As portrait of Jared Loughner sharpens, 'vitriol' blame fades

'Blood Libel' Comment Sparks Controversy
(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Sarah Palin is being criticized for using a term that has anti-Semitic overtones to blast her critics. The former Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee released a video statement on her Facebook page about the weekend shooting in Arizona, that killed six and left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others injured. In the video Palin expressed her sympathy for the families of the Victims of the massacre. She then attacked those in the media who blamed her poli...

The Lefts Attack On Palins Response to the Tucson Tragedy is All About Appeasement, Not Gun Imagery
In the wake of this weekend’s shooting in Arizona, the opportunists of the Left barely waited for the bodies to cool or for confirmation of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ fate before pouncing on what simply had to be the atrocity’s root cause: Sarah Palin. Even though indications of culprit Jared Loughner’s true mindset started appearing on the very day of the shooting, agenda-driven vultures proceeded to lecture Palin on everything from what she needed to say to the proper level of remo

Funeral held for Christina Green
Christina Green, 9, was born on Sept. 11, 2001, the day the trade center was destroyed in a Terrorist Attack. The flag, suspended between two fire trucks at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Tucson, was the largest one to survive. The service was private with no cameras inside the church, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Christina, recently elected to the Student council at her middle school, went to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' appearance at a Tucson shopping center with an adult friend because sh...

NYT on Obamas speech: Thank goodness he spoke out against this weeks rhetorical ugliness especially Palins
Before this week, I would have chalked this up to simple dishonesty. They know perfectly well who he meant last night when he talked about “pointing fingers or assigning blame” in a way that “wounds,” I’d have said, but they’re such miserable shills for their liberal readership that they feel obliged to cocoon them from the truth. But after four days of voodoo and magical thinking? I don’t know. If the left can hallucinate a right-wing motive for Jared...

'Blood Libel' Comment Sparks Controversy
(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Sarah Palin is being criticized for using a term that has anti-Semitic overtones to blast her critics. The former Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee released a video statement on her Facebook page about the weekend shooting in Arizona, that killed six and left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others injured. In the video Palin expressed her sympathy for the families of the Victims of the massacre. She then attacked those in the media who blamed her poli...

He spoke like a President: Obama addresses a grieving Nation
On January 12, 2011 at a memorial service that was held at the University of Arizona’s McKale memorial center, President Barack Obama addressed a crowd of over 15,000 that came to pay tribute to 19 Americans whose lives were tragically altered by an apparent mad man.  Of the 19 that were shot that fateful Saturday morning, 6 were killed. The senseless violence that occurred in front of a Safeway Supermarket in Tucson, Arizona at the hands of a deranged gunman has since sparked a bitte...

Bloomberg: Don't blame Palin
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has got Sarah Palin’s back - saying she had nothing to do with last weekend’s shooting in Tucson. “I don’t think I’d blame Sarah Palin or any other individual,” the Billionaire mayor said Thursday. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 “I don’t think any of that (political Rhetoric) had anything to do with this, but I don’t know the facts, and who knows what will eventually come out with thi...

Palin to appear Monday on Fox News (The Cutline)
Sarah Palin will sit down with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday for her "first extended interview" since the massacre in Tucson, Ariz., according to the New York Times. In the aftermath of a shooter's attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Palin's use of gun-sight imagery in the 2010 campaign has become a focus in a national debate over heated political Rhetoric. Palin broke her silence Wednesday in an online video denouncing what she called "blood Libel".  Several political commen...

Jared Loughner might be mentally ill. But does that matter?
Jared Loughner’s YouTube videos, his online writings and even his reading list suggest that the 22-year-old accused of six deaths and 14 injuries in this weekend’s shooting rampage in Arizona was mentally disturbed. But in searching for clues to explain Loughner’s alleged actions, how much does that matter? Without interviewing Loughner or reviewing his past, several clinical Psychiatrists have acknowledged in interviews that the college dropout’s strange behavior in the last sever

Black Bag Found In Desert Believed To Be Psycho Killers
Arizona Republic: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department says it has stopped its search for a black bag that may have been hidden by the suspect hours before Saturday’s Tucson-area Shooting Spree. An 18-year-old man was walking his dog and found when he stumbled upon a black bag Thursday morning. It’s not immediately clear whether it is the same one that Jared Loughner reportedly had with him the morning six people were killed and 13 others wounded, including Arizona Congresswo...

Psycho Killer: Im In A War With Pima College, They Are Torturing Students
Arizona Republic: Jared Loughner, suspected of the Mass Shooting near Tucson, said that he was in a war with Pima Community College and that Students there were being tortured. “This is my Genocide school,” Loughner said in a September YouTube video after he received only partial credit on a late assignment. “And I haven’t forgotten the teacher that gave me a B for Freedom of Speech.” The video was the last in an escalating series of incidents that left students, ...

Governor Christy to Sarah Palin, President Speech in AZ.
As Controversy continues to gather around Sarah Palins choice of words in a recent released video, pertaining to accusations she inadvertently contributed to the shootings in Arizona. Governor Christy of New Jersey weighs in on the matter and stated, “I think people need to be judged by the way they conduct themselves in the public arena, in a way that is as minimally staged as possible. That’s where you really get to know people.” Apparently implying Sarah Palin would do much ...

Jared Loughner's Ex-girlfriend Kelsey Hawkes Speaks out
by the Left Coast Rebel As I stare at Memeorandum, my eyelids slowly creep from the bottom to the top, covering my eyes like a Great White before a thrashing around mealtime. It's not that the story is not a Big Deal (it is, of course), or that there still isn't a lot to be said on it. It's just that everyone has already said everything about it and of course, the far-left nutjobs simply can't understand that: Loughner was a Marx/Hitler fan, a nihilist, an atheist, loved heavy metal (wait, so ...

