Department of Bad Timing

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[Cantor] expressed frustration with [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi’s suggestion last week that the vitriol injected into the health reform debate could end in violence akin to the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone in the 1970s. “I think she’s living in another world — I really do,” Cantor said of the CaliforniaDemocrat. “I’m not condoning any of the things that, you know, the media may catch in terms of messages on the signs and what have you. But I have not run into any violence. I have not run into crowds running over people. We should want spirited debate, although civil, … and I’ve not been anywhere over the last several months where I would even think such a situation where violence is in the offing exists.”

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The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word ‘fed” was scrawled on the dead man’s chest. The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.