit seem to have packed it in for 2022.

That’s only thirty percent of the NFL teams that may not have realistic playoff hopes this year.

The league sets many of its competitive rules to produce suspenseful races to the postseason, and from the look of things halfway through 2022, we should have good races to cheer as this season progresses.

And best of all, the Dolphins seem headed for success this year.