Angle beats back criticism in Arizona shooting aftermath

Sen. Paul: Dems trying to 'manufacture' controversy over rhetoric
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused liberals of wanting to "manufacture" a political Controversy over Conservatives' Rhetoric even before the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Paul, in dismissing the notion that alleged shooter Jared Loughner was motivated by political ideology, accused some Democrats of trying to exploit the attack as a way of boxing in Republicans. "Well, these are the kind of things that I think some on the left decided to manufacture even before the events occur. ...

Angle: Don't blame me for Tucson shooting rampage (AP)
Las Vegas – Former U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle says she's not to blame for the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and 13 wounded. The former Nevada assemblywoman who tried to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday she condemns all violence. The Tea Party politician calls Saturday's killings senseless and horrifying. Police say 22-year-old Jared Loughner fired at a crowd gathered at an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head. I...

Sharron Angle: Don't blame me for Tucson shooting rampage
Former U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle says she's not to blame for the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and 14 injured. The former Nevada assemblywoman who tried to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday she condemns all violence. The Tea Party politician calls the killings Saturday senseless and horrifying. Police say 22-year-old Jared Loughner fired at a crowd gathered at an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot in the head but survived. L...

44: Palin accuses critics of 'blood libel'
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) released a statement Wednesday morning denouncing efforts to blame her for Saturday's Tucson shooting rampage. "Like many, I've spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance," Palin said in a lengthy statement posted on her Facebook page. "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...

(Sharron) Angle: Media 'inappropriately attributing blame' for Tucson shooting
Source: The Hill Former Nevada Senate Candidate Sharron Angle denied her campaign Rhetoric helped motivate the Tucson gunman and accused the media of "finger-pointing towards political figures" to boost Ratings. Angle's suggestion during the midterm campaign that voters could pursue "Second Amendment remedies" to settle political differences with Congress has been widely criticized in the wake of the attack that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in critical condition. "I...

Sharron Angle: 'Irresponsible' to blame Tea Party
Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle is condemning what she calls "finger-pointing" at the small-government movement in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting. Angle, a former Republican nominee for Senate, said in a statement that it is "irresponsible" to blame her, Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement for the Arizona shooting rampage that killed six people and left Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, fighting for her life. "Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the p...

Angle: Don't blame me for Tucson shooting rampage
Former U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle says she's not to blame for the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and 14 injured. The former Nevada assemblywoman who tried to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday she condemns all violence. The Tea Party politician calls the killings Saturday senseless and horrifying. Police say 22-year-old Jared Loughner fired at a crowd gathered at an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot in the head but survived. L...

Sharron Angle Defends Inflammatory Rhetoric In Face Of Criticism
Nevada Republican Sharron Angle came to her own defense on Wednesday in response to criticism of her use of inflammatory language that made headlines and raised eyebrows during her unsuccessful campaign to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during the Midterm Election season. Angle and her questionable choice of words -- such as floating "Second Amendment remedies" as a possible solution to use "when our government becomes tyrannical" -- landed back in the spotlight following the tragic...

the Fruits of Political Extremism
The motives of the gunman who shot the US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six bystanders in Tuscon on Saturday are unclear. We do not know whether the youth who has been arrested for the crime, Jared Loughner, was driven by political grievance or Mental Illness. But to many in America this looks like an atrocity that was waiting to happen. Since Barack Obama entered the White House two years ago, the American right has adopted partisan Rhetoric of the most reckless kind. A year ago...

Don't Tone It Down, Tone It Up: Make Debate "Worthy of Those We Have Lost"
The crowd of 14,000 that had gathered to celebrate the lives of the six people who died Saturday and to pray with Obama for the recovery of those who were wounded -- including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford -- cheered the reference to a simpler, more innocent and more humane Patriotism that stood in such stark contrast to the vitriol of contemporary politics. It has been said that Obama strives for a post-partisan balance. But this was Obama speaking as a pre-partisan, as an idealist re...

Obama strives to comfort mourners and unite a nation
"We can be better," he said, striking a familiar refrain. "What we cannot do," he said, "is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other." What's required now, he said, is that we "expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy." Obama, interrupted repeatedly by cheers from the crowd, eulogized those who died and praised the people who rushed to the scene of the shooting --the two men who wrestled suspect Jared Loug...

Obama to the nation: We can be better than this
Summoning the soul of a nation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday implored Americans to honor those slain and injured in the Arizona shootings by becoming better people, telling a polarized citizenry that it is time to talk with each other “in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.” Following a Hospital bedside visit with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the target of the Assassination, he said: “She knows we’re here, and she knows we love her.” In an electrifying mo...

Blame Arizona shooting on the shooter
It will be all too easy and popular to claim that the shooting in Arizona that killed six people was caused by the vitriol prevalent in American political discourse, but as usual the easy and popular explanation of this tragedy will avoid the truth, R. Lee Wrights, Libertarian writer, Activist and potential 2012 presidential Candidate said in a statement today. "As a father of two daughters myself, I am especially saddened by the Murder of a 9-year-old girl, and I mourn the death of all those ki...

