Stop Blaming the Tea Party for the Arizona Tragedy

Sheriff in Giffords case lashes out about politics
(01-10) 15:25 PST Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was thrust into the spotlight to face a nation demanding answers in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He didn't mince words. The rampage, he said, grew in part from extreme political Rhetoric, Bigotry and hatred, especially in his home state of Arizona. Dupnik said he was angry and heartbroken over the tragedy, and was simply speaking his mind as an American, not a Law Enforcement official. But ...

MARC THIESSEN: Stop Blaming The Tea Party For The Arizona Tragedy. After the attempted car bombi
Marc Thiessen: Stop Blaming The Tea Party For The Arizona Tragedy. After the attempted car bombing in Times Square last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly speculated that the attack had been carried out by “somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something.” At the Nation, columnist Robert Dreyfuss wrote that “a member of some sq...

We're Arizona shooting victims too, says Tea Party co-founder
Source: The Guardian A nine-year-old girl lies in the morgue. A member of Congress faces a lifetime of struggle to recover from a bullet in the brain. A city is bracing itself for a string of funerals as it tries to fathom the carnage. But Trent Humphries says there is another innocent Victim left by Jared Lee Loughner's killing of six people and wounding of 14 others in his Assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. It is his Tea Party movement and, more particularly, his f...

Antidotes to political alienation
It seemed to start slowly, the feeling of alienation. First it was simply exasperation and amusement at the unhinged rantings of Glenn Beck. Then Sarah Palin’s polarizing campaign. But it slowly turned into something more sinister, with violent Rhetoric and calls to revolution — on both the left and the right — being a common occurrence. After the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords this weekend, I began to feel like I didn’t recognize my country anymore. Whatever the motives fo...

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show Doesnt Blame Toxic Political Discourse For Arizona Jared Loughner Shooting Massacre
The Democrats might want to learn some thing from The Daily Shows, Jon Stewart. As reported at Mediaite , Jon Stewart appears to be the voice of reason as Democrats try and play party politics with the terrible events of the Tucson, AZ shooting massacre at the hands of crazed gunman Jared Loughner. Instead of doing his usual satirical dialogue, Stewart addressed his audience and discussed the henious actions of a gunman who killed six, wounded many and left US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in criti...

What President Obama should say (#obamashouldsay)
President Obama is scheduled to speak in Arizona Wednesday evening. The Speech will come four days after a gunman, identified by police as Jared Lee Loughner, killed six people and wounded 14 during a shooting rampage in front of a Tucson Supermarket. Among the dead: a nine-year old girl who aspired to enter politics and a Federal Judge. Among the wounded: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), the apparent target. Analysts and commentators around the web are giving the president advice regarding wh...

Bay Area to Honor Tucson Tragedy
This weekend's Mass Shooting in Tuscon, Arizona happened hundreds of miles away, but seemed to hit home to many in the Bay Area. The gunman is alleged to have targeted Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot in the head and remains in critical condition at a Tuscon Hospital. Six other people were killed and more than a dozen others were hurt. Now, a group of Young People have found a way for the Bay Area to respond to the violence. The East Bay Young Democrats will hold a candlel...

Mourners to hold 'community healing' Mass after Arizona shooting
Mourners will gather at a memorial Mass Tuesday for Victims of the weekend shooting outside an Arizona Supermarket that killed 6 people and wounded 14 others. The Mass will be held at 7 p.m. (9 p.m. ET) at St. Odiilia Church in Tucson, Arizona - where 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Green had her First Communion a year ago. "Right now it is important as a community to pull together and to reach out in care and concern to all who have been affected by this tragedy," Bishop Gera...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Arizona is on the brink | Max Blumenthal
The social fabric of Arizona seems to be deteriorating as fast as the state's population grows, driving it to the brink of dysfunction. The shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, US District Court judge John Roll and several other innocent bystanders by a lone gunman have brought the state's crisis to the fore, prompting Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik to declare it "the mecca for prejudice and Bigotry". Since I first travelled to Arizona more than seven years ago to interview rightwi...

Democrats that are politicizing Arizona tragedy have ulterior motives
The tragic shootings in Arizona on Saturday that left a nine-year-old girl dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords severely wounded should have been a time to put politics aside and honor the Victims. Instead, many people on the left are capitalizing on this opportunity to blame Conservatives and the lack of Gun Control as contributing the tragedy. Let’s take Democratic Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for example. Instead of giving a fact-based Press Conference Sa...

Did Sheriff Dupnik know about Jared Loughner?
The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and Bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the Victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda. Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff ...

Zandar's Thought Of The Day
Pima County Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik dared to voice the opinion that eliminationist Rhetoric from the right is a problem in this country. How do the eliminationists respond? 48 hours later, the right is holding Dupnik responsible for the shooting. Hot Air: Any cop can tell you whodunnit but it takes a supercop to tell you What It All Means about our political culture. A nagging question: Should supercop maybe have figured out that Loughner was a menace before he gunned down six people out...

