Arizona Massacre Prompts Political 'Cheap Shots'

Rush Limbaugh Attacks 'The Left' Over Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Response
Rush Limbaugh criticizes the response of the Democratic Party and the media to the Tucson tragedy in his Radio Show today, saying that the event has been used to advance the Left’s political interests. “The left, including the media, cannot accept the reality of a madman slaughtering innocent people. It cannot be ‘individual responsibility’ -- they reject that concept anyway,” Limbaugh said. He goes on to say that “the Left” believes that Utopia can happen and th

Arizona leaders play blame-game, but get it wrong
While investigators continue to investigate the tragic shooting that took place in Tucson last Saturday, leaders in Arizona have eagerly jumped on the main stream media’s overblown, detrimental, blame- game wagon. Only hours after the shooting took place, Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik argued that the “vitriol” of the Country's harshly polarized political climate was partly to blame, arguing that “unbalanced individuals are uniquely "susceptible" to vitriol.” ...

Media whitewashes ultra-right in Arizona massacre
Here the central role was played by the ultra-right media campaign mounted by Fox News, Talk Show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, including one Republican Senate Candidate who called for a "Second Amendment solution" to political issues -- i.e., the use of Firearms. As the World Socialist Web Site explained yesterday (See "Arizona Assassination spree tied to political right"), the political conceptions in Loughner's Internet postings are...

Democrats that are politicizing Arizona tragedy have ulterior motives
The tragic shootings in Arizona on Saturday that left a nine-year-old girl dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords severely wounded should have been a time to put politics aside and honor the Victims. Instead, many people on the left are capitalizing on this opportunity to blame Conservatives and the lack of Gun Control as contributing the tragedy. Let’s take Democratic Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for example. Instead of giving a fact-based Press Conference Sa...

Brave Woman Who Grabbed Clip from Shooter Blames Right-Wing Media and Rhetoric In Fox News Interview
Patricia Maisch, 61, was the brave woman who kept alleged shooter Jared Loughner from unloading a second clip into a Tuscon crowd on Saturday. Wounded herself from a bullet, she saw him attempting to equip his gun with another magazine, grabbed him and knelt on his ankle, delaying the reload and potentially saving many more lives.  So when Fox News interviewed her on Sunday, they clearly wanted to know if her strength could translate to psychic healing as Americans grappled with the tragedy...

Mourners to hold 'community healing' Mass after Arizona shooting
Mourners will gather at a memorial Mass Tuesday for Victims of the weekend shooting outside an Arizona Supermarket that killed 6 people and wounded 14 others. The Mass will be held at 7 p.m. (9 p.m. ET) at St. Odiilia Church in Tucson, Arizona - where 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Green had her First Communion a year ago. "Right now it is important as a community to pull together and to reach out in care and concern to all who have been affected by this tragedy," Bishop Gera...

Loughner shoots Palin and Angles political careers to death
It may be weeks, months or perhaps never that we find out what really motivated 22 year-old  Jared Lee Loughner to purchase a 9 mm gun with an extended clip and Murder real people in what he calls “conscience dreaming” [sic]. While he is being assessed, should we wonder why Sarah Palin removed her “crosshairs map” hours after six people were slaughtered and fourteen wounded in a spate of violence?      While a person as deranged as Loughner c...

Keep rampage blame where it belongs
We add our thoughts and prayers to the many for critically wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the six people killed, including a senior Federal Judge, a 9-year-old girl fascinated by politics, a congressional aide and three other innocents, as well as the 13 people wounded, in the attack Saturday in Tucson. The accused, Jared Loughner, is a deeply disturbed young man whose violent proclivities had frightened several acquaintances but who had not yet done anything overt enough to bring h...

Which Path Will Our Nation Choose In Dealing With The Arizona Shooting?
There are grown up and constructive reactions to the tragic Arizona shooting. And then there are the puerile and destructive reactions. So far, President Obama has chosen the high road, and shown grace and dignity in this time of sorrow. Let’s hope that he goes tomorrow to the memorial service for the fallen in Arizona with the intent to help heal the hearts of the mourners. He should continue to condemn violence, and lay the blame where it belongs. The alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loug...

The first instinct of weak minds is to blame the Tea Party, Palin
Image via Wikipedia Marc Thiessen: After the attempted car bombing in Times Square last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly speculated that the attack had been carried out by "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health-care bill or something." At the Nation, columnist Robert Dreyfuss wrote that "a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government Far Right" was probably behind the bombing. Countless others in the left-wing blogosphere joined the "...

Sheriff Dupnick undaunted by criticism from right, blasts Limbaugh
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been under relentless fire from the right since his impassioned and impromptu plea for an end to hateful and violent Rhetoric. (Though as Media Matters points out at that link, they "repeatedly praised a different Arizona sheriff, Paul Babeu, who regularly engages in vitriolic attacks against President Obama and Democrats," and revere the Racist Joe Arpaio). Dupnik has been attacked by everyone from Red State and Malkin to his home State Senator, Jon Kyl....

Hate, violence, extremism: Krugman on the Arizona shooting
By Michael J.W. Stickings Just to drive the point home, allow me to quote Paul Krugman, who yesterday made the case that many of us have been making the past few days: When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen? Put me in the latter category. I've had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the fina...

