Difference of opinion is what makes the world go round

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...

American Psycho: Meltdown With Keith Olbermann Part 59, Tuscon Shooting Edition
On Saturday, MSNBC, like every other news channel, went all Tuscon shooting all the time.  So, they dragged Keith Olbermann in for a “Special Comment,” and Keith quickly spotted the real story… Keith Olbermann. That’s right, as the media template formed that somehow the fact that a psychopath obsessed with The Communist Manifesto had shot a Democrat Congresswoman was the result of conservative Rhetoric, Keith Olbermann quickly decided that the story was really about hi...

Commentary: Take the political rhetoric down a notch
Those searching for easy answers after a 22-year-old shot 20 people, killing six, during U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' meeting with constituents in Tucson, Ariz., on Saturday won't find any. Yes, guns are easily accessible in this country. Yes, in the past two years we have seen Political Speech ratcheted up with gun-toting participants at some Tea Party events, and some Democrats in Congress faced angry voters at town hall meetings during debate on Healthcare Reform. And, yes, the Internet a...

Huff Po Caught Scrubbing Site of Post Describing a Drone Airstrike on Palins House
Suppose that Sarah Palin lived in Pakistan. Suppose that Jared Loughner, the alleged killer of Federal Judge John Roll and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ Staffer Gabe Zimmerman, had once traveled to Pakistan. Suppose that a “credible source” told a U.S. intelligence official that Loughner, while he was in Pakistan, had met with Sarah Palin. And suppose that Sarah Palin had published a map showing Gabrielle Giffords’ Congressional District under the cross hairs of a gun sight (o...

Poll: Most Americans see no connection between Ariz. shooting and political rhetoric (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller We're probably alone in the universe, or else they're out to get us Mark Halperin: Conservatives should turn the other cheek when scapegoated for Murder Could Jon Huntsman really be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012? Auburn wins it all: Sights from the BCS National Championship [SLIDESHOW] Pucker up: Celebrities recall their first kiss [SLIDESHOW] A majority of Americans don’t see a connection between vitriolic Rhetoric and Jared Loughner...

Goldberg to mainstream media--'shut the hell up!'
Goldberg made the comment last evening on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox. O'Reilly had already castigated the Mainstream Media for joining in the Leftwing chorus of blaming Conservatives for the massacre that killed a Federal Judge and wounded a U.S. Congresswoman, among others. As a nightly guest on The O'Reilly Factor, Goldberg exposes bias inherent in the news reporting of the media.  Goldberg had been part of CBS News under former anchor Dan Rather, and subsequently became a Whistleblower ...

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...

Let's Just Say...
...for shits and giggles that Jared Lee Loughner grew up in a void and the violent Rhetoric and imagery that permeates our national political discourse had no relation whatsoever to his actions. Let us leave aside any notion that people are affected by growing up in a culture in which it's acceptable to a Republican president for his lunch guests to say things like "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will ne...

Lone nuts and convenient definitions of "terrorism"
"Columbine" author Dave Cullen wrote yesterday that most media figures compulsively -- and incorrectly -- assign all killers to one of two binaries: Crazy or political. Right-wing commentators do the same thing, for the most part, though they tend to say killers are either crazy or Terrorists. And while they'll usually freely admit that Tim McVeigh counted as a terrorist, for the most part they reserve that term for Muslims who kill. There is, for example, Charles Krauthammer's classic column on...

Missing From Loughner Debate: Soul Searching
Jared Loughner (Credit: Personal Photo) There's been quite a bit of back and forth this week about who should share the blame for the actions of alleged Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner. Some on the left have pointed to incendiary Rhetoric from Sarah Palin and others on the right, while some on the right have sought to tie Loughner to the beliefs of the left. Palin was blamed in part for using of a bullseye icon to identify political targets - including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords - before the ...

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...

Missing From Loughner Debate: Soul Searching
Jared Loughner (Credit: Personal Photo) There's been quite a bit of back and forth this week about who should share the blame for the actions of alleged Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner. Some on the left have pointed to incendiary Rhetoric from Sarah Palin and others on the right, while some on the right have sought to tie Loughner to the beliefs of the left. Palin was blamed in part for using of a bullseye icon to identify political targets - including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords - before the ...

Blood will be on your hands, Whoopie Goldberg warned talking heads in March
Stumble This! Whoopi Goldberg may not be the best of talents when it comes to picking scripts that will become breakout hits as films, but she certainly seems to have absolutely nailed a prediction of what America's political discourse would become in an era of ubiquitous violent Rhetoric. During a March 2010 broadcast of ABC's daytime Talk Show "The View," co-host Joy Behar called out "an Al Qaeda Christmas Card" circulated by Fox News employee Sarah Palin, showing a map of the US with gun sig...

