Right Wingers Defend Hate Speech While Tea Party Takes Advantage of Arizona Shooting To Raise Money

Tea Party & Bernie Sanders Using Tucson Tragedy For Fundraising
I bet you never thought you’d see those two in the same headline. I’m a bit surprised myself. Bernie should know better. From The Weekly Standard comes the text of the email from Sanders… 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. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reel...

Tea Party Express raising money in aftermath of Arizona shooting (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Tea Party Express raising money in aftermath of Arizona shooting Barbara Walters: 'I'm feeling bad for Sarah Palin' TheDC on TV: Jamie Weinstein on RT's 'The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann' Tom DeLay sentenced to three years in Prison Political cartoons exploit Arizona tragedy in effort to score crude political points The Tea Party Express, a California-based conservative political action committee, sent out a letter to supporters Monday requesting donat...

The Arizona shooting and the context of right-wing extremism
By Michael J.W. Stickings Offering some of the best commentary yet on the Arizona shooting, Slate's Jacob Weisberg makes the crucual distinction between what may have been going on inside Jared Lee Loughner's troubled head, "politically tinged schizophrenia," and outside: To call his crime an attempted Assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context...

The Exploitive Rhetoric of Tragedy
In the wake of the horrendous shooting rampage in Tucson, why isn't anyone talking about banning "Mein Kampf"? Or "The Communist Manifesto"? Or for that matter, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Peter Pan" or "The Phantom Tollbooth"? 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 dire...

Tea Party Express Raises Cash Over Arizona Shooting 'Smears'
The Tea Party Express, one of the movement's largest national groups, blasted out an email plea Monday afternoon asking their supporters to send money to defend them from liberals who are allegedly "assigning blame" to them and Sarah Palin for the shootings in Arizona over the weekend. "It is quite clear that liberals are trying to exploit this shooting for their own political benefit, and they used deception and dishonesty to try and smear all of us and our beliefs," the email read, according...

House Pays Tribute To Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona Shooting Victims (LIVE UPDATES, VIDEO)
WASHINGTON -- The House is honoring Victims of Saturday's shootings in Tuscon, including one of its own. Republican Speaker John Boehner opened the session of remembrances and tributes to the 19 people shot, six fatally. (SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE UPDATES) Later Wednesday, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and other lawmakers are flying with President Barack Obama to Arizona to console the Victims and their families. New information, meanwhile, has surfaced about a confrontation between...

Gun Sales Surge In Arizona After Shooting
Saturday’s horrific shooting in Tucson has predictably prompted criticism of the lax Gun Laws that allowed a guy with documented mental problems to buy a semiautomatic weapon. So, naturally the state’s gun lovers are frantically arming themselves to the teeth, in case stricter Gun Control (like not letting the mentally ill own assault weapons) is imposed. Bloomberg reporter Michael Riley talked to an Arizona gun store owner who reported that gun sales surged after Saturday’s sh...

Tea Party Express Fundraises Off Giffords Shooting: 'Tea Party Won't Be Silenced'
In an apparent effort to distance themselves from the Mass Shootings in Arizona over the weekend, the Tea Party Express sent out an email to supporters proclaiming that they "won't be silenced" -- and asking for contributions. Earlier today, TPE leader Sal Russo went on Fox News and lamented how "revolting and disgusting the left is for trying to associate the tea party with violence like this." This latest email emphasizes how "horrified" the TPE was to hear about the shootings, which includ...

Tacky, Tacky! Tea Party's National PAC Uses Tucson Tragedy To Raise Money
Is it just me, or is this amazingly tacky and tone-deaf? Whether they like it or not, the Tea Party certainly has turned up the heat with inflammatory Rhetoric in Arizona, and it's incredibly tasteless to use the Tucson shootings to say "Oh, poor us!": The Tea Party Express, a California-based conservative political action committee, sent out a letter to supporters Monday requesting donations in reaction to Saturday’s shooting at a political event in Tucson, Arizona that claimed six lives....

OReillys Audaciously Hypocritical Stand On Sheriff Dupniks Politicization Of Arizona Shooting
Fox News is on a witch hunt against Tucson Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for having the gall to speak out against right-wing Rhetoric and suggest that it played a role in the Arizona shooting massacre. The righties on Fox pretend that their pique is over Dupnik’s “politicization” of the massacre. I suspect that in reality they couldn’t be happier. Pointing the finger at Dupnik allows them to avoid looking at that same right-wing Rhetoric and - as what I’m sure can b...

Not A Video Game: Grand Theft - The Constituion
The disturbing level came last week when the Republicans in the House kicked off the new session of Congress with a public reading of the Constitution"a muck-reeking exercise unmitigated by bi-partisan participation. While supposedly showing their f ealty to the " original meaning " of the Constitution they used a prop. Putting con into Constitution, they read from a censored version of the document that selectively excluded salient passages like those pertaining to Slavery. But more debilit...

Tea Party Express: Left trying to 'smear' us
The Tea Party Express blasted liberal criticism of the movement on Monday in a fund-raising email to members, saying the left is trying to "smear" them and Sarah Palin. The email defends Palin, who has taken heat from some liberals who say her PAC went too far in using a graphic with crosshairs on specific Congressional Districts, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Some have said the Rhetoric is at least partially to blame for the Tucson shootings. The email notes that the liberal si...

