House Dem To Introduce Bill Banning Speech About Congressmen That Could Be Perceived As Threatening

Exclusive: Pawlenty addresses Palin-attack story
Earlier today, the media reported on a supposed dust-up between Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin over the Controversial use of “crosshairs” symbols on her website. Peter Hamby at CNN tweeted that “Pawlenty didn’t really ‘jab’ or ‘swipe’ at Palin,” but the former Minnesota Governor began taking criticism from Palin supporters nonetheless.  What Pawlenty said was that the imagery wasn’t really “his style” and he wouldn’t ...

Your Words Do Hurt Me
In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting, which left six dead, 14 others injured, and a critically wounded federal public defender Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in ICU (UPI News), there has been a lot made about the motives of Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter. There are concerns that recent political Rhetoric of violent imagery from the Right might have been a motive for the seriously disturbed young man.  A recent article in Talking Points Memo reports that back in June 2010, Repub...

Supporters urge Palin to hit back at liberal critics on Giffords shooting
Sarah Palin has stayed mostly silent on the Arizona massacre. This may be smart for her in the long-term - and if so, she is right to take the long-term view. After all, at this point no one should second-guess Palin’s political instincts . You do not rise from PTA mom to the head of the conservative political stratosphere by making dumb moves. Facing a firestorm of unwarranted criticism over gun metaphors that her enemies claim fed the heated political climate surrounding the Tucso...

Bulls-Mouth
Excerpts From A Time For Choosing By Gary P Jackson The radical left and their allies in the media have been working over time trying to blame the tragic mass Murder in Arizona Saturday morning on Sarah Palin. The “smoking gun” they claim is the “Take Back The 20” campaign Sarah launched last year. This was an effort to defeat vulnerable Democrats in Congressional Districts that she and John McCain won in 2008. It was a targeted effort. Most ad campaigns for ANYTHING are targeted e

Zev Yaroslavsky: A Time to Cool the Rhetoric
On Saturday morning, before she was shot, Gabrielle Giffords was performing one of her most vital duties as a public servant. She was meeting with the public. The Arizona congresswoman knew there were risks; last March, the windows of her office were shattered after her vote for Health Care reform. During her hotly contested campaign for Reelection, gun gimmicks and imagery abounded. On a map on Sarah Palin's political action committee's website, Giffords' district was among a number that had ...

Pete King: We Need to Stop the Fear
Rep. Pete King thinks cops need the power to stop people carrying guns within 1,000 feet of federal officials because Americans are becoming afraid of listening to lawmakers in public. The powerful Long Island Republican who chairs the Homeland Security Committee thinks the Arizona shootings that killed six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) with a bullet hole in her head have deeply chilled regular Americans. "I’ve gotten people saying, 'Hey, you’re a good guy -- do...

Arizona legislature expected to block Westboro protest
We picket the Funerals to make these vital points to the living! If you heed, it is life and health and peace and God sent the shooter! Praise God for ALL his works, and BE YE THANKFUL! Before your blood reaches the boiling point, take some solace in the fact that the Arizona legislature is sending a message of its own. The body is expected to vote today to make it a Misdemeanor to Protest within 300 feet of a funeral from one hour before until one hour after the services have ended. Jeff Rogers...

Rick Santorum Opposes Bullseye Ban
By Grant Bosse (MANCHESTER, NH) Rick Santorum doesn’t want to restrict Political Speech in the wake of this weekend’s shooting in Tuscon, Arizona. The former Republican Senator discussed calls for toning down fiery political Rhetoric following the attempted Assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, which left six people dead. Congressman Robert Brady (D-PA) has proposed banning cross-hairs and bullseyes in political ads, as liberal commentators have tried to tie accu...

Tuesday's Mini-Report
TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * It seems hard to even imagine, but Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is already able to breathe on her own, though she remains in critical condition. One of her doctors told reporters today, "She has no right to look this good." * Speaking from China today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea's nuclear and intercontinental Ballistic Missile programs are "becoming a direct threat to the United States." * Gates' visit just ha...

The Extreme Rhetoric about Extreme Rhetoric (With Bonus Fake Sinclair Lewis Fascism Quote!)
I’ve yet to see any of those pundits and Bloggers that wished, hoped, prayed that they could wring political points out of the awful crime in Tucson concede that their immediate suggestions (because the smart ones always include a smattering of weasel words and phrases; “probably,” “could be”) that the gunman was a disgruntled Tea Partier were spectacularly wrong. Alas, no one has admitted that they jumped the gun, that political considerations dictated their response to the M

Both Sides Arent The Same
The big difference between right and left, as I and others have noted repeatedly, isn’t just in the amount of violent Rhetoric, but its source. On the liberal side, it only occasionally comes from movement leaders. On the right, it regularly does. It comes from opinion leaders, political leaders, and media leaders, and the more heated they get, the more popular they get. In the past 2½ years, prominent Republicans have stoked the fires of Extremism. During the 2008 campaign, Palin acc...

Repeal vote postponed, but will Giffords shooting change debate?
House Republican leadership immediately postponed the vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act after Saturday's shootings that killed six and left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically injured. Congressional Quarterly's Congress.org is hopeful that the Rhetoric in the debate once Congress takes it back up will "settle down." “There will be a time of introspection,” said Rep. Michael C. Burgess of Texas, a physician and vice chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on ...

