Political violence in America: Lets stop pretending we're shocked

Genius California Educator Explains the Arizona Shooting
Another alleged educator, on the Payroll of the beleaguered California Taxpayer, has weighed in with Solomon-like wisdom on the matter of the Arizona shooting. Although why the chancellor of the University of California, one Robert J. Birgeneau, feels the need to pontificate on the issue remains a mystery. Perhaps his taxpayer-funded use of office time could have been better spent considering how to extricate his campus from the clutches of union-represented Professors who are angry at having ...

No More Mister Nice Blog
WILL PARTISAN BICKERING SEND A CRAZY MAN TO THE CHAIR? Lefties have been looking for ties between Jared Loughner's state of mind and recent expressions of right-wing rage; the right, in response to this, has lashed out, aggressively attacking commentators and others -- including Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik -- who've criticized the right. And now along comes Limbaugh. The soundbite from Rush Limbaugh's Tuesday Radio Show that's First Comes Fear
By ROBERT WRIGHT NYT People on the left and right have been wrestling over the legacy of Jared Loughner, arguing about whether his Shooting Spree proves that the Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks of the world are fomenting violence. But it’s not as if this is the only data point we have. Here’s another one: Six months ago, police in California pulled over a truck that turned out to contain a rifle, a Handgun, a shotgun and Body Armor. Police learned from the driver — sometime after he opened

Apocalyptic Rhetoric
The Rhetoric of violence is not the only kind of Rhetoric that encourages violence. The apocalyptic Rhetoric we’ve seen from some on the right, most notably Glenn Beck, should be part of this discussion too. When Beck portrays Barack Obama as the head of a Socialist/Communist/Nazi Conspiracy whose goal is the literal destruction of America, he is implicitly encouraging violence. If that really were the nature of the administration, and our liberty really were on the verge of being snuffed ...

Krauthammer on Tucson, Palin, and Krugman
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, ObamaCare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires. The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence. As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings - and i...

The Dismissal of Sarah Palin
Liberals are pathologically fixated on Sarah Palin. I am neither shocked nor surprised that this nation's most prominent liberals see fit to blame Sarah Palin for causing the shooting in Tucson which severely injured Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and claimed six lives. But it does sadden me. Yet perhaps the most insightful of these denunciations of Palin was that of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. Now when I use the word insightful I am not referring to the merits of his arguments. ...

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...

Westboro Baptist Liberalism
Fred Phelps, crazed leader of the Westboro Baptist Church cult, has become infamous for blaming any bad event on the evils of Homosexuality. Earthquake in Haiti? Blame the gays. Combat troop deaths in Iraq? Ditto. Phelps' Logic Works thusly: God literally hates people who engage in Homosexual conduct and unless societies take the steps to ban and punish such action, God is going to destroy them. Any Natural Disaster or mass Murder is, accordingly, the will of God being carried out on the &qu...;

Limbaugh says the left openly wishes for such disaster to profit from it (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Poll of Conservatives shows support for broad cuts to spending, including Military Spending Washington's top five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting Jared Loughner and the ins and outs of the insanity defense Mark Sanford exits the stage 5 House freshmen to watch: a nurse, an FBI agent, two policy wonks, and a political operative Talk Radio maven Rush Limbaugh is making waves for his Jan. 10 radio broadcast, in which he claimed the Democr...

Tea party financier says the rank and file are like him
Stumble This! The American Billionaire who inherited his father's oil wealth seems to believe that the followers of the movement that he self-financed are people just like him. "There are some Extremists there, but the Rank and File are just normal people like us," David Koch of Koch Industries told Lee Fang of ThinkProgress in a recent interview. He continued, "And I admire them. It’s probably the best Grassroots uprising since 1776 in my opinion." The event that launched the so-called "...

ENOUGH OF THE APPALLING JACKASSERY Sheriff Dupnik Must Resign
Since he first opened his mouth on Saturday night to address the nation about the terrible shootings at a Tucson Safeway, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been inaccurate, wrong, or completely biased in his handling of the case. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik must resign. Never have we witnessed a prominent public figure inaccurately and viciously politicize a national tragedy like Sheriff Dupnik. And in all of his statements he has either been wrong or misdirected. This bitter partisan must go. It’s ...

Obama Known For His Threats Toward The American People Calls His "Mini Me" Sheriff Dupnik To Thank Him
Obama called the dishonorable Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik today to thank him. This was after this POS Sheriff attacked in hate Speech Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, tea partyers and Conservatives. ABC News Political Pupnch by Jack Tapper Obama spoke today with Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, families of some of the Victims, Rep. Giffords’ Rabbi and two of the heroes that helped in the Arizona tragedy on Saturday. In a phone call this afternoon with Sheriff Dupnik, according to Whi...

Please Stand with Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh + Tea Party
Dear Friends: The attack on Conservatives and the Tea Party movement has continued over the past 24 hours. Media figures and liberal Activists continue to falsely suggest that Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement had anything to do with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords....

