Arizona congresswoman among 12 shot at Tuscon grocery

[dtmfs]

agreed, and though I hate him Kieth Olbermann had a pretty good comment on it the other night that i hadn't seen til recently, he owned up to his own mistakes.

Also to Murray, another thing that bugs me about them concentrating on Palin is the fact that what's getting lost is several others who IMO should be focused on more than Palin. Palin's the big name that's why she's in the forefront, but Angle and jesse Kelly's incitement were far worse. Kelly was Giffords opponent and he said something to the effect of "Let's take aim and take Giffords out, Come join jesse kelly and fire an M16" something like that. I'd never seen that before today, that's the mother fucker that should be drawing the most attentiuon for their rhetoric, him and angle.

[MurrayFiend]

Fair enough, dtmfs. Your point is appreciated.

[Cliffenstein]

I mean leftists are not big on guns, but if they see righties shooting them down repeatedly, they're gonna get their own guns eventually and start shooting too.

Once again, Jared Loughner is no righty...not even close.

[Cliffenstein]

agreed, and though I hate him Kieth Olbermann had a pretty good comment on it the other night that i hadn't seen til recently, he owned up to his own mistakes.

Also to Murray, another thing that bugs me about them concentrating on Palin is the fact that what's getting lost is several others who IMO should be focused on more than Palin. Palin's the big name that's why she's in the forefront, but Angle and jesse Kelly's incitement were far worse. Kelly was Giffords opponent and he said something to the effect of "Let's take aim and take Giffords out, Come join jesse kelly and fire an M16" something like that. I'd never seen that before today, that's the mother fucker that should be drawing the most attentiuon for their rhetoric, him and angle.

That's all well and good, but it's starting to come out that Mr Loughner had been fixated on Giffords and planning this since 2007...few outside of Alaska knew who Sarah Palin was and Jesse Kelly wasn't running for anything.

Also, let's all take a step back and say it together...Jared Loughner did not vote in the 2010 election. The idea that electioneering on either side had anything whatsoever to do with this is patently asinine.

[Cliffenstein]

Pima County sheriff should remember duty
The Arizona Republic / January 11, 2011

On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - "the anger, the hatred, the bigotry" - that prompted the mass murders outside Tucson, in his view.

And, jarring as such claims may be, we understood. Or tried to understand, despite the spectacle of a lawman - an official whose very job it is to dispassionately gather facts and to maintain order and calm - tying the attack on Rep. Giffords and others to political speech in Arizona, which he considers prejudiced and bigoted. There is no evidence that the state's politics in any way contributed to this atrocity.

Was Dupnik unnecessarily inflammatory? It seemed so. But it came mere hours following a horrific, bloody mass murder. If you weren't on edge, you weren't being human. But then, on Sunday, the venting continued anew. And a horrified nation began paying closer attention to the Pima County sheriff.

The world's eyes, once again, focused on Arizona for the worst of reasons. And Dupnik stood before the cameras interpreting the shootings as politically motivated, despite an increasing weight of evidence depicting the shooting suspect, Jared Loughner, as a mentally ill young man who rambled incoherently about pervasive bad grammar and other apolitical obsessions. Even Dupnik has observed that Loughner had made death threats against others and that they had been investigated by police.

Still, Dupnik used the opportunities to blame Arizona's lax, new gun laws and, again, the angry "rhetoric" of talk radio. The shootings were spurred, he suggested, by "the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates."

Dupnik took up his cause again on Monday. And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enough. Enough attacks, sheriff. Enough vitriol. It is well past time for the sheriff of Pima County to get a grip on his emotions and remember his duty.

With each passing hour, we learn more about the 22-year-old suspect. And everything we learn adds to the profile of a deeply troubled young man detached from reality. There is nothing to date that suggests any partisan motivation for his crimes, whether right-wing or left.

Dupnik needs to recall that he is elected to be a lawman. With each additional comment, the Democratic sheriff of Pima County is revealing his agenda as partisan, and, as such, every bit as recklessly antagonistic as the talk-show hosts and politicians he chooses to decry.

[Luminiferous]

We get it Cliff, you're still the queen of one sided copy/paste..

