Tea party's message: Don't blame us

Fox News Head Tells Hosts 'Shut Up, Tone It Down' After Giffords Shooting
Roger Ailes, the conservative who heads the Fox News Channel, has told his traditionally outspoken hosts to "shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually" in the wake of the massacre in Tuscon that is putting overheated right-wing Rhetoric under intense scrutiny. After the Arizona Massacre, Will Congress Ever Be the Same? "I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," Ailes said in an interview with Russell Simmons, the global hip-hop impresario, ...

The Left Never Wastes a Tragedy
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com The Left never stands so tall as when it stands upon dead bodies. Whether it is Bill Clinton blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on Rush Limbaugh, Democratic mayors suing gun manufacturers after school shootings in Arkansas and Colorado, Democrats turning Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial into a campaign rally, or Cindy Sheehan vastly overstaying her 15 minutes of fame, the Left never lets a tragedy pass without blaming it on its political enemies and pushing ...

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...

Silence Is Complicity & Defensiveness Is Endorsement
I've just finished up 3 hours of the most difficult radio I've ever had to do. The topic, of course, was the horrific shooting in Tucson, which has deeply affected me, as it has many others. As someone who had to flee the Capitol on 9/11, was warned of Anthrax contamination in the congressional office I was working in, and has faced various threats of violence during my media career, I was shaken by the scenes in Arizona more so than by any other news imagery in a long time. The reason the ra...

Pima County Dem Chair: Time Will Prove Loughner To Be A Right-Winger
TUCSON, AZ -- Conservatives gloating about the biography of the suspected shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) will eat their words in the end, according to the chair of the Pima County Democratic Party. "Here's what I think you're going to find," Jeff Rogers told me in an interview today. "I think you're going to find that he was [a conservative]." [TPM SLIDESHOW: Dem Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Shot In Arizona] I met with Rogers in his downtown Tucson office this afternoon to discuss the ...

Unbelievable! Democrat Rep James Clyburn blames Tucson shooting on reading of constitution last week
Unbelievable! Democrat Rep James Clyburn blames Tucson shooting on reading of constitution last week Lets see how Democrats and their usurpers in the media have played this Tucson shooting. First it was Sarah Palin’s fault for the “targets” on 20 Congressional Districts deemed winnable in the 2010 Midterm Elections. Then it was Glenn Beck’s fault (of course). Then the popular excuse still going to today was to blame the Tea Party, and claim that Jared Lee Loughner. Now,...

Was the Tucson shooting a product of the Tea Party?
Georgians join the people of Arizona in condemning the senseless act of violence and mourning the Victims of the recent Tucson shooting.  Georgians also wonder what Jared Lee Loughner’s motive was.  Was he trying to make a political point or was he simply deranged? In the days since the shooting in Tucson, leftists have rushed to denounce the Murders as the result of radical right-wing Rhetoric.  Specifically, left-wing Bloggers on Politico.com cited a “Veteran Democra...

Tea Party Leaders Strike Back at Left Over Giffords Incident
And “strike back” is the proper metaphor. Because on two occasions today, self-appointed leaders of the Tea Party movement quite literally lashed out at their political enemies over the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, in ways that show both a tendency toward painting their opponents in dehumanizing lights, and a good degree of guilt: Another Tea Party Leader is accusing the left of unfairly blaming the Tea Party for the Mass Shootings in Arizona, describing how “revolting and di...

The Giffords assassination attempt, and a telling omission
In the avalanche of false-equivalence analytical pieces littering the public conversation since Saturday's tragic assault, it is easy to miss one important point. Those pieces have fallen all over themselves (sometimes abhorrently in error) to make the case that "Democrats do it, too!" But no one I know of is claiming that there has never been a Democrat since the age of Andrew Jackson to make a war or violence metaphor in politics. That's not the point. The point is that one side does it with ...

Tea Party Express Leader: Left Is 'Revolting And Disgusting' For Blaming The Tea Party
Another Tea Party Leader is accusing the left of unfairly blaming the Tea Party for the Mass Shootings in Arizona, describing how "revolting and disgusting the left is for trying to associate the tea party with violence like this." Sal Russo, the leader of the Tea Party Express, said on Fox News today that shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner "was obviously a leftist. He admired Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Those are not volumes that are popular with the Tea Party so he was obviously...

Shameless: Politico.com insinuates the right wanted Giffords dead over green stance
As I noted yesterday in response to the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8), the Mainstream Media has been nothing short of shameless in its attempts to try and insinuate - or outright declare - that it was “the right” who targeted her for Murder. Josh Trevino wrote yesterday numerous times on Twitter about how Politico had joined in on the “Right Wing vitriol” bandwagon. Today, they continue to add to it with their latest extremely irr...

What to do next?
The Saturday shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and assassinations of Judge Roll and Christina Green, among others, has left many people looking for answers. Finger pointing has been rampant, with some on the left saying it was the fault of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party. Some on the right have noticed that Jared Loughner was a fan of the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, and assumed he was part of the left. As details emerge, he seems to be a mentally ill young man who ...

Glenn Beck Says 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous, But Frequent Host of Beck's Show is a 9/11 Truther
I’d normally rather have a root canal than watch Glenn Beck’s show, but today I wanted to see how he would try to spin away all responsibility for his insane Extremist Rhetoric. And sure enough, he came up with a real jaw-dropper. Here’s a Screenshot; these are the people he thinks are really, really dangerous (not him): I almost couldn’t believe this one. Because Beck has had a 9/11 Truther guest hosting his show, and more than once: Judge Andrew Napolitano, who went on ...

