Recently, an unstable 66-year-old partisan Democrat from Illinois named James T. Hodgkinson attempted to defend liberalism by committing mass murder.  Carrying a 9 mm handgun, a 7.62-caliber rifle, and a vendetta against Republicans, Hodgkinson purposely headed to an Alexandria, Virginia ballfield, where he shot two Capitol Police officers and a congressional staffer and managed to get a near fatal bullet to decimate House majority whip Steve Scalise's lower body.

Thankfully, Hodgkinson was taken down by law enforcement officers and died in a nearby hospital.

Hodgkinson, who liked to call himself "Tom," lived in his car for weeks prior to his attempted killing spree.  Police records show that in addition to his murderous ideations, Hodgkinson was an abusive alcoholic with a history of domestic abuse.

In 1996, Hodgkinson's 17-year-old foster daughter, Wanda "Ashley" Stock, who had lived with Hodgkinson only a few months, drenched herself with gasoline and set herself on fire inside her car.  Several years later, after an accusation of child abuse, Hodgkinson and his wife lost custody of another fostered teenage girl.

In 2006, verbally and physically abusive Hodgkinson was arrested for entering a neighbor's house, demanding that his third foster daughter, Cathy Putnam, return home.  When the girl refused, Daddy Dearest punched her in the face and tried to remove her from the house by the hair.

Putnam's friend Aimee Moreland shoved Cathy into her car.  That's when Hodgkinson reached through the car window and turned off the engine.  Then, with a "closed fist," Hodgkinson punched Moreland in the head, cut the car's seatbelt with a pocketknife, and aimed and shot at Aimee's boyfriend with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Hodgkinson was later charged with battery, but the case was dismissed after witnesses failed to show up at court hearings.

In 2015, a tortured Cathy Putnam died from an overdose of heroin.

So, besides being a Bernie Sanders-supporting Democrat obsessed with Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, and thinking murder is an appropriate way to settle political disputes, the late James Hodgkinson was also physically abusive.

Now, eleven Hollywood stars seem to have embraced James T. Hodgkinson's style of hatred by threatening to commit physical violence against the president of the United States.  The newest addition to that list is alcohol- and drug-addled bad boy Johnny Depp.

Much like James T. Hodgkinson, Depp has a tawdry history of incidents involving alcohol and domestic abuse.  Depp acknowledges his "old hillbilly rage" and even admitted that his temper is "[n]ot necessarily that far from the surface at times."

In the 1990s, while in a volatile relationship with model Kate Moss, and "in a state of possible intoxication," Depp destroyed a New York City hotel room and was arrested for criminal mischief.

In 2016, filming was halted on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales when Depp required wrist surgery after punching in a wall while fighting with his wife, actress Amber Heard.

That same year, Heard filed a restraining order against Depp, claiming that, like James Hodgkinson, Johnny Depp is a physically abusive alcoholic.  Convinced that his wife was having an affair with actor Billy Bob Thornton, "scary" Depp supposedly dipped the bloody stump of a severed finger into blue paint and wrote on a mirror, "Billy Bob" and "Easy Amber."

Granted, the guy who played Edward Scissorhands didn't cut Amber's seatbelt, but according to court documents, he did throw a phone at her head, kick her, and try to suffocate her.  One friend said she witnessed Depp swinging a magnum-sized bottle of wine around "like baseball bat."

Another friend observed Depp's pattern of abuse and published an essay entitled "Why I called 911."  In the piece, the author, without mentioning Amber Heard's name, suggested that the actress's abuse started with kicks, shoves, punches, and then "all-out" assault.  The author also confessed to seeing a "pillow covered in blood ... a busted lip and clumps of [Amber's] hair on the floor."

After a $7-million divorce settlement, Heard, who had submitted pictures of her battered face to the judge to support her claim of abuse, retracted the accusations and dropped her request for a restraining order against Depp.

Just as Hodgkinson's battery charges never amounted to much, it may have cost Johnny Depp $7 million, but he was able to exonerate himself from allegations of jealous paranoia and drunken rage.

Then, right after Hodgkinson shot up Alexandria, Johnny Depp ventured to the Glastonbury arts festival in southwest England.  Depp was there to introduce his 2004 movie The Libertine, a story about debauched 17th-century poet John Wilmot, aka the Earl of Rochester.

Glastonbury is where the actor made an oblique comparison between himself and Lincoln assassin and actor John Wilkes Booth.  Criticizing Trump, Depp, a man in dire need of help, who has himself plumbed the depths of darkness, pronounced, "I think [Donald] Trump needs help. There are a lot of dark places he could go." 

Then Depp inquired of the audience, "Can you bring Trump here?"

In response to the booing that followed the mention of Trump's name, Depp reassured the crowd by saying, "You misunderstand completely.  When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?"

Trying to make light of the homicidal innuendo, Depp insisted that he wasn't "insinuating anything."  Instead, he was just asking a question about an actor shooting a president in the head, a historical reference that was met with rousing cheers from the audience.

The next day, sounding a lot like Kathy "I'm a comic" Griffin, Depp, the guy who beat up his wife, issued a formal apology for his assassination comment, saying, "It did not come out as intended, and I intended no malice.  I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone."

Prior to attempting mass murder, James Hodgkinson expressed hateful opinions similar to Depp's when he wrote, "Trump Is a Traitor … it's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."  Therefore, the only difference between Johnny Depp and the late James T. Hodgkinson is that the one who's still breathing is rich and famous.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.