Angle defends herself against ties to Arizona shooting
WASHINGTON -- Sharron Angle defended herself today against charges that comments she made in her campaign for the U.S. Senate from Nevada last year helped create an atmosphere that contributed to the Mass Shooting in Arizona last Saturday. "I condemn all acts of violence," Angle said in a statement issued overnight. "The despicable act in Tucson is a horrifying and senseless tragedy, and should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual." "Expanding the context of ...

Sharron Angle: Accusing Me of Violent Rhetoric Could Cause Violence
The emergence of Sarah Palin from her bunker has emboldened Nevada’s Sharron Angle to throw her hate (oops! I mean “hat”) into the ring. Infamous for invoking “Second Amendment remedies” repeatedly in her campaign speeches, Angle now whines that her First Amendment rights are being “infringed upon” — because she’s being criticized. “Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people’s Constitutional liber...

Abbreviated pundit round-up
New York Times: It is a president’s responsibility to salve a national wound. President Obama did that on Wednesday evening at the memorial service in Tucson for the six people who died in last weekend’s terrible shooting. It was one of his Most Powerful and uplifting speeches. Mr. Obama called on ideological campaigners to stop vilifying their opponents. The only way to move forward after such a tragedy, he said, is to cast aside "point-scoring and pettiness." He rightly focused pr...

Sharron Angle defends rhetoric in wake of Arizona (The Ticket)
Former Nevada GOP Senate Candidate Sharron Angle is pushing back against critics aiming to link her campaign Rhetoric to the shootings in Arizona. "I condemn all acts of violence. The despicable act in Tucson is a horrifying and senseless tragedy, and should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual," Angle said in a statement, per CNN. "Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people's Constitutional liberties is both dangerous and ...

For Once, Washington Gets it Right
Anyone walking around Capitol Hill this week would have been struck by the stillness and quiet -- and especially by how vividly this contrasted with the acrimony swirling online, on Cable News, and on Talk Radio over who should bear the blame for last weekend's massacre in Tucson that gravely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others. Critics like to claim that Washington is the catalyst for this sort of rage. But right now, they'd be hard-pressed to turn up much evidence....

Grieving Tucson braces for victims' funerals
By Tim Gaynor TUCSON, Arizona | Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:05am EST TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - She sang like an angel in the church girls' choir, was a top Student, and was gunned down at nine years old as she went to see government in action on a Tucson street corner. Christina Green, the youngest Victim of a Shooting Spree last Saturday that claimed six lives and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords battling for her life, will be the first to be buried on Thursday as Tucson grieves for its dead. "She show...

Sharron Angle Responds to the Arizona Tragedy, Says It's 'Irresponsible' To Assign Blame To Her, The Tea Party or Sarah Palin
"Finger-pointing towards political figures is an audience-rating game" Politico.com Former Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Sharron Angle is blasting those blaming her for inciting the Arizona shooting that injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, saying the accused shooter went off the deep end long before the Tea Party movement started. In her first comments - coming three days after the shooting - Angle said in harshly worded statement that her critics were “dangerous ...

Angle: Don't blame me for Tucson shooting rampage
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Former U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle said on Tuesday that she's not to blame for the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and 13 wounded. Ms. Angle, a former Nevada assemblywoman who tried to unseat Senate M......

Sharron Angle Rediscovers Her First Amendment Remedies
Priceless. Sharron Angle, who once told her supporters that if they didn’t get what they wanted at the Ballot Box, they should pursue their “Second Amendment remedies,” found it prudent yesterday to emphasize her deep and abiding faith in the First Amendment. Via the New York Times coverage of Sarah Palin’s, uh, courageous [cough] public/media appearance on . . . uh, her Face Book page, [cough], we find this: Ms. Palin was not the only one to respond to criticism Wednesd...

Alert Captain Renault
pic via Bruce_Fulton at flickr.com The usual right-wing suspects seem to really have strong objections to any memorial service involving someone who isn’t right-wing. From Paul Wellstone to Coretta Scott King to Ted Kennedy and so it shall be in regard to the service for the Victims of the violence of Jared Lee Loughner (three name rule for all assassins). Because THAT is the first thing you complain about after a service remembering victims…not the victims, but how the Memorial Se...

Obama's Bullseye
Last night, for his first time in office, Barack Obama sounded like the president of all Americans. Obama famously burst onto the national scene in 2004 with an address to the Democratic Convention in which he declared, “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.” During his own run for the presidency four years later, he would echo this post-partisan theme. But the first two years of Obama’s presidency have been contentions ones. Wh

God Never Apologizes. ... But Don't You Think It's About Time He Did?
BEYOND WESTBORO The instance of Jared Lee Laughner's horrendous Assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has prompted the MSM to analyze just how much politicians and pundits exacerbate violence with their Speech and actions. Notice, however, that not one commentator mentioned anyone within the Religious Right communities: Giffords has weighed in as a pro-choice, pro- ENDA and pro-Health Care Reform. There are over 500 churches in the Tucson metropolitan area, with Baptist (approx. 80...