Glenn Beck Says 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous, But Guest Host of Beck's Show is a Truther
I’d normally rather have a root canal than watch Glenn Beck’s show, but today I wanted to see how he would try to spin away all responsibility for his insane Extremist Rhetoric. And sure enough, he came up with a real jaw-dropper. Here’s a Screenshot; these are the people he thinks are really, really dangerous (not him): I almost couldn’t believe this one. Because Beck has had a 9/11 Truther guest hosting his show, and more than once: Judge Andrew Napolitano, who went on ...

The Arizona Blame Games
I figure I’d throw my hat into the Tucson attack discussion ring while the conversation is fresh. Predictably, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and Conservatives, Truthers and non-truthers, and all other political enemies are pointing fingers at one another, attempting to assign blame for the six dead people and the many injured (including Congresswoman Giffords) to entire political parties and movements. While no one should be surprised at this, I still find myself woefully amused by ...

Look who else put 'bull's-eye' on Giffords
Shortly after news broke of the Attempted Murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the left-leaning blog Daily Kos was swift to scrub its post from a Tucson writer explaining how the congresswoman was now "dead to me." One of the blog's diary writers, identifying himself as BoyBlue, had written a post only two days before the shooting titled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!" "I am from the Tucson area and live in Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district...

McConnell statement on Tucson tragedy
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Saturday in regards to the Tucson shootings. This senseless attack today in Tucson is a national tragedy, and all America mourns those who lost their lives in the very act of public service. I join the entire Congress in condemning this horrifying act of violence, and on behalf of the entire Senate family, Elaine and I extend our deepest expressions of sympathy and heartfelt prayers to Rep. Giffords and the families of those who...

Acid Rhetoric Flashbacks
Big Hollywood’s headline board is loaded with examples of leftwing celebrities behaving rather badly: 1. Flashback: Ebert’s Site Praises Left-wing Bush Assassination Film 2. Flashback: Kathy Griffin Says 2011 is 16-year-old Willow Palin’s ‘year to go down’ 3. Flashback: Alec Baldwin threatens to Stone Henry Hyde, kill Children 4. Flashback: Joy Behar wants that ‘bitch’ Sharron Angle to go ‘to hell’ 5. Flashback: Aaron Sorkin happy when hunters shoot ea

Daily Hatred and Paranoid Purposes
In the wake of the Tucson massacre and the attempted Assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, George Packer wrote that hostile Rhetoric has become so much a given nationwide that “it took the shock of an Assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.” The political climate apparently troubled Giffords enough that on the eve of the shooting, she sent an e-mail to Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, asking his aid in toning ...

Palin counters pols trying to tie her to shooting (AP)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Sarah Palin indirectly countered politicians trying to tie her political material to the weekend shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Conservative Talk Show host Glenn Beck on Monday read what he said was the Tea Party favorite's e-mail to him in which she said she hates violence and war. According to Beck, Palin said: "Our Children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portrayin...

It's time to cool the rhetoric
Saturday's shootings in Tucson, in which six people were killed, including U.S. District Court Judge John Roll and nine-year-old Christina Green, and 14 wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), tells us that we desperately need to cool down an overheated atmosphere of violent and hateful political Rhetoric. Contentious political issues bring out strong feelings on all sides, but civilized people in a Democracy can disagree about things without resorting to threats of violence or d...

Glenn Beck Worried Other Left-Wing Nuts Like Loughner May Kill Palin
Dangerous left-wing Activists such as Jared Laughner are trying to Murder all of our Republican officials, such as Gabriel Giffords and Sarah Palin, according to Glenn Beck. You can find his call against violence on his website, conveniently located next to the publicity photo of him brandishing a Handgun of his own. The real tragedy of all of this is that people are being mean to Sarah Palin, the real Victim of this whole shooting thing, as Pareene notes. You should never blame the victim, but...

Cowardly Liar David Frum Exploits Shooting To Urge People to Think About His Pet Subject That had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with
David Swindle is the Managing Editor of NewsReal Blog and the Associate Editor of FrontPage Magazine. Follow him on Twitter here Again: this talk did not cause this crime. But this crime should summon us to some reflection on this talk. Better: This crime should summon us to a quiet collective resolution to cease this kind of talk and to cease to indulge those who engage in it. How about this crime should summon us to some reflection on whether The Rolling Stones were better than The Beatles. Or...

Congress Stands in Solidarity for Rep. Giffords
Members of Congress are still in shock over the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., this weekend. For some, the emotions were hard to restrain. "You know, by every indication that -- I'm sorry," said a shaken Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla. "By every indication, the fighter that, that Gabby Giffords is, is showing full strength." Is political vitriol creating an unhealthy environment for the nation's lawmakers? Peter S. Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family R...

Arizona Shooting Coverage Is a Media Campaign to Criminalize Conservatism
Managing Editor's Note: Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued the following statement after a thorough, two-day review of how the media have covered the tragic shooting in Arizona. Implicating a conservative tie to this heinous act of violence or to Jared Lee Loughner, who is no conservative, is nothing short of a naked campaign to criminalize conservative thought. Sadly, those who point their finger are at the nexus of hypocrisy. Take the unidentified “Veteran Democratic...