My thoughts on yesterday's tragedy

Giffords shooting leads nation to introspection and political finger wagging
In the wake of the shooting in Arizona this weekend that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and that killed and injured more than 20 people, many pundits and politicians are pointing fingers. Others are hoping the incident will serve to ratchet down rancor. Yet emerging details make it clear the shooter wasn’t primarily motivated by politics, right or left. Jared Lee Loughner seems mainly to have been struggling with Mental Illness and was angry at being thrown out of Pima Communi...

Could Anything Have Stopped Loughner?
The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six and wounding of 13 others in Tucson is one of those American tragedies that threatens to be interpreted according to what one wants to believe. The shootings will be argued over and debated as more information comes forward, but what seems unavoidable is that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was a nutbar through and through, and there was no way he could have been deterred. Arizona’s curious (to Canadians) Gun Laws that ...

Silence Is Complicity & Defensiveness Is Endorsement
I've just finished up 3 hours of the most difficult radio I've ever had to do. The topic, of course, was the horrific shooting in Tucson, which has deeply affected me, as it has many others. As someone who had to flee the Capitol on 9/11, was warned of Anthrax contamination in the congressional office I was working in, and has faced various threats of violence during my media career, I was shaken by the scenes in Arizona more so than by any other news imagery in a long time. The reason the ra...

Arizona Massacre Prompts Political 'Cheap Shots'
When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords collapsed outside the Safeway in Tucson Saturday morning, felled by a hail of bullets that killed six and wounded another 13 innocent people that had come to see her, some were quick to claim that the carnage was the product not merely of the tortured mind and trigger-happy fingers of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner. Rather, many on the American Left said the horror could be traced to the malign influence of American Conservatives; members...

What Riverdaughter said
There seem to be two major camps regarding this tragedy: Sarah Palin is a monster and the Tea Partiers must be blamed. Or, Sarah Palin is the scapegoat and her picture had nothing to do with this tragic incident. I prefer the third way. .... In the past 18 years, starting with the advent of Rush Limbaugh, we saw a ratcheting up of Right Wing Extremism. ... And it is into this environment that Sarah Palin steps as the champion of a new set of people. A group that even the Right Wing Republicans ...

Russ Belville: Arizona Shooter Loughner Used Marijuana... So What?
As you may know by now, in a tragic act of insane violence, Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords was targeted for Assassination, but survived the point-blank gunshot allegedly fired by Jared Lee Loughner, a 22-year-old man whose rambling Internet paranoia calls his sanity into question.  Loughner also allegedly fired into the crowd, killing a 9-year-old girl (born on 9/11/2001, incidentally), a federal Circuit Court judge, a Giffords Staffer, and three others, and wounding several more.  All of us at...

Shameless: Politico.com insinuates the right wanted Giffords dead over green stance
As I noted yesterday in response to the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8), the Mainstream Media has been nothing short of shameless in its attempts to try and insinuate - or outright declare - that it was “the right” who targeted her for Murder. Josh Trevino wrote yesterday numerous times on Twitter about how Politico had joined in on the “Right Wing vitriol” bandwagon. Today, they continue to add to it with their latest extremely irr...

On the tragedy in Arizona, political rhetoric and fingerpointing
Since Saturday’s shooting in Arizona, my comments on the tragedy have been limited because there are a lot of things being said from all sides and I felt that I should wait until more information was discovered before making any comments. Unfortunately, others have felt the need to be reactionary, rush to judgment and blame the most convenient figure(s) or movement to take advantage of the situation in hopes to score cheap political points. Jared Loughner is mentally disturbed, it’s ...

Another Democrat shamelessly politicizing the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords: James Clyburn edition
I am disturbed by the events that happened in Tucson on Saturday.  I am even more disturbed (and disappointed) by the events that have happened since the massacre on Saturday. I am disturbed that the media immediately jumped in to politicize the whole gruesome affair.   Trying to blame Governor Palin and the Tea Party for this crazed killer’s actions is a new low (even for the main stream media). “ I’m disturbed but not surprised” ...

Tucson rampage casts light on toxic political tone
WASHINGTON—Politicians of all stripes are bound to be haunted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' warning, 10 months before she was shot, to cool the Rhetoric. It's been a year or more of raw politics, with anger spilling over on both sides and gun-related metaphors coming loosely from the lips of some Candidates and Activists. Giffords, a figurative target of the right, on Saturday became the actual target of a gunman who shot her through the head and killed at least five others. She was critica...

Difference of opinion is what makes the world go round
Posted by Guest Blogger Locutisprime. According to the Pima County sheriff, differences of opinion are what makes the world go round. Except of course when your opinion differs from his or other Liberal Democrats or the political talking points and politicians that he and they support. I have to agree. There are consequences to 'this type of behavior.' Of course, the type of behavior that this sheriff is alluding to, is any behavior (specifically Speech) that is contrary to the best wish...

The Tragedy of the Arizona Shooting
The Tragedy of the Arizona Shooting Monday, 01/10/2011 - 1:47 pm by Mike Konczal | Post a Comment There are many ways to look at it, but all say disturbing things about the country. This weekend’s tragic shooting at a Safeway district meeting in which United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously hurt and a dozen more injured and a District Court judge John Roll, a nine-year-old girl born on September 11th, and a congressional aide were killed has left us all stunned. Her...

