Protesting Too Much? Right Attacks AZ Sheriff for His Comments on Vitriole and Bigotry

Double Standards
Rush Limbaugh and the right wingers are all over Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for having the temerity to express an opinion about the causes of the shootings in Tucson last weekend.Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik thrust himself into the spotlight in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 other people in Arizona on Saturday, decrying the heated political atmosphere and calling for more civility. "It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, ...

Sherriff Clarence RIGHT WING VITRIOL Dupnik mightve shit the mattress
Here’s the lead investigator for the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, describing what he thinks caused the shooting. ‘When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,’ Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told a news conference. ‘The anger, the hatred, the Bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.  ‘And, unfortunately, Arizona ...

Have gun, Will talk: Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik not speechless over Tucson shootings or much else
For a chief Law Enforcement officer who's supposed to be assembling the complex Criminal Investigations of six sudden homicides against a local 22-year-old suspect, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik sure has found ample time the last couple of days to appear all over national News Media, spouting prickly opinions on pretty much anything asked. The sheriff, who celebrates his 75th birthday today, is understandably defensive. He had no officers at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords ' Saturday ope...

Arizona, where the American Dream went to die
When I arrived in Arizona last March, my bones were still practically numb from the snowiest winter in the modern history of my native Northeast. There was radiant sunshine that made the Valley of the Sun feel like a warm soaking bath, bordered on my far horizon by New-Age red rocks and big sky -- natural beauty that inspired awe for me as it surely once did for so many new arrivals over so many decades. I didn't travel to Phoenix to witness beauty, unfortunately, but to get an up close look a...

Taking, Not Placing, Responsibility
In the wake of Saturday's tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, we're beginning to take a long overdue look at the state of our political debate. But that examination needs to be honest. There are times when both the right and the left are equally guilty of some sin or other, and the press' instinct to characterize every problem as the equal responsibility of both sides does no harm. This is not one of those times. The simple, unavoidable fact is that it is the right that has been purveying the r...

Poisonous Politics
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 By Patrick J. Buchanan On Feb. 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara, delusional and a loner, fired his .32-caliber pistol at FDR in the Bayfront Park area of Miami. Five feet tall, Zangara could not aim over the crowd. So, he stood on a folding chair and was piled on after the first of five shots. He wounded four people, including Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. In two weeks, Zangara, who pled guilty, had been sentenced to 80 years. When Cermak died on March 6, Zangara was re...

The left's political dirt ball
On Feb. 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara, delusional and a loner, fired his .32-caliber pistol at FDR in the Bayfront Park area of Miami. Five feet tall, Zangara could not aim over the crowd. So, he stood on a folding chair and was piled on after the first of five shots. He wounded four people, including Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. In two weeks, Zangara, who pleaded guilty, had been sentenced to 80 years. When Cermak died on March 6, Zangara was retried for Murder and sentenced to the electric ...

The false rush to cry 'balance'
By: Michael Kinsley Politico.com January 11, 2011 When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess dow

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 ...

Poll: Rhetoric, Arizona shooting unrelated
Almost 60 percent of the public believes that heated political Rhetoric has nothing to do with an Arizona Shooting Spree that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and killed a Federal Judge. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in a new CBS News poll said Rhetoric is unrelated to the shooting, while 32 percent said they believe the two are connected. Many pundits and lawmakers have keyed in on political vitriol as a potential contributing factor to the shootings allegedly carried out by...

The false rush to cry 'balance' (Politico)
When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess down there. Life goes on incredibly quickl...

Cenk Uygur: Was Jared Loughner's Act Political?
Was Jared Loughner's act in shooting Rep. Giffords political? Apparently this is what's being debated with a straight face now. Is this a joke? He shot a politician in the head. He called it an "Assassination." What part of that was unclear? He didn't shoot Gabrielle Giffords randomly and it turned out she just happened to be a politician. He sought her out, targeted her and then tried to kill her based on the fact that she was a politician. He thought the government was the problem and it was...

Daniel Hernandez: The face of what's right in America
LatinaLista.net -- A lot is being made about the fact that the young intern credited with saving Congresswoman Giffords' life, Daniel Hernandez, is gay and Latino. As the sub headline of a Salon article stated: "Daniel Hernandez helped save the congresswoman's life -- and yes, his Sexuality and Ethnicity matter." Though he didn't ask for all this adulation, 20-year-old Hernandez has illustrated grace, eloquence and maturity that underscore the very reasons why it is such an injustice to vilify...

Will AZ Shooter Kill the First Amendment?
Joe Guzzardi, FloydReports.com Immediately after crazed gunman Jared Lee Loughner gravely wounded Arizona U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, killed U.S. Judge John M. Roll, and six other people while wounding 12 innocent bystanders, the Immigration Rhetoric subtly ratcheted up. Denouncing Gifford’s shooting, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and others made it clear that what they referred to as “inflammatory Speech” had made the political atmosphere in Arizona so toxic that acts

AZ Aftermath: Halperin Praises Media, Condemns Fox News And Conservatives For Not 'Turning Other Cheek'
NewsBusters has exhaustively documented the way in which the liberal media and Dem politicians have sought to exploit the Arizona shootings, seeking to pin blame on a range of Republicans and conservative media figures. It was thus nothing short of surreal to listen to MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin this morning. Surveying the situation, Halperin praised the media and politicians for their reaction to the shooting . . . while condemning Fox News and conservative pundits for treating the tragedy lik...

