No More Mister Nice Blog

Roger Ailes
Sully on Kurtz's Smears As much as it pains me to say it, Andrew Sullivan concurs with me on Howie Kurtz's deliberate dishonesty. And he says it much better than I did. And then there's the second straw man. No one is saying Sarah Palin should be viewed as an accomplice to Murder. Many are merely saying that her recklessly violent and inflammatory Rhetoric has poisoned the discourse and has long run the risk of empowering the deranged. We are saying it's about time someone took responsibility f...

Remember This? Of Course Not.
In case you happen to be Facebook friends with a women’s studies Professor, the content of whose latest posts we can only guess, ask her to remember the years 2002 to around 2007. This was the run-up to the Iraq War—its planning, execution, and escalation. These years also just so happened to coincide with an era of extended dementia, an orgy of the most vile, childish, callous work of the Activist Left, a time when violent radical Rhetoric reached its most rabid masturbatory peak. Rem...

Jared Lee Loughner in Court Today; Moment of Silence for Victims at 11 a.m.
Loughner, in a yearbook photo ​• A moment of silence will be held by President Obama today at 11 a.m. for the Victims of Saturday's shooting in Tucson. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, is due in court this afternoon. He faces five federal charges -- "the attempted Assassination of a member of Congress and the killing or attempted killing of four other federal employees," along with additional state charges. Judy Clarke, who represented the Unabomber, has been recommended as his attorney. [The H...

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 ...

"I Have Confidence in Our Legal System:" NJ Son of Arizona Shooting Victim
The son of one of the Victims caught up in the Assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords said, "Because of the state of mind of the suspect, I don't really hold any bad feelings" toward the man arrested at the Murder scene, Jared Lee Loughner. Former New Jersey resident Phyllis Schneck, 79, also died in the attack and her son Ernest, who lives in Rutherford, N.J., told NBC New York, "I have confidence in our legal system that they're gonna do the right thing to mak...

Rantings of a Madman
Some right-wingers favor the gold standard. Jared Lee Loughner favored the gold standard. Therefore, Jared Lee Loughner is a right-winger. Some crazy people can be motivated by Rhetoric. Sarah Palin engaged in Rhetoric. Therefore, Jared Lee Loughner was motivated by Sarah Palin. You’re literate, listener?...

Mental Illness
With far too many of my colleagues--and the usual array of politicians and Fundraising interest groups--looking to make the shootings in Arizona into a left-right tussle over vitriol and Extremism, it might be more profitable for some of us to look in a different direction. Yes, to be sure--and as I wrote a few weeks ago--the antics of lying, paranoid blowhards like Glenn Beck, who posit an America near collapse and in need of "patriots" to clean up the mess, certainly degrade the national debat...

Updates on the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords
Some recent developments in the Assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday that left six dead and fourteen wounded. First, Giffords condition: Gabrielle Giffords was able to respond to simple commands -- like squeezing her hand or showing two fingers -- after two hours of surgery Saturday night, but her injuries are very serious and she remains in critical condition, her doctors said Sunday. [...] The chief of Neurosurgery, Michael Lemole, said that he is "cautiously optimisti...

Jared Lee Lougher's "frightening, twisted shrine."
Reported by the Daily News: Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner's home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges. A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal....It's a skull replica, according to the photo caption. I don't know how you can tell from a photo that a candle is "ceremonial" or if/why the potting soil is part of the still life. Would you have found this display frightening if you wer...

Loughners Violence: Illness Not Politics
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the rush to judgment that has characterized the response to the tragic events that occurred at Congresswoman Giffords’ constituent meeting in Tuscon has been the profound misunderstanding of and ignorance about the sort of Mental Illness that appears to characterize her assailant.  It is almost like blaming Jodie Foster for precipitating John Hinckley, Jr.’s Assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Loughner, Giffords’ assailant, apparently has d

Woman Who Grabbed Loughner's Gun Clip: 'Extreme Right' Added To Problem (VIDEO)
Patricia Maisch, the 61-year-old woman who grabbed a magazine away from the alleged shooter on Saturday, suggested in an interview with Fox News on Sunday night that hateful Rhetoric was in part to blame for the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and the Mass Shooting which killed six others and left more than a dozen injured. "The extreme right reporters and radio and TV have added to this problem, and I'm just hoping that will change," Maisch told Shepard Smith in her ...

After the Giffords shooting, a crossroads
Standing next to a sheriff’s deputy at a town-hall meeting hosted by then-U.S. Rep. Harry Teague in the summer of 2009, I had an uncomfortable thought. It would have been easy for one or two armed people to walk into the commission chambers at the Doña Ana County Government Center and shoot both deputies and Teague before anyone else knew what was happening. I was half expecting such an incident somewhere across the nation at the time. Congress was debating the Controversial health ca...

Who are the lunatics who helped create this grammar-driven climate?
Who are the lunatics who helped create this grammar-driven climate? As I explained in earlier posts, the fact that so many people are trying to blame the Tea Party and Sarah Palin for the actions of a deranged gunman does not surprise me, because placing blame is what people do. When a horrible Violent Crime is committed against a loved one, the enemies of that person tend to become suspects in the minds of those who love the Victim. When the loved one is a politician, obviously those with pol...