Citing shootings, Sen. Sanders solicits campaign donations
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) issued a Fundraising plea Tuesday in which he cited the Tucson shooting and accused "right-wing reactionaries" of contributing to a threatening political climate. "Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country," he wrote at the opening of the lengthy plea for campaign donations. Sanders, who is up for Reelection i...

Citing Shooting, Congressmen Eye New Curbs on Political Speech
Shortly after the shooting of Rep. Giffords (D - AZ) in Tucson on Saturday, officials and pundits from across the political spectrum were looking to make political hay out of it, struggling to tie the shooter to some rival political faction or other. Now, however, a number of Congressmen are looking to turn that endeavor into a more concerted effort to introduce a series of new curbs on Political Speech, particularly political dissent, insisting that certain criticism of seated officials...

Leading evangelical halts effort to increase political civility
By Dan Gilgoff, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor At a moment when many Americans are decrying the overheated tone of American politics, an influential Evangelical voice said Tuesday he is folding a project he helped found to increase political civility. Mark DeMoss said he is halting the initiative, called the Civility Project, due to lack of interest. “After only three members of Congress agreed to sign this Civility Pledge last year I’ve decided to shut it down,” DeMoss told CNN by e-mail on

Ousted Democratic Congressman Makes Hypocritical Call For 'Civility'
Toppled Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Penn.) on Monday joined a chorus of voices calling for more civilized political discussion in the aftermath of the weekend's devastating shootings in Arizona. Unlike many of those appeals, however, Kanjorski's appears somewhat tainted by a past that shows him to be part of the problem that he is now seeking to rectify. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Kanjorski uses his own experience of working through the infamous attack on the House by Puerto Rican nationali...

Arizona Lawmaker In Palin's 'Crosshairs' Says Blame Game Is Not Helpful (VIDEO)
Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was targeted by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said in an interview Tuesday that "the blame game is not helpful right now." Still, former Rep. Kirkpatrick said that being featured on Palin's list of 20 districts -- complete with a map of what a Palin aide called "surveyor marks" -- "was especially disconcerting for our families." "Well, you know, it was angry and mean-spirited campaign in many ways and I think it's real...

Arizona governor asks residents to pray for victims
Devoting most of her annual State of the State Speech to the rampage, Brewer called it "something dark and ugly", according to a transcript of the Speech released by her office. Among those injured in the shooting on Saturday were Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who investigators believe was the shooter's principal target, and who remains in critical condition at a local Hospital. Killed were a Federal Judge, a 9-year-old girl and four others. The suspect in the shooting, 22-year-old Jared L...

Loughner Parents: "No Words to Express" Feelings
Like this Story? Share it: During a Press Conference for the injured Victims of the Tucson, Ariz. shooting, Bill Hileman became overcome with emotion when describing his wife who was holding the hand of 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green. Jan Crawford speaks with New York Times Chief political correspondent Jeff Zeleny about what to expect from President Obama's Speech from Tucson, Ariz. Jan Crawford talks to Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) and Prof. Larry Sabato, Director, Univ. of Va. Center ...

Lynn M. Paltrow: Open Letter to Governor Sarah Palin -- How Will You Lead, What Will You Say?
Dear Sarah Palin, I am writing today about how you are responding to and how you will respond to the Assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the Murders of six other people. By way of introduction and background, I am a cousin of Congresswoman Giffords. I am also an ally of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who provided Abortion services and who was assassinated on May 31, 2009. When the Congresswoman's offices were vandalized after her vote on Healthcare Reform, I wro...

Most Americans do not blame political rhetoric for AZ shootings, survey says
Stumble This! WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans reject the view that heated political Rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shootings in Arizona which killed six and critically wounded a congresswoman, a CBS News poll said on Tuesday. Since the Saturday incident in which Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range, various politicians and commentators have said a climate in which strong language and ideological polarization is common may have contributed to the att...

GOP Stresses Need For Mental Health Services, Despite Pushing For Repeal Of Aid
Following Saturday’s tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, some Republicans have argued that 22-year old assassin Jared Lee Loughner was more affected by his Mental Illness than the nation’s lax Gun Control laws or Washington’s divisive and often times violent political Rhetoric. “What will solve this problem is removing the politics from it and getting after the crux of this problem and that is somebody who needed Mental Health services and or legal intervention much ear...

Its Not About Him, Its About Us!
Yes, another post about the climate of “political Rhetoric” that at this point is surely unneeded. I’ll make it quick, because it’s something that I have yet to see pointed out. Personally, for quite some time I’ve been expecting there to be something like Tuscon, and I believe that there will be more incidents like it in the next few years. This is because we’re going through a major societal shift which is generating a lot of conflict about the proper path...

Serious Questions
When politicians start talking about criminalizing Speech I get a bit nervous, but I am willing to listen to the specifics on this: Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce Legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress. Brady told CNN that he wants federal lawmakers and officials to have the same protections against threat currently provided to ...

Chris Matthews, M.D.
MATTHEWS: The guy’s a psychotic. But at some point, you decide between right and wrong. And, at some point, you need that moral license. And you go, OK, everybody says she’s bad. I’m OK here. You know what I’m saying? Everybody says she’s bad. It happened in the environment, all these kind of environments. Once you get that final moral, OK, oh, they’re bad, so my psychosis fits in with appropriate targeting here. It’s refreshing to see Matthews openly at...