Rep. Brian Sims (D-Pa.) is the loud and eccentric bully who streamed via Periscope his attack on a lone Catholic woman praying across the street from a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood facility.

"We can talk about your Christian faith," Sims at one point yells at the rosary-praying elderly woman.  "About how your faith believes in shaming people."

Sims later insists: "An old white lady telling people what to do with their bodies!  Shame on you! ... There's nothing Christian about what you're doing!"

"In what universe are elected officials supposed to treat their constituents like this?" asked Ted Cruz in a tweet.

In a Monday statement, Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman Val DiGiorgio remarked: "State Rep. Brian Sims's harassment of a woman's peaceful and religious exercise of her First Amendment rights is yet another example of a troubling trend of growing extremism and hypocrisy among Democrats."

The father of teenage girls harassed by Sims in an earlier incident just launched a GoFundMe.com effort.  Its purpose is to raise funds for the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia.  In just one day, the effort has raised over half its $100,000 goal.

What Sims did was borderline terroristic predation.  Some charge that he was inciting others to commit mayhem.  He may have violated a regulation on legislators' activities; that's now being investigated.

As of this writing, CNN has had little to say about the ugly Sims incident, at least on its web page.  In 2017, though, the channel encouraged Sims — and CNN's online readers — to pursue punishment of ideological adversaries at their places of residence.

In a 4/26/2017 CNN interview, the channel's producer and writer Paul P. Murphy accepted without skepticism Sims's account of a supposed troll's having sent the representative racist and otherwise offensive emails.

As recounted by Sims to an uncritically credulous Murphy, the representative called the unidentified troll's grandmother via a number listed by the troll on his Facebook page.

"Sims said the woman was very disappointed with her grandson; he asked if she would have David [the troll] reach out to him and left his office number," Murphy wrote.

Of course, none of us knows if any of the events Sims described actually transpired.  If Murphy independently investigated the story, even just the basic step of talking to the other parties, he didn't mention it. 

All he had to go on, as reflected in his essay, was a redacted reproduction of supposed online messages and Sims's word that it happened.

Having watched Sims's bizarre behavior in the recent videos and knowing of his racial and anti-Catholic bigotries, what reasonable person could believe him a reliable source?

Also, the messages Sims proffered could have been actual, or they might have been dummied up.  Murphy didn't seem interested in determining the truth.

Murphy's incuriosity about the validity of Sims's tale, and his readiness to accept the Democrat's allegations without independent investigation, illustrated Democrats' current "believe victims" rule.  (It doesn't apply universally.  Ask LeeAnn Tweeden, Juanita Broaddrick, or Kathy Shelton.)

And the CNN producer portrayed Sims as virtuous for pursuing an online critic and his grandmother.  (Sims would make that ominous "get the household" tactic a component of future misdeeds.)

A link to the Facebook reporting system was provided on the CNN page.  Murphy urged that readers of his cloying Sims interview also report trolls, presumably for Facebook suspension and possible banning.

DC Larson is an author, essayist, music-reviewer, and blogger.  His writings have run in the Daily Caller, American Thinker, Goldmine, No Depression, and newspapers nationwide.  His political blog is https://americanscenemagazine.blogspot.com.