[KneelandBobDylan]

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/0 ... -violence/

The real problem is Palin is obviously not the only one to use such imagry, As We've all known for quite some time, hypocrisy at it's finest.

Original Daily Kos Post Did Not Contain A Picture Of Giffords Or A Bull's Eye. In a January 10 Daily Kos post, blogger Jed Lewison wrote that the Tea Party Express fundraising letter "actually goes so far as to suggest that a 2008 post written by Markos was somehow equivalent to Sarah Palin's use of the gunsight imagery and her exhortations to 'RELOAD" in the conservative battle against Democrats. Instead of linking to the actual post, the letter links to a photoshopped version, which ads an image of Rep. Giffords and a bullseye, neither of which were in the original post." Lewison links to the original Daily Kos post which indeed does not contain an image of Rep. Giffords with a bull's eye.

[Daily Kos, 1/10/11]


Fuck all of your false equivalency.

[dtmfs]

Fuck all of your false equivalency

this was adressed already in this thread, and while the Left isen't quite as loud with their rhetoric, If you're trying to say they don't use violent imagry and certain words to rile up their base then you're just blinded by your political views.

Go to daily KOS and read the entertaining thread in which a blogger who wrote that "Giffords is dead to me" is justifying his words because it's obviously just a figure of speech, yet he and others are saying Palin was obviously saying "Go Forth and kill!!!"

Then you have the fact that they've used similiar maps as Palins, and I've already heard some hilarious reasons why a bulls-eye is so fucking different than crosshairs but feel free to add to it if you wish. The bottom line is so far a few people in public office and the media are getting it right, and that's to shut the fuck up and quit blaming each other and flat out just admit it, Both sides need to stop.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Pima County sheriff should remember duty
The Arizona Republic / January 11, 2011

On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - "the anger, the hatred, the bigotry" - that prompted the mass murders outside Tucson, in his view.

And, jarring as such claims may be, we understood. Or tried to understand, despite the spectacle of a lawman - an official whose very job it is to dispassionately gather facts and to maintain order and calm - tying the attack on Rep. Giffords and others to political speech in Arizona, which he considers prejudiced and bigoted. There is no evidence that the state's politics in any way contributed to this atrocity.

Was Dupnik unnecessarily inflammatory? It seemed so. But it came mere hours following a horrific, bloody mass murder. If you weren't on edge, you weren't being human. But then, on Sunday, the venting continued anew. And a horrified nation began paying closer attention to the Pima County sheriff.

The world's eyes, once again, focused on Arizona for the worst of reasons. And Dupnik stood before the cameras interpreting the shootings as politically motivated, despite an increasing weight of evidence depicting the shooting suspect, Jared Loughner, as a mentally ill young man who rambled incoherently about pervasive bad grammar and other apolitical obsessions. Even Dupnik has observed that Loughner had made death threats against others and that they had been investigated by police.

Still, Dupnik used the opportunities to blame Arizona's lax, new gun laws and, again, the angry "rhetoric" of talk radio. The shootings were spurred, he suggested, by "the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates."

Dupnik took up his cause again on Monday. And, in response, we have to say at last . . . enough. Enough attacks, sheriff. Enough vitriol. It is well past time for the sheriff of Pima County to get a grip on his emotions and remember his duty.

With each passing hour, we learn more about the 22-year-old suspect. And everything we learn adds to the profile of a deeply troubled young man detached from reality. There is nothing to date that suggests any partisan motivation for his crimes, whether right-wing or left.

Dupnik needs to recall that he is elected to be a lawman. With each additional comment, the Democratic sheriff of Pima County is revealing his agenda as partisan, and, as such, every bit as recklessly antagonistic as the talk-show hosts and politicians he chooses to decry.

How is he not doing his job? He did not surrender his Constitutional rights when he pinned on that badge.

BTW, Cliffy, I'm still waiting for that proof.

[vanitybinge]

CNN is milking this like a prize cow. I'm trying to learn about the Americans dying and losing their homes this morning in a flash flood in the south, and before I can even get an approximation of the story and it's locale, they're back to Arizona talking to psychologists and showing off diagrams of the brain and where the bullet hit and the father and....in other words, we get it, the lady is in the hospital, but other shit is going on, and they're reaching for anything they can get to keep talking about Giffords and Palin.