Obama leads moment of silence for shooting victims
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has presided over a national moment of silence for severely injured Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the people who were killed during an Assassination attempt against her. On the White House South Lawn, Obama was joined by First Lady Michelle Obama and White House staff members on a cold morning. The moment was marked at the U.S. Capitol and elsewhere around a nation still coming to grips with the tragedy. Giffords is in intensive care at a Tusc...

After Assassination Attempt, Giffords Still In Critical Condition
People gather outside of Rep. Giffords' offices (AP) NEXT » President Obama will lead the nation in a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House at 11 a.m. this morning. "It will be a time for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the Victims and their families closely at heart," Obama said in a statement. After the silence, he'll answer questions about the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others in the Parking Lot of an Arizona sh...

After the Tucson Shootings, the Old Gun Debate Gets New Urgency
Among the many details emerging about alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner are his economic views, and it seems he agreed with the End-the-Fed crowd. According to the The New York Times, he told a college classmate that he was against The Dollar and wanted to replace it. In that, Loughner and Ron Paul (R-Texas) are on the same page, not that Paul has any connection to what Loughner did. But as commentators have been pointing out repeatedly since the tragic shootings, the tone of today's poli...

The Morning Plum
* What did Jared Loughner believe? He was a 9/11 Truther who believed that global elites, hell bent on world domination, are in the process of creating a one-world currency. * Did he draw his ideas from the fringe right? So argues the Southern Poverty Law Center, pointing to his views on currency and related matters, though it's worth emphasizing again that the shooter seems so disturbed that it's pretty much impossible to locate his views anywhere on a recognizable political spectrum. * Left ...

Loughner is Anti-ZOG, Truther; Likely Schizophrenic
As Yael of the BokerTov blog notes, “Yep, two and two IS four.  I could feel it in my Zionist kishkehs:” (JTA) — A U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo reportedly notes that Gabriel Giffords is Jewish in describing the motives of the Arizona congresswoman’s alleged assailant. The memo, obtained by Fox News Channel, says that Jared Lee Loughner mentioned American Renaissance, an Extremist anti-immigrant group, in some of his own postings. “The group’s

Wake Up Call
Good morning! "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' heartsick husband told lawmakers he blames inflammatory Rhetoric for the Assassination attempt on his wife," writes our James Gordon Meek. "A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others," write our Lysiak and Alpert in an exclusive report. "Amid the butchery and bloodshed in Arizona, there were heroes enough to restore any faith i...

Arizona Shooting Suspect Set For Court Appearance
The suspect in a weekend shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seriously wounded will make his first court appearance Monday afternoon, where he faces charges of attempted Assassination. Jared Loughner, who allegedly fired a Glock pistol point-blank at the Democratic congresswoman's head before spraying a crowded Supermarket Parking Lot with bullets, was expected to appear in a Phoenix court at 2 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EST). U.S. District Judge John Roll, an...

Flashback: How Clinton exploited Oklahoma City for political gain
NASA Won’t Speculate on Shuttle Flight of Rep. Giffords’ Husband, Mark Kelly. mike r. on Now: NYT’s Paul Krugman Blames Giffords Shooting on Right-Wing Rhetoric. Before: Kurgman Encourages Lefties to Hang Sen. Lieberman in Effigy…...

Giffords shooting prompts proposed limits to freedom and hypocritical recriminations
Well, as you can imagine, the Giffords shooting has sucked all the oxygen out of just about every other subject. And, as you can probably further imagine, the "let’s make a law" crowd is busily at work trying to again limit our freedoms in the name of "security". We have a representative from PA who wants to outlaw "crosshairs" in political advertising. I have to wonder what part of "Congress shall make no law " in the 1st Amendment and political sp...

'Violent imagery' in politics isn't the problem
The shooting in Tucson that grievously injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six people, including a Federal Judge and a nine-year-old girl, has sparked a conversation about violence in our political discourse. The conversation is probably long overdue. We need to be clear that we're not talking about the mere use of violent imagery -- but political Rhetoric that implicitly or explicitly justifies actual violence. Jack Shafer warns that calls to "tamp down the political rhetor...

A Word from the Imam
I wonder whether my colleagues are getting mail like this: “Have you ever said an unkind word about Wahhabi imams? Have you ever linked their venomous Rhetoric to acts of Terrorism? . . . Well, Mr Nordlinger, for Terrorist Attack in Tuscan, you ARE the imam.” Now, the New York Times doesn’t write like this correspondent, and the CNN people don’t talk that way. But the underlying point, or charge, is the same. In all honesty, I don’t see what the ...

More (Actually, A Lot More) on Law Schools and Unemployment
Yahoo! Buzz By now, most readers of this blog are all-too-familiar with the situation: There are too many law-school graduates for not enough jobs. As a result, recent law-school graduates are swimming in Debt and, in many instances, either a job as a not-lawyer or no job at all. Who’s to blame for this supply-and-demand anomaly? Some say the schools, which, it’s alleged, continue to entice Students with misleading job-placement data. Other say the students, who read the blogs and he...