More Bad News For MSM & Dupnik Police Were Sent to Loughners Home Several Times
It’s Rush Limbaugh’s fault. The further we get away from the tragedy the more we are putting together a picture of a very disturbed young man. After four days of blaming Conservatives for the Violent Crime of the young leftwing pothead, the media is finally getting around to reporting the facts to the case. This had nothing to do with Sarah Palin, or Rush Limbaugh, or the Tea Party, or conservatives. The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on mo...

Local Congressmen Bob Brady, Chaka Fattah Democratic Socialists of America
It's no surprise that Congressman Bob Brady has recently come out swinging against the Tea Party - even going so far to use the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords as a way to demagogue Conservatives and people who Protest the outrageous scope of Government. Brady is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America . He and another Congressman representing the Philadelphia area in Washington, Chaka Fattah (no shock there), are part of a group of seventy reported Congressmen and Congresswomen who beli...

Sarah Palin doesn't get it
Sarah Palin has emerged from the protective cloak of Twitter and e-mails to Glenn Beck to speak directly to the American People about the tragedy in Tucson. In a video, she expresses condolences for the Victims' families and concern for those recovering from Saturday's horrific events. But for nearly eight defensive minutes, the woman who has been at the center of a stormy national debate over our super-heated political discourse does her best to absolve herself of any role in that discourse. Sa...

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...

Sarah Palin Accuses Press of 'Blood Libel'
Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo. Anyone still wondering whether political debate in American would change in the wake of the shooting of 20 in Tucson that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords grievously injured got their answer this morning as Sarah Palin delivered a resounding no. The former GOP vice presidential nominee, who has been little heard from since making a brief Facebook statement on Saturday and later passing a note to Glenn Beck to read o...

Why the Left Hates Debate (and Always Has!)
Many leftist Journalists, Bloggers, and talking heads are shamelessly exploiting this weekend’s tragedy in Tucson, Arizona. To them, there is a lesson to be learned in this senseless act of violence by an undeniably troubled man. The New York Times Paul Krugman says he was even “at some level, expecting something like this atrocity” to happen. Krugman concludes: “If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atro

There Is No Evidence That Politics In Any Way Contributed To This Atrocity: Arizonas Biggest Newspaper Rips Leftist Political Op
Arizona Republic: On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - “the anger, the hatred, the Bigotry” - that prompted the mass Murders outside Tucson, in his view. And, jarring as such claims may be, we understood. Or tried to understand, despite the spectacle of a lawman - an official whose very job it is to dispassionately gather facts and to...

Danny Westneat: Words don't kill, killers do
Last Saturday, around the time some people started blaming Sarah Palin or right wingers for the shooting in Arizona, I was jumping up to shield my kid from a blood-streaked man pointing a gun in his face. It was no Big Deal. Already that day I had thrown my body between my 8-year-old boy and a stabbing. I had guarded him from fights, Explosions, Torture and enough gunfire to keep the greatest generation from the beaches of Normandy. We were watching the Seahawks game. I'm talking about the com...

Hate -- Carefully Taught
From Nicole Sandler at Radio or Not -- Hate. Comments are restricted to Registered Users only. Glenn Beck's eliminationist attacks on Progressives: How long before someone acts on this violent Rhetoric? Beck claims 'I don't use [violent rhetoric] on or off the air': Oh really? Anderson Cooper Brings on 'Left Behind' Actor Cameron to Discuss Bird and Fish Deaths in Arkansas -- Seriously? Anderson Cooper Brings on 'Left Behind' Actor Cameron to Discuss Bird and Fish Deaths in Arkansas -- Seriously...

Bill Maher is a loon
Anderson Cooper took a very different tack last night in trying to make sense of the Arizona shooting tragedy from the weekend. While many on Cable News were turning down the partisan Rhetoric, AC360 producers booked comedian Bill Maher, who was unafraid to compare the imagined mindset of alleged assailant Jared Loughner with Fox News host Glenn Beck, while at the same time calling for responsibility in the media. Huh? Cooper opened by asking about the soul searching and finger pointing that cam...

Glenn Beck: The Epitome of a Disordered Mind
This graphic says everything about Glenn Beck's brain. What there is left of it. My theory? It was a fake nod to no violence with a wink on the left to the right-wing gun nuts. The violence he expresses is remarkable, even for Beck. Apocalyptic visions of violence. Oh, and "peace and love." Give me a break. He loves Sarah Palin though, and certainly gives a dramatic reading of her email. There is a certain chaotic rhythm to what the Right Wing does. Even in their denials, they're chaotic. They...

Liberals see America as a series of problems waiting for government solutions [Reader Post]
In some respects liberals and Progressives have it easy. All they have to do is look around and they can find problems for government to solve. Kids are too fat? Let’s get the government to decide how restaurants market their offering. Somebody walked away with a bad haircut? Impose government testing and licensing for barbers. Crime getting out of control? Let’s ban all guns. Someone loses their job? Let’s give them three years of Unemployment checks. And just in case there we...