On Capitol Hill, Lawmakers Talk About Security
Yahoo! Buzz As the U.S. House observed the moment of silence today for the Victims of the shooting in Tucson, the new realities facing lawmakers and their staffs were on display. Capitol Police checked staff identification cards of those walking onto the East Steps. For the few lawmakers at the Capitol this morning, the focus was on security, particularly when they are in their districts. House members have a long tradition of being easily accessible to constituents. They visit schools, county f...

Arizona's Eighth Congressional District Epitomized Over-The-Top Demonization Of Liberals
While it is critical to understand that Jared Loughner's Terrorist Attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and dozens of her constituents over the weekend was not directly caused by the words of her political opponents, the tragedy in Arizona presents an opportunity to examine the nature of our political discourse. Giffords' district, the Arizona Eighth, is a prime example of overheated Rhetoric. Her 2010 campaign was plagued by Vandalism and death threats from anonymous citizens, as well as hyperbol...

Loughner's Politics: Chaos. Pure Chaos
The past 36 hours have been a constant circle of finger-pointing, denial, finger-pointing, and more denial with a heavy dose of false equivalence thrown in. Conservatives say Loughner's liberal; liberals say he's conservative. Neither one is true. At best, Jared Lee Loughner was an Anarchist in how he viewed his impact on the external world. And he was a man with a grudge. Mother Jones has an exclusive interview with a friend that confirms the hunch I've had all day. His politics had nothing to ...

Massacre, Made in America
Truthseeker, have you ever seen a website run by a Democrat that is ripe with incendiary "don't retreat -- reload!" Rhetoric while displaying a national map peppered with gun-sight crosshairs and shooting targets hovering over the districts governed by their opponents? Giffords was a literal target of Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers and she knew it, as Giffords herself remarked on MSNBC before the last election, "We're on Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is, the way she has it depic...

True Face of Progressivism Exposed in a Tragedys Aftermath.
There is no proof yet that Christianne Amanpour is a child molester. Let that sink in for a second. Outrageous, right? Especially when simply said out of the blue like that. Yet that is how the media is treating the insanity of the left-wing progressive charge that Conservatives, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are somehow responsible for the actions of a man who had been obsessed with his target since 2007, more than two years before the Tea Party was in existence. Amanpour, on her low-rated â€..

Fidel Castro Has an Opinion on the Arizona Shooting
Photo: Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photo/Getty Images In a column entitled "An Atrocious Act," Cuba's former leader offered his take on Saturday's shooting. Castro condemned accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner's actions, writing: "Even those of us who don't share his (President Barack Obama's) political or philosophical ideas in the least sincerely hope that no Children, judges, congressmen or any U.S. citizen should die in such an absurd and unjustifiable way." But he also took the opportunity to tak...

Glenn Beck to Sarah Palin: An attempt on you could bring the Republic down
Laura Donovan writes for The Daily Caller. She moved to DC upon graduating from the University of Arizona, where she served as opinions editor and news reporter for the college newspaper. Her work has appeared in Townhall Magazine and the Huffington Post college section, among other publications, and she has appeared on Clash Radio. In the wake of Saturday’s Tucson, Ariz., shooting that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition, six dead and more than a dozen injured, for...

"Fox & Friends" Now Scapegoating Sheriff Clarence Dupnik?
After having interviewed, Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, Brian Kilmeade hosted an interview with FOX fave Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeau, who makes frequent appearances, on Fox, to complain about how the Obama administration is being negligent with regard to the border. It appears that the Right Wing isn't happy about Dupnik's commentary about the "vitriol" in Arizona and Babeau's appearance could be part of some "damage control" on the part of FOX to deny what is, clearly, a harsh reality o...

Arizona Massacre Prompts Political 'Cheap Shots'
When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords collapsed outside the Safeway in Tucson Saturday morning, felled by a hail of bullets that killed six and wounded another 13 innocent people that had come to see her, some were quick to claim that the carnage was the product not merely of the tortured mind and trigger-happy fingers of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner. Rather, many on the American Left said the horror could be traced to the malign influence of American Conservatives; members...

Tragedy in Arizona
A year ago, we introduced a new school Curriculum, Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond, with this urgent call: "There is a pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned." The tragedy in Tucson this weekend reminds us that it's a call that politicians and pundits would do well to heed. We may never get a clear picture of what was going through the confused mind of the Tucson gunman. But as my colleague Mark Potok explained on NPR this ...

Rhetorical Reality
In “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” Randy Newman’s wistful, Bush-era song about the end of the American empire, there is a line about “the leaders we have/are the worst we’ve ever had/but they’re not the worst this poor world has ever seen.” Words to take to heart as we debate whether or not Hate Speech on the right—above all, on Fox News, in the blogosphere, and on Talk Radio—has made events like the attempted Assassination of Congr...

Massacre in Tucson A Sad Day for America: Salzburger Nachrichten, Austria
How responsible is right-wing Rhetoric for the Assassination attempt against Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? According to columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten, where to pin the blame couldn’t be clearer. For the Salzburger Nachrichten, Thomas Spang writes in part: For months, the political right has been turning up the heat in the United States. In this poisoned atmosphere, a young man reaches for his gun. In the political discourse of the United ...

No Credibility, No Class-The Giffords Shooting and the American Left
Back in November 2010, in the wake of the massive defeat suffered by Democrats in the Midterm Elections, former Bill Clinton pollster Mark Penn said this: Mark Penn:  “Barack Obama needs an Oklahoma City bombing-type event to reconnect with the American People.” Hmmm. Now look at how quickly Progressives and their compatriots in the Mainstream Media jumped to blame Conservatives for the shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and several others wounded, including