In the US, where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time | Michael Tomasky

Arizona Massacre Prompts Political 'Cheap Shots'
When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords collapsed outside the Safeway in Tucson Saturday morning, felled by a hail of bullets that killed six and wounded another 13 innocent people that had come to see her, some were quick to claim that the carnage was the product not merely of the tortured mind and trigger-happy fingers of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner. Rather, many on the American Left said the horror could be traced to the malign influence of American Conservatives; members...

Is America growing politically unstable?
Is America becoming less politically stable? A glance at some foreign Newspapers would certainly give that impression. This is an important economic question. The global primacy of Treasury Bonds and The Dollar stems mostly from the nation’s massive economic might. But confidence in U.S. political stability also plays a role. The shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, though tragic, shouldn’t alter those perceptions — unless Freedom of Speech suffers. Amateur criminal p...

Sarah Palins Political Career May Already Be Over, But If Its Not, It Should Be
Gabby Giffords office after passage of Health Care bill I instinctively recoil at the suggestion that people should be held responsible for the actions of others, especially when it comes down to the influence they supposedly have on those they’ve never met.  It’s the kind of Lieberman-esque thinking that brought us the Culture Wars, the scapegoating of Video Games and a decade’s worth of Ice-T demonization.  As someone who did not emerge unscathed from that ignoble period ...

Obama leads mourning nation in silence
US President Barack Obama led the American nation in a moment of silence on Monday in honor of the Victims of the shooting in Arizona, as the would-be assassin was to appear in court. Flags were at half-staff at the White House and the Capitol, where the storied steps of the US Congress were crammed with lawmakers and staff, bolt upright, paying solemn tribute to the 20 victims, one a congresswoman. At precisely 11:00 am (1600 GMT), Obama and his wife Michelle emerged from the White House, took ...

More Old Ladies Blame Palin, Tea Party
Thankfully, in addition to Hillary another child of the glorious sixties has favored us with her deep thought on who is to blame for the shootings in Tucson. From Twitter, via Newsbusters: And speaking of old ladies, here are the musings from that paragon of (ahem) sweetness and light, Paul Krugman, via the New York Times: Climate of Hate By PAUL KRUGMAN January 9, 2011 When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting someth...

The Left Hypocritically Exploits Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Shooting
Just hours after Saturday's tragic shooting incident in Tucson, Arizona, numerous news sources on the left from CNN to the Huffington Post were casting blame upon Sarah Palin, Tea Parties, and Second Amendment supporters. Hoping the shooter had right-leaning views, the Left immediately started portraying Jared Lee Loughner as a Right Wing nut. Even as information trickled in revealing Loughner had some left-leaning political views, the left ignored it and ran with their own spin, labeling hi...

Sarah Palin Virtually Pulled the Trigger, They Say. MoveOn, Lefty Bloggers Already Trying To Capitalize On Arizona Shooting!
Just 24 hours after the horrific Attempted Murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) by alleged gunman Jared Loughner MoveOn tried to rev up its membership to wage war against the forces of darkness in America today, i.e. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement. The radical left-wing group sent out an email appeal Sunday to its members with crafty wording. It starts out innocently enough (full letter text at bottom of this post): Dear MoveOn member, The tragedy in Tucson has shake

WWHD?
I should have written a post about this earlier because I really don’t like the meme “politicizing a tragedy” and you won’t hear me using it. The reason you won’t hear me using it is because words like “politicizing” are cooked up by operatives at the speed of light and are used to short circuit the thought process. They provide a sort of cheap grace as a substitute for thinking the problem out. Same for words like corporatist and triangulate. But that...

A Closer Look at Jared Lee Loughner
Anyone trying to understand what happened on Saturday needs to read this piece in Mother Jones, which features an exclusive interview with one of the few people who still had contact with Jared Lee Loughner.  One thing that becomes clear is that Loughner was obsessed with Congresswoman Giffords for several years, ever since she failed to adequately (in his view) answer the question “What is government if words have no meaning!” Like everyone above, my understanding is that while...

President Obama hosts moment of silence for Tucson victims (Slideshow, Video)
Today President Obama hosted a moment of silence for the Victims of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona two days ago.  Six people were killed and 14 were injured at a public even hosted by United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).  Members of the White House Staff gathered on the South Lawn, and members of Congress simultaneously gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building.  A slideshow of the moment of silence and video can be seen on the left.  I have included th...

Giffords, Ghouls and Gimmicks
On Saturday, Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). He killed a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and four others, and injured many more. Their fates were still unknown when political ghouls leapt from their muck to blame Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and other assorted elements of the right. Doug Mataconis and Gabriel Malor identify some of the more prominent ghouls and respond to them, so I need not do so at length. Notably, the most prominent ghouls reek with ...

"The Vitriol Vitriol"
Martin Kaplan of USC's Norman Lear Center writes at the Jewish Journal of what he fears will be lost in the aftermath of the Arizona shootings. He writes, "If this tragedy is going to be a teachable moment, the lesson won’t be found by determining whose vitriol is warranted.  It will be found instead in what the vitriol is actually about.  And that, as Sheriff Dupnik nailed it, is “tearing down the government.”" As attention turned over the weekend to ...