Can't We All Just Get Along?
I would like to know what rock David Gergen has been living under for the last two years if he thinks this tragedy in Arizona is possibly just the beginning of a period of violence. Someone needs to tell him to go read our contributor Jon Perr's post if he actually hasn't been paying attention to how many people have already been killed over the last couple of years. We don't need to know "what part of that culture" of violence led to the actions by the shooter in Arizona to know that it's long ...

GOP in Political Siege Mode for the Moment
As the nation remains transfixed by the horrific events in Tuscon, AZ, the inevitable political questions, finger-pointing and analysis unfolds.  While reports stream in about the condition of critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), at the root of every conversation about the mass Murder of innocent Arizona 8th Congressional district constituents is why?  Ultimately, the political calculus pushes its way into the explanation, and observers are straining to assess wh...

Accused gunman warned of brainwashing
Honouring the Arizona Victims ... Barack and Michelle Obama after observing a minute's silence with staff on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday. Photo: AFP Tucson: Online political ramblings of the man charged with the killings in Tucson bear a strong resemblance to the ideas of an extreme right-wing Conspiracy theorist who believes the US government uses grammar to control people's minds. The director of the centre's intelligence unit, Mark Potok, said Mr Loughner's YouTube rant that '...

Who has been "inflaming tensions"
Another rampantly biased piece in the Tribune this morning by Kathleen Hennessey and others. No mention of the Pima County Sheriff's inflammatory and unprofessional outburst. No mention of the contemptible bias of the NY Times and CNN, not to mention MSNBC--and even FoxNews. The LA Times/Tribune "reporters" conveniently cut off the quote from Roger Ailes: Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes — while rejecting any suggestion that his Cable News net...

How About All Those Other Attacks Blamed on Conservatives?
Rush Limbaugh reminds us how many other attacks, like the one on Congressman Giffords, were quickly blamed on Conservatives in the hopes that story would stick before the actual facts came out: Here's a partial list of some of the incidents the left has tried to pin on conservatives. The Columbine shooters. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (specifically they tried to blame me for that). The DC sniper. The New York City Times Square Car Bomb attempt. They tried to blame that on some Tea Partier an...

What Did Paul Broun (R-GA) Contribute To The Mayhem In Arizona? A Guest Post From Russell Edwards
We first came across a young attorney, Russell Edwards, last August when he was campaigning for a House seat held by radical right fanatic and John Bircher Paul Broun (R-GA). Russell wrote a thoughtful guest post for us at the time and he's written another one today. I have to admit, Blue America is trying to persuade him to run against Broun again in 2012. In November Broun took 137,263 of the votes to Russell's 66,574, a respectable first-time effort with no help whatsoever from the DCCC. In...

The left is not about to waste this 'crisis'
Theme: The left's immediate reaction to the Arizona shooting proves, again, that it will not forgo any chance to exploit a tragedy ("crisis"). Minor theme: In the process, mostly through projection of its own perversions, it is setting records for hypocrisy, irrationality and unfairness. Politico reported that after the shootings, one Veteran Democratic operative said that President Obama should "deftly pin this on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma...

JFK, Gabrielle Giffords, and the Return of the End of Camelot
The pretrial killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby did sustained and perhaps irrevocable damage to the liberal movement in American politics. That’s because, as perceptively noted by James Piereson in 2007: “If Ruby had not intervened, Oswald probably would have tried to stage some kind of ‘show’ trial in which Kennedy’s policies in Cuba would have been raised as a central issue. Oswald proudly acknowledged that he was a Communist. If the case had been brought to trial, O

The exploitive rhetoric of tragedy
After all, unlike Sarah Palin's absurdly infamous Facebook map with crosshairs on Congressional Districts that some pundits have blamed for the violence, we have some evidence — suspect Jared Lee Loughner's own words — that these books were a direct influence on him. And to listen to partisan ghouls such as Keith Olbermann exploiting this horrific crime, any Rhetoric or writing or images that contributed to it must be stopped and those who don't accept blame and then repent (specific...

Poisonous Politics (Pat Buchanan)
Creators Syndicate – On Feb. 15, 1933, Giuseppe Zangara, delusional and a loner, fired his .32-caliber pistol at FDR in the Bayfront Park area of Miami. Five feet tall, Zangara could not aim over the crowd. So, he stood on a folding chair and was piled on after the first of five shots. He wounded four people, including Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. In two weeks, Zangara, who pled guilty, had been sentenced to 80 years. When Cermak died on March 6, Zangara was retried for Murder and se...