The Arizona Killings And The Tea Party
The Tea Party Express says blaming the constitutionalist movement and Sarah Palin for the Arizona shooting that killed six people and wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is "outrageous." The California-based group says liberals are trying to exploit the shooting for political gain and place the blame on society for embracing the tea party movement, but the 22-year-old charged in the shooting is the only person responsible for the violence. In a statement Monday, the Tea Party Express says if ...

Sharron Angle defends rhetoric in wake of Arizona (The Ticket)
Former Nevada GOP Senate Candidate Sharron Angle is pushing back against critics aiming to link her campaign Rhetoric to the shootings in Arizona. "I condemn all acts of violence. The despicable act in Tucson is a horrifying and senseless tragedy, and should be condemned as a single act of violence, by a single unstable individual," Angle said in a statement, per CNN. "Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people's Constitutional liberties is both dangerous and ...

ARIZONA: Tucson Tea Party Says It Won't Change Its Campaign Rhetoric
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Fearing tea party violence, four Arizona Republicans resign
Stumble This! Fearing violence from Tea Party Activists, Arizona Legislative District 20 Republican Chairman Anthony Miller and several others tendered their Resignation this week following Mass Shootings that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition. Miller, a 43-year-old former campaign worker for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), said that verbal attacks and blog posts from members of the Tea Party had him fearing for the safety of his family, according to a report in Th...

House pays tribute to victims of Arizona shooting
The House is honoring Victims of Saturday's shootings in Tuscon, including one of its own. Republican Speaker John Boehner is opening the session of remembrances and tributes to the 19 people shot, six fatally. The remarks are expected to focus on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat shot in the head as she spoke to constituents outside a Supermarket. Later Wednesday, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and other lawmakers are flying with President Barack Obama to Arizona to co...

Loughner In 2007: Die Bitch, Die Cops
From an ever so discreet Washington Post: ‘We don’t understand why this happened,’ parents say By Dana Hedgpeth and David A. Fahrenthold Wednesday, January 12, 2011; A01 TUCSON - Three days after their son allegedly killed six people and left a congresswoman critically wounded, Jared Lee Loughner’s parents issued their first public comments Tuesday night, saying that they, too, cannot comprehend what had motivated the shootings. "There are no words that c...

Poisonous Political Atmosphere Is Unhealthy
This is really, really hard to write. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) is my friend. I spent time with her, and her husband, Mark Kelly, less than two weeks ago. We talked about the debased state of discourse in the country, the awful and degrading nature of campaigns, including the really despicable one run against her last year, the threats she received after she voted for the Health Care Reform Bill--and the wonderful satisfaction of public service and the need to encourage more of our best and bri...

Palin: Journalists incite hatred after AZ shooting
(01-12) 07:19 PST Anchorage, Alaska (AP) -- Sarah Palin posted a nearly eight-minute video on her Facebook page early Wednesday, accusing Journalists and pundits of inciting hatred and violence in the wake of a deadly Arizona shooting that gravely wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Last spring, Palin targeted Giffords' district as one of 20 that should be taken back. Palin has been criticized for marking each district with the cross hairs of a gun sight. In the video, the 2008 GOP vice pres...

Sarah Palin scores Blood Libel ascribed to her by the press - The Gabrielle Giffords shooting
Sarah Palin’s video response to the Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords Sarah Palin today accused her opponents of Manufacturing a “blood Libel” by suggesting her Rhetoric and campaign tactics had anything to do with the Arizona shootings. Four days after an incident which left six people dead and critically injured the congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Palin released a video statement condemning the attack. She denied that a now infamous campaign map showing Giffords’...

Palin accuses critics of 'blood libel'
WASHINGTON - Prominent U.S. Republican Sarah Palin Wednesday accused critics of “blood Libel” by blaming her Rhetoric for contributing to the shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six and wounded 14, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords. “Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them,” the conservative Tea Party favorite and former Alaska Governor said in her first major response to critics. R...

Influence and over-determination
In comments yesterday, Mark Matson posted this incredibly instructive little video demonstrating the power of even barely noticeable influence: In the broadest sense, this is a demonstration of the (small-s) situationist Thesis: the hidden power of situational factors to influence behavior. Situationist influences are generally taken to be much less important than dispositionist ones--those that reside in the individual's inherent disposition--their character, tastes, preferences, beliefs, et...

Oh Goodie: Fidel Castro Blames Tea Party for Giffords Shooting
In related news, Fidel Castro has been offered a job by the New York Times editorial board. As is known, the state of Arizona, a territory that was snatched from Mexico by the United States together with many other expanses of land, has been the scene of painful events for the hundreds of Latin Americans who die trying to immigrate to the United States in search of work or to join parents, spouses or other close family members who are there. In that country, it is they who do the hardest jo...

AZ Republicans Resign After Giffords Shooting, Citing Threats From Local Tea Partiers
Just hours after 22-year-old gunman Jared Loughner launched a Shooting Spree at a Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) constituent event in Tucson on Saturday that left six dead and 14 wounded, Legislative District chairman Anthony Miller, a Republican, announced that he would resign his position. In an email to the state’s GOP chair, Miller cited “constant verbal attacks” after his election last year “and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him...