Sorry to rant but this kind of fish-barrel carrying on bullshit is what makes these events seem way more political or complicated than they really are.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Damn that bitch for getting shot and denying you the pleasure of seeing southern lives destroyed in a flash flood.

[lerxstcat]

I mean leftists are not big on guns, but if they see righties shooting them down repeatedly, they're gonna get their own guns eventually and start shooting too.

Once again, Jared Loughner is no righty...not even close.

Someone said he was a leftist when they last saw him in 2007. It's 2011 now. Ronald Reagan was a Democrat before he became a Republican, too.

[Luminiferous]

agreed, and though I hate him Kieth Olbermann had a pretty good comment on it the other night that i hadn't seen til recently, he owned up to his own mistakes.

Also to Murray, another thing that bugs me about them concentrating on Palin is the fact that what's getting lost is several others who IMO should be focused on more than Palin. Palin's the big name that's why she's in the forefront, but Angle and jesse Kelly's incitement were far worse. Kelly was Giffords opponent and he said something to the effect of "Let's take aim and take Giffords out, Come join jesse kelly and fire an M16" something like that. I'd never seen that before today, that's the mother fucker that should be drawing the most attentiuon for their rhetoric, him and angle.

That's all well and good, but it's starting to come out that Mr Loughner had been fixated on Giffords and planning this since 2007...few outside of Alaska knew who Sarah Palin was and Jesse Kelly wasn't running for anything.

Also, let's all take a step back and say it together...Jared Loughner did not vote in the 2010 election. The idea that electioneering on either side had anything whatsoever to do with this is patently asinine.

I believe Cliffy needs to contact the FBI since he has this wealth of factual information about the shooter..
Planning this since 2007? I'd like to see that proof please.

[Skate4RnR]

These so called "Tea Partiers" and so called "Republicans" can get the fuck out of my party if they don't want to knight this kind of valor.

[lerxstcat]

agreed, and though I hate him Kieth Olbermann had a pretty good comment on it the other night that i hadn't seen til recently, he owned up to his own mistakes.

Also to Murray, another thing that bugs me about them concentrating on Palin is the fact that what's getting lost is several others who IMO should be focused on more than Palin. Palin's the big name that's why she's in the forefront, but Angle and jesse Kelly's incitement were far worse. Kelly was Giffords opponent and he said something to the effect of "Let's take aim and take Giffords out, Come join jesse kelly and fire an M16" something like that. I'd never seen that before today, that's the mother fucker that should be drawing the most attentiuon for their rhetoric, him and angle.

That's all well and good, but it's starting to come out that Mr Loughner had been fixated on Giffords and planning this since 2007...few outside of Alaska knew who Sarah Palin was and Jesse Kelly wasn't running for anything.

Also, let's all take a step back and say it together...Jared Loughner did not vote in the 2010 election. The idea that electioneering on either side had anything whatsoever to do with this is patently asinine.

I believe Cliffy needs to contact the FBI since he has this wealth of factual information about the shooter..
Planning this since 2007? I'd like to see that proof please.

Well since Cliffy was in on it with him he is understandably reluctant to talk to the FBI!

[Cliffenstein]

Full text of Sarah Palin's statement
Politico / January 12, 2011

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims' families as we express our sympathy.

I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world. Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic's core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.

There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, "We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country's future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those "calm days" when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders' genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, "We know violence isn't the answer. When we 'take up our arms', we're talking about our vote." Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That's who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn't a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply "symbolic", as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just "symbolic". But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God's guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.

America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

[Crazy Levi]

Fuck her for being such a stupid cunt, and fuck you for thinking she's actually capable of writing something that coherent.

[Cliffenstein]

Fuck her for being such a stupid cunt, and fuck you for thinking she's actually capable of writing something that coherent.

Yeah...it's the right wing rhetoric that's the problem.

Uh-huh

[Crazy Levi]

I've got you in my cross hairs, bitch, and I'm reloading!

