E. Stanley Hoff of Westerville, Ohio appeared in court yesterday, charged with threatening to “assault, kidnap, or murder a United States official.” The Columbus Dispatch reports:

A voice mail that threatened U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers and his family landed a Westerville man in federal court Wednesday, charged with a crime that carries a 10-year prison term if he is convicted. In the voice mail that authorities said was left with the Upper Arlington Republican’s Hilliard district office on Sunday, the caller mentioned the June 14 baseball practice during which House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and four others were wounded or injured in Alexandria, Virginia. “I’ve seen the prayer ya’ll were saying at the baseball diamond … I think ya’ll better hit your knees and pray for the people that you’re screwin’ up their lives,” the message stated, according to a criminal complaint filed by Capitol Police in U.S. District Court in Columbus. “We’re coming to get every goddamn one of you and your families. Maybe the next one taken down will be your daughter. Huh? Or your wife. Or even you.”

The criminal complaint against Hoff, a Democrat, says that he “has left at least five harassing and threatening voice-mail messages with Stivers’ Hilliard office since February.” Capitol police told Hoff to desist, but the threats continued. It appears that the attempted assassination of multiple House Republicans by James Hodgkinson may have caused the authorities to finally move against Hoff.

Hoff is a registered Democrat who has voted religiously since 2004. He doesn’t seem to have a Facebook page, at least not one that I could discover. But his desire to emulate Hodgkinson and his reference to “the people that you’re screwin’ up their lives” suggest that he may have been inspired by Democratic Party propaganda. Hoff doesn’t live in Rep. Stivers’ district, but his own representative is a Democrat, which also suggests that in threatening Stivers he was motivated by partisan fanaticism rather than a random hostility to authority.

Democratic Party leaders would probably say that people like Hodgkinson and Hoff are random lunatics that have nothing to do with their party. But in fact, a number of Democrats have been caught cheering the attempted murder of House Majority Whip Scalise and others. In Nebraska, for example, two Democratic Party officials have been caught celebrating James Hodgkinson’s assassination attempt.

A Nebraska Democrat Party official has said on recorded audio that he is “fuckin’ glad” Congressman Steve Scalise got shot, and that he wishes Scalise “was fuckin’ dead”. The list of Nebraska Democrats expressing glee about the shooting of Scalise is growing. Nebraska Democrat Party Black Caucus Chair, Chelsey Gentry-Tipton has been in the news since posting on Facebook that she thought it “funny” that Republicans were “crying” after Scalise and others were shot.

Democratic Party violence has been going on for a while, but it is finally getting attention. It’s about time.

UPDATE: The Free Beacon reports that 30 Republican Congressmen have been attacked or threatened since last month.