Mental Health Care, Not Political Blame
In the wake of the Arizona shootings, it has been disturbing to see many politicians, Journalists, and even a sheriff exploit a national tragedy for political purposes. And, in so doing, many have set themselves up as Mental Health experts, explaining to the public that political debate and Rhetoric caused a likely psychotic suspect, Jared Loughner, to kill and injure innocent people. This is especially alarming when we consider that those who are public servants might, instead, focus their ef...

Sheriff Dupnick undaunted by criticism from right, blasts Limbaugh
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been under relentless fire from the right since his impassioned and impromptu plea for an end to hateful and violent Rhetoric. (Though as Media Matters points out at that link, they "repeatedly praised a different Arizona sheriff, Paul Babeu, who regularly engages in vitriolic attacks against President Obama and Democrats," and revere the Racist Joe Arpaio). Dupnik has been attacked by everyone from Red State and Malkin to his home State Senator, Jon Kyl....

The AZ Shooter Has All The Ingredients Of A Tea Party Member
Jared Loughner may not have attended a Tea Party rally or registered with any Tea Party groups, but he shares several similarities with the Tea Party movement. The first obviously is his anger against the government. His violent act reflected the anger against government for Health Care, and Immigration symbolized by Sarah Palin’s placement of Rep. Gifford in the crosshairs of gun. While Loughner’s rants may seem like those of a madmen, so do most rants from Tea Party members. Severa...

The first instinct of weak minds is to blame the Tea Party, Palin
Image via Wikipedia Marc Thiessen: After the attempted car bombing in Times Square last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly speculated that the attack had been carried out by "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health-care bill or something." At the Nation, columnist Robert Dreyfuss wrote that "a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government Far Right" was probably behind the bombing. Countless others in the left-wing blogosphere joined the "...

Democrats set sights on Palin to scapegoat for Gifford's shooting
Before they learned the name of the perpetrator, before the blood had even begun to dry on the pavement in Tucson, Leftists across the country took to the air to blame the Arizona shooting on Sarah Palin and the Conservative media.  They claimed the assassin was incited by combatant Rhetoric and images, the props that all politicians and talking heads have used.  In their rush to use the Victims of this tragedy, Leftists washed their hands in a child’s blood to make cheap politic...

Tucson shooting victim shielded wife from hail of bullets
By Brad Poole TUCSON, Arizona | Tue Jan 11, 2011 3:05pm EST TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - An elderly man who died using his body to shield his wife from a withering hail of bullets when a gunman sprayed a crowd in Tucson on Saturday, was remembered for his heroics on Tuesday. Dorwan Stoddard, a 76-year-old retired Construction Worker, died saving his wife, Mavanelle, by covering her on the ground as the gunmen shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a street corner congressional outreach ...

Tucson shooting victim shielded wife from hail of bullets
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - An elderly man who died using his body to shield his wife from a withering hail of bullets when a gunman sprayed a crowd in Tucson on Saturday, was remembered for his heroics on Tuesday. Dorwan Stoddard, a 76-year-old retired Construction Worker, died saving his wife, Mavanelle, by covering her on the ground as the gunmen shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a street corner congressional outreach event. "We are just blessed that he is walking with the Lord n...

Arizona Shootings: The Culture of Guns
New York Times columnist David Brooks chided the media for making the "extremely murky" link between political Rhetoric and actual violence. Jon Stewart says "you don't know what a troubled mind will get caught on." And conservative radio talk hosts have characterized Jared Lee Loughner as an isolated case, while their liberal critics are seizing on the tragedy for political gain. In all of the passionate takes on what led to the tragedy, up to now relatively little atten...

Loughner bought $400-$500 gun legally
Loughner passed a Background Check and bought the gun at a Sportsman's Warehouse Nov. 30, ABC News reported. Experts say the Glock 19 costs $400 to $500, not including ammunition. GALLERY: The aftermath of the Rep. Giffords shooting Six people were killed and 14 injured outside a Tucson Supermarket. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., believed to be the target of the massacre, remained in critical condition Tuesday after being shot in the head. Employees at one Walmart in the Tucson area ref...

Goldberg to mainstream media--'shut the hell up!'
Goldberg made the comment last evening on Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox. O'Reilly had already castigated the Mainstream Media for joining in the Leftwing chorus of blaming Conservatives for the massacre that killed a Federal Judge and wounded a U.S. Congresswoman, among others. As a nightly guest on The O'Reilly Factor, Goldberg exposes bias inherent in the news reporting of the media.  Goldberg had been part of CBS News under former anchor Dan Rather, and subsequently became a Whistleblower ...