[vanitybinge]

Wether she wrote it or not...must every non-uniformed gunman be deranged? Is it really so bad to think he may have just been fed up with shit?

deranged: mad, disturbed, unbalanced, unhinged, unstable, irrational; crazed, demented, berserk, frenzied, lunatic.

That could apply to a lot of people today unfortunately. Your bus driver silently collecting information about passengers he hates, your wife plotting with another man to kill you off and collect the $umz, your butcher rubbing his diseased blood into your pork roasts. I just don't think this guy was so much different then many disenchanted Americans. We hold that these people are the minority, but I'm not convinced that is the case.

Maybe I'm just becoming more of a pessimist about the goodness of the average man, Lenin-Marx as it were, but I guess my point is I believe that many many more people are capable of and guilty of similar acts, channeling their disappointment in life through dark avenues, in secret clubs and the backs of eateries, taking sadistic pleasure in the secret exploitation of the people they hate.

I know plenty of non-deranged people who have entertained the thought of gunning down some corrupt politicians. Turning that entertainment to theater does not in itself make one deranged. If anything, Glen Beck's little brother is simply saying what many other people want to say.

I wont be surprised if this happens again and again in 2011.

[KneelandBobDylan]

There's been a lot of crazy talk coming from the American Right the past couple of years. And crazy talk, especially when it is sanctioned at the highest levels of media and politics, has a powerful way of fueling crazy people who engage in crazy -- horrifically crazy -- acts.

[Monty610]

There's been a lot of crazy talk coming from the American Right the past couple of years. And crazy talk, especially when it is sanctioned at the highest levels of media and politics, has a powerful way of fueling crazy people who engage in crazy -- horrifically crazy -- acts.

Riiiiigggghhhht.

And those Ozzy, Judas Priest, AC/DC, and Slayer lyrics also have a powerful way of fueling crazy people who engage in crazy -- horrifically crazy -- acts (like suicide and murder).

I mean, surely you must agree with that. Or is it only conservative speech that causes people to "lose it"?

[cantstopthemusic]

How is he not doing his job? He did not surrender his Constitutional rights when he pinned on that badge.

His "personal opinions" have no basis in fact.

That's why.

Polluting the future jury pool, for starters.

I'm sure the prosecutors are REALLY going to appreciate that.

[lerxstcat]

Wether she wrote it or not...must every non-uniformed gunman be deranged? Is it really so bad to think he may have just been fed up with shit?

EVERYBODY that knows this guy says he is a nutcase. His neighbors all say that both he AND his father are fucked in the head.

[EvilMadman]

Fuck her for being such a stupid cunt, and fuck you for thinking she's actually capable of writing something that coherent.

Yeah...it's the right wing rhetoric that's the problem.

Uh-huh

Some peace loving, tolerant and "violent rhetoric" free Democrats at their finest...

"Ugly leftist ape Sandra Bernhard warned Palin she would be "gang-raped by my big black brothers" if she tried coming to New York."

"The man who, how do I phrase this diplomatically, who will put a bullet between the President's eyes if he could get away with it." -New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who later apologized for describing fellow Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer."

"Diplomatically"?

"New Hampshire Democrat, Timothy Horrigan resigned from the state legislature after writing this gem on Facebook: "Well a dead Palin would be even more dangerous than a live one . . . she is all about her myth & if she was dead she couldn't commit any more gaffes."

"Keith Halloran, a New Hampshire Democratic candidate, wrote on a Facebook thread that he wished Palin had been aboard the Alaska plane that crashed, killing five including Sen. Ted Stevens."

Classy.

[Skate4RnR]

Those were awesome websites. Oh.

[EvilMadman]

Those were awesome websites. Oh.

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/ ... ing-2.html

http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDL ... h-comments

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/1 ... 80273.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08 ... eath-wish/

[Luminiferous]

Sorry but that is fucked up..

[lerxstcat]

Fuck her for being such a stupid cunt, and fuck you for thinking she's actually capable of writing something that coherent.

Yeah...it's the right wing rhetoric that's the problem.

Uh-huh

I'm amazed she could even read that on the teleprompter, no way she wrote it herself!

[lerxstcat]

Sorry but that is fucked up..

It's the first thing I thought when I saw that pic of Laughtner! Beck is batshit crazy too!