Fox News Part Of Right Wing Attack On Sheriff Dupnik?
As I have reported, Fox News wasted no time in presenting Democratic County Sheriff in a negative manner. (here, here, here) His remarks about the kind of vitriol, spread by media, seem to have also sparked quite the outrage in the Right Wing. As "Right Wing Watch" points out, Dupnik is being attacked by Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, David Limbaugh, "Gateway Pundit," the Heritage Foundation, the Media Research Center, and Michelle Malkin who accuses him of being a "pro-illegal alien Amnesty sheriff." W...

Hijacking A Massacre
Best headline of the day, via The Daily Mail in Britain: How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah PalinThe substance of the article makes points you have heard before regarding the murderous rampage by Jared Loughner: Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s former Chief of Staff and a ­figure compared to Labour’s Alastair Campbell, once said: ‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.’ And those on his side of the political divide have clearly seen t...

Fox News Website Continues Partisan Attack On Sheriff Dupnik's "Vitriol" Comments
If Propaganda is to be believed, it should be repeated. Yesterday, in both an interview on "Fox & Friends" and an article on the Fox News website, Fox News featured critical commentary about Pima County Sheriff's remarks about the vitriol in our society - vitriol that, as he stated, is promulgated by the media. Obviously needing to deflect and divert from the appropriate substance of Dupnik's comments, Fox is maintaining its seeming scapegoating of the sheriff. Today's headline (first under the ...

Arizona sheriff condemns Limbaughs irresponsible rhetoric
Stumble This! An Arizona sheriff responsible for investigating the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) confronted conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Tuesday for the "irresponsible" Rhetoric he uses on his Radio Show. "The kind of Rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told ABC News. "[Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against governm...

Absurd fingerpointing continues in wake of Arizona shooting
As more become clear about Jared Loughner, the facts seem to mean less and less for those seeking to turn this tragedy into a political witch hunt. It appears that Loughner, had an obsession with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) dating back to 2007 - before Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement came on the national scene, and the warning signs that Loughner was an unstable person had been ignored; even by police. And while the debate on Loughner’s political leanings is still raging, Chris Ci...

False Equivalency Watch, Cont'd
FALSE EQUIVALENCY WATCH, CONT'D.... Following up on an item from yesterday, the drive continues to insist that "both sides" are equally to blame for rhetorical excesses and the Toxicity of our discourse. Ross Douthat offers the latest evidence, arguing, "If overheated Rhetoric and martial imagery really led inexorably to Murder, then both parties would belong in the dock." This isn't surprising, given that the media establishment appears obligated to always blame "both sides" for everything at...

Lawyers: Insanity Defense Wont Work
CNN reports: The alleged shooter in Saturday’s deadly Tucson massacre may have difficulty making the case for a successful insanity plea, experts said Tuesday. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, who authorities say shot up a gathering held by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, outside a Supermarket, has been anecdotally regarded as very troubled and perhaps mentally unbalanced because of his ramblings spotted on the Internet and the ways he has been described by acquaintances. But Paul Callan...

Reid praised Arizona sheriff in 2008 speech
In a floor Speech nearly three years ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised the sheriff investigating the deadly Arizona Shooting Spree who has faced criticism from the right.  Reid (D-Nev.) took to the Senate floor on April 15, 2008 to praise the "truly commendable" 50-year Law Enforcement career of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.  "Clarence Dupnik is known as a man of action, integrity, and innovation," Reid said. "These skills have been invaluable to his 50 years of service t...

Arizona Citizens And Bikers Prepare to Face Off Against Westboro
Westboro Baptist Church, the deranged folks led by Fred Phelps, are at it again, this time praising Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter from the Arizona massacre that killed six innocents and injured many more. Phelps and his merry band of hate filled followers are planning to come to Arizona to Protest outside of the youngest Victim of Saturday's shooting, nine year old Christina Green's Funeral. Arizona citizens and bikers from all around are planning on placing themselves as human buffers to ke...

The War on Sarah Palin
I've never seen anyone who inspires such fear and hatred on the left as Sarah Palin. The Arizona shooting has led to a whole new round of anti-Palin hysteria. David Brooks addresses the issue and the media's complicity: Other themes from Loughner’s life fit the rampage-killer profile. He saw himself in world historical terms. He appeared to have a poor sense of his own illness (part of a condition known as anosognosia). He had increasingly frequent run-ins with the police. In short, the e...

David Brooks vs. Andrew Sullivan
One can read Andrew Sullivan's tireless, yet exceedingly tiresome response to David Brooks' The Politicized Mind - regarding seemingly classically disturbed spree killer, Jared Loughner. Typical of Sullivan these days, he cherry picks, ignoring evidence that Loughner had met Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Loughner strongly disapproved of her given a perceived lack of a response to some bizarre question of his. Of course, Sullivan ignores that evidence because he wants...

Oregon Rep. Schrader holds Beck, Limbaugh responsible for Arizona tragedy
 Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader, Democrat, is holding Right Wing commentators Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck responsible for the tragic Shooting Spree in Arizona. Saturday, outside of a strip mall in Tucson Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner killed six people, including Federal Judge John Roll, and wounded more than a dozen, including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, a Democrat who supported Health Care reform, was Loughner's target. Giffords was...

How low can Wikileaks go? Julian Assanges sick attempt to exploit the Arizona shootings
In a Press Release late last night, Wikileaks made a sick attempt to link in the public mind the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to widespread outrage in America over its recent leaking of hundreds of thousands of US government documents. Even for Julian Assange this is surely a low point IN Media manipulation, and here he is clearly mimicking the Far Left’s ludicrous attempts to blame the Right for the Arizona shootings. Here’s what the release, entitled “WikiLeak