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...

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...

One wonders what we will learn from these senseless shootings
The moment of silence came and went Monday, and I tried to set aside my own anger and heed President Barack Obama's call "for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the Victims and their families closely at heart." The quiet passed, and I was revisited by the uneasy sense we are unlikely to learn anything from Saturday's tragedy in Tucson. Is the lesson of the deadly shooting destined to be buried with the dead in a country that day by day watches its ability to reason ...

Facebook & Tweets Wish Death On Sarah Palin: Sanctimonious Liberals Silent
Liberals on Facebook are now wishing death upon Sarah Palin I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive: KILL SARAH PALIN Moving to Canada if someone doesn't kill Sarah Palin by 2011. On Twitter: Where are the voices of the sanctimonious Democrats, lib Bloggers (Markos "Screw Them" Molitas, Charles Johnson at Little Green Fartballs) and lib media who have blamed her, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, the US Constitution, etc, etc and dare lecture about toning down the rhetor...

10 Things You Didn't Know About Gabrielle Giffords
1. Gabrielle Giffords was born in Tucson, Ariz. On June 8, 1970 to Gloria, an art conservator, and Spencer Giffords who served on the School Board district and ran the family's auto and tire business, El Campo Tire, Inc. 2. After graduating with a degree in Latin American history and sociology from Scripps College in Claremont, Calif. in 1993, Giffords studied in Mexico on a Fulbright Scholarship. 3. Giffords graduated from Cornell University in 1996 with a master's degree in regional planning...

Hate Speech the Rights Magic Bullet (Guest Voice)
Hate Speech the Right’s Magic Bullet by Michael Winship The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off. For weeks and months, that gun, the weapon of angry Rhetoric and intemperate rabblerousing, has been cocked and loaded in plain view on the American stage; Saturday morning outside a Shopping Mall in Tucson, Arizona, it went off again and again and again. The target, Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the Un...

Poll: Most Say Rhetoric, Killings Unrelated
From a deeply saddened CBS News: Poll: Most Americans Feel Rhetoric, Tucson Shooting Unrelated Posted by Daniel Carty January 11, 2011 Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country’s heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll. So either our media master has better ratchet up their efforts or move on to their fall back position - Gun Control. In the wake ...

Let's go after the real perps: the NRA and their supporters
Jared Loughner is in custody and I'd put money on his conviction and Incarceration.  But the rest of the perps are still out there, still armed, still certain of their rights, and still ready to shoot or help you shoot. Letter writers to the New York Times have, for the most part, agreed that the right has something to answer for. From Denver:  "Opposed to the perception disseminated by the G.O.P., it’s not the liberal elite exploiting the insecurities of the masses to g...

CBS Poll: American Public Not Buying Democrat, Media Spin on Arizona Shooting
From CBS News: Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country’s heated political Rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll. In the wake of the shooting, much focus has been put on the harsh tone of politics in Washington and around the country, particularly after a contentious Midterm Election. Rhetoric and imagery from both Republicans and Democrats have included gun-related ...

The campaign to end hate speech
In the wake of the Tucson shooting tragedy, many are stepping forward to start a campaign to end political Hate Speech.  How reassuring to be made safe from hateful people.  Some politicians are calling for Regulation of Speech. Aren't you glad the government will identify hate speech and deal with the perpetrators?    Here are some of the people we think the campaign should single out for hate speech counseling before things get too inflamed: "We're not going to stand by and...

No Joke: NBC News Has Grayson On to Condemn Hate Speech
Former Rep. Alan Grayson is still unapologetic for referring to his opponent as "Taliban Dan" in an ad. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is for those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of thought, expression, and worship. Read more... We invite all Americans who share these values to join us here at Fox Nation. Investigators today released this Mug Shot of Jared Lee Loughner, the guman accused of kill...

Good News: Doctor Says Giffords 100 Percent Certain to Survive
truffelocity on GOP Rep. Allen West: I Have No Plans to Tone Down My “Strong Language” in Wake of Giffords Shooting… gastorgrab on GOP Rep. Allen West: I Have No Plans to Tone Down My “Strong Language” in Wake of Giffords Shooting… gastorgrab on Dem Sen. Sherrod Brown: “Hate Speech” On Radio During ObamaCare Debate Possible Reason Behind Giffords Shooting… Proud Infidel on GOP Rep. Allen West: I Have No Plans to Tone Down My “Strong Lan...