NPR Latina Daisy Hernandez Brown relief that Jared Loughner was a Gringo
NPR Latina Daisy Hernandez - Brown relief that Jared Loughner was a “Gringo” Daisy Hernandez is NOT related the Daniel Hernandez, who was one of the heroes of this past Saturday’s Tucson shooting. That being said, Daisy Hernandez writes for NPR, appears on the radio for NPR, and is the co-editor of Colonize This! But for Daisy Hernandez’s “Brown Relief”, Jared Lee Loughner was simply a “gringo” and not a Latino. And and also according to Da...

Youth Radio -- Youth Media International: What's Kanye West Got To Do With Jared Lee Loughner?
By Nishat Kurwa Originally published on Turnstyle, a project of Youth Radio. What gives? That's our question for reporters who are referring to Jared Lee Loughner as the "22-year-old College Dropout" who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It's been hner/index.html" target="_hplink">reported that Loughner dropped out of Pima Community College after being suspended. Of course, that's amid plenty of other tidbits trickling out about his purported identity - as mentally unstable, or a conspirac...

New at Reason: Peter Suderman on What the Political Class Doesn't Get About Jared Lee Loughner
There’s still no evidence of a direct link between any mainstream political discourse and the shooting in Tucson over the weekend. But the media’s reaction to the shooting tells us an awful lot about the state of political punditry.   It’s not just the cheap point scoring and the rush to politicize the shootings, either—though that’s certainly a big part of it. Indeed, writes Associate Editor Peter Suderman, that’s partially a symptom of a larger failing: the determ

Steve Bloom: Stopped for Pot: On Jared Loughner's 2007 Pipe Arrest
Much is being made out of the allegation that Tucson shooter Jared Loughner was a pot-smoker. Though it appears he stopped toking in 2008, Loughner's paraphernalia bust in 2007 may well have contributed to his madness. Anyone who's charged with pot or paraphernalia possession could harbor a grudge against the government. In Loughner's case, it was a pretty standard bust. Tucson police stopped the vehicle he was in (as a passenger) on Sept. 7, 2007. The smell of marijuana led to a search. Firs...

Did Pima Do Enough With Jared Loughner
nytimes.com: TUCSON -- Many people had a glimpse of the deep delusions and festering anger of Jared L. Loughner, but none seemed in a better position to connect the dots than officials at Pima Community College. Read the whole story: nytimes.com Get HuffPost College On Twitter and Facebook! ...

Jared Loughner's Unavoidable Face Covers Time, But There Are Alternatives
Via ​In the days since Jared Lee Loughner's deadly massacre in Arizona, we've been haunted by his face in every conceivable form -- old photos, artistic renderings, recent snapshots, online videos, online videos on television and so on -- but none more haunting than that mugshot. As you can see to the right, it made the cover of every newspaper earlier this week, but it's not going away any time soon. Weekly publications will have their turn next, with Time going especially horrorcore, t...

Thursday's Mini-Report
THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * The positive trends from December didn't last: "The number of first-time claims for Unemployment Insurance payments jumped in the first week of 2011 to the highest level since October as more Americans lined up to file following the holidays." * Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only pressed Middle Eastern leaders on systemic reforms, she did so with rather blunt language. Speaking at a conference in Qatar, she said "their countr...

Cliff Kincaid's Reefer Madness
FrumForum contributor Ron Hill, a New Orleans psychologist, rebuts David Frum's argument that pot should remain illegal because it may adversely affect schizophrenics who may end up killing people: To suggest that marijuana should remain illegal because its use is contraindicated in some part of the population makes as much sense as arguing that Alcohol should be illegal because its use is sometimes contraindicated as well. This is particularly true since Deaths from marijuana are almost unhear...

Tucson Suspect's Ex Thinks Their Breakup Was Catalyst
In the aftermath of Saturday's deadly shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in which six were killed and 14 others wounded during an apparent Assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, police and media outlets have been scrambling to learn more about the accused shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. And if that means dragging his High School girlfriend into the burning hot eye of the media, then so be it. Kelsey Hawkes, 21, who dated Loughner when she was a High School freshman, has been making the round...

Ground Zero Flag Featured At Memorial Service For Youngest Victim In Tucson, Arizona Shootings
Christina Taylor Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and had recently become interested in politics, which led her to a political event for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords where a gunman killed six and wounded 13. Green's Funeral is the first for the Victims of the Saturday Assassination attempt on Giffords. The third-grader is the granddaughter of former Yankees and Mets manager Dallas Green and the daughter of a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hundreds of well-wishers gathered on the road outside...

Sarah Palins reload backfires
After what many consider a media black-out, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerged from her den of silence and issued a video she may wish could be re-taped. Such is not the case today. What goes on the Internet is there forever. Being that Palin believes Rhetoric has no effect on individual behavior, she will be rudely surprised when scheduled Speaking Engagements are canceled.   Even after the winter thaw in Alaska, she should expect an icy reception from an America pushed too far Mr...

On the Lefts desperation, pounding the table, and pounding sand
I agree with Ed’s assessment that the President’s Speech in Arizona hit the right notes. Barack Obama kept his comments focused on the Victims while simultaneously, and explicitly, dispelling the notion that a “lack of civility” led to the tragedy. (“It did not.”) Subsequent commentary has tried to fit the President’s remarks into The Mosaic of our perpetual national political conversation, but if the President is going to start his 2012 “tria...