Glenn Beck Emails Sarah Palin About Arizona Shooting
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin emailed each other about the shooting in Arizona, and Beck read some of their exchange on his Monday Radio Show. Both have been cited by some as having contributed to the climate that may have indirectly led to the shootings. Palin, in particular, has drawn criticism for the map she put up that placed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Congressional District, among others within crosshairs. "Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the sa...

Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA) releases statement on Giffords shooting
Almost immediately after the shooting, before the gunman had even been identified, a game of "pin the whacko on the party" had begun, with people laying the blame for the attack on Political Speech.　 Paul Krugman of the NYTimes raced to his keyboard to opine that  "We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was", naming Beck, Limbaugh and Palin as he raved that "it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate...

Rationalizing the irrational
Oh, yes.  Politics will be spun, lies will pass straight-faced through the elite-owned media, and outrageous language will issue from those talking heads, cravenly kneeling at their masters' feet as they beg scraps from the table.  May their chains weigh lightly on their wrists as they obediently lick the hands that feed them. J.R. Dunn, consulting editor of American Thinker has a rational reaction to last Saturday’s Tuscon massacre:  "I have no intention of trying to draw a...

Obama Leads Moment of Silence After Shooting
WASHINGTON— A somber President Barack Obama led a moment of silence on Monday for a nation stunned by an attempted Assassination against an Arizona congresswoman that left her gravely wounded, several other injured and six people dead. On a frigid Washington morning, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama walked out of the White House to the sounding of a bell at 11 a.m. EST. Wearing overcoats, they stood next to each other on the South Lawn, each with their hands clasped, heads bow...

8 still hospitalized after deadly Arizona shooting
This March 2010 photo shows a man identified as Jared L. Loughner at the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books in Tucson, Ariz. The Arizona Daily Star, a festival sponsor, confirmed from their records that the subject's address matches one under investigation by police after a shooting in Tucson that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wounded and at least five others dead. Police say a suspect is in custody, and he was identified by people familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22, of Tucson....

Can Obama Bring America Back from the Brink?
This post originally appeared on Slate. The U.S. Capitol dome backdrops American Flags flying at half-staff at the foot of the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011. President Barack Obama ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all Military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territ...

Tea Party Leader: Left's Reaction To Shooting 'Sinks To The Level Of Evil'
A top Tea Party Leader is accusing the left of using the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others in Arizona this weekend for political advantage, and said he thinks it's "genuinely revolting." "To see the left exploit this for political advantage -- some people have no conscience," the Tea Party Patriot's Mark Meckler told The Daily Beast. "It's genuinely revolting...I think it sinks to the level of evil." "[I]f these scumbags want to play it politically, let it be on their co...

After Giffords shooting, Palin aide says crosshairs really surveyor marks
An aide to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on a conservative radio program Sunday that last year’s much-maligned ads by Palin’s PAC showing rifle crosshairs over 20 Democratic Congressional Districts - including Gabrielle Giffords’s CD8 in Arizona - were actually meant to represent surveyor’s symbols on a map. Local politicians responded to the Saturday shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and others in Arizona. Giffords survived the shoo...

Violent rhetoric and the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords
In the two days since the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the debate has been raging over the culpability of the violent Rhetoric that is so commonplace in today's political climate. Which of course has led to the rapid-fire peddling of false equivalencies by the right, where now, saying a Congressional District is being targeted is the same as actually putting crosshairs on a district and saying it's time to "RELOAD." And while there are many examples of the violent languag...

The American Renaissance 'links'
THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE 'LINKS'.... As media outlets scrambled over the weekend to better understand why Jared Lee Loughner allegedly went on a shooting rampage in Tucson on Saturday, Fox News said it had a scoop: the network had "obtained" a memo from the Department of Homeland Security connecting the shooter to a Racist group called American Renaissance, and this memo was distributed to Law Enforcement agencies. I held off on mentioning this, because of the source -- the only thing less rel...

Friend: Loughner Had Grudge Against Giffords
Mother Jones reports: At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday—about eight hours before he allegedly killed six people and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson—Jared Lee Loughner phoned an old and close friend with whom he had gone to High School and college. The friend, Bryce Tierney, was up late watching TV, but he didn’t answer the call. When he later checked his voice mail, he heard a simple message from Loughner: “Hey man, it’s Jared. Me and you had goo...

Clinton At Abu Dhabi Town Hall: Loughner An 'Extremist'
During a town hall segment for a Talk Show in Abu Dhabi today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton labeled alleged Arizona shoot Jared Lee Loughner an "Extremist," National Journal reports. "Look, we have extremists in my country," Clinton said. "A wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords was just shot in our country. We have the same kinds of problems. So rather than standing off from each other, we should work to try to prevent the extremists anywhere fr...

Beck Issues Pledge Against Political Opportunism
On his website, Glenn Beck has published a “challenge” for pundits, politicians, and people in general. Decrying political opportunism of all stripes, Beck writes of the Giffords shooting, “Atheists are not to blame. Those who hate George W. Bush are not to blame. Those who don’t believe in space travel are not to blame. Jared Lee Loughner is to blame. Period.” Later, Beck unveils his challenge. He asks all Americans to agree to the following points: I denounce viol...