The Blood of Eden

MSNBC: Jared Loughner Wrote A Threatening Note To Gabrielle Giffords
A note written by Jared Loughner (pictured), the 22-year-old man who opened fire on an event in Tucson, Arizona, injuring Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killing six others, reveals that Loughner felt a deep hatred towards the Congresswoman. An FBI document reveals that Loughner wrote the words “I planned ahead”, “My Assassination” and “Giffords” on an envelope signed with his name. The letter was kept in a safe in Loughner’s home, along with a lett...

Tea Party Leader: Left's Reaction To Shooting 'Sinks To The Level Of Evil'
A top Tea Party Leader is accusing the left of using the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others in Arizona this weekend for political advantage, and said he thinks it's "genuinely revolting." "To see the left exploit this for political advantage -- some people have no conscience," the Tea Party Patriot's Mark Meckler told The Daily Beast. "It's genuinely revolting...I think it sinks to the level of evil." "[I]f these scumbags want to play it politically, let it be on their co...

Hopeful Signs But Many Questions For Giffords' Medical Outlook
What is this? There are still many questions surrounding the condition of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). We expect to hear more at a Press Conference at noon eastern time today, and NPR's Jeff Brady will be there. At a Press Conference Sunday, neurosurgeons at University Medical Center in Tuscon, Arizona, told reporters that Giffords had responded to a simple verbal command to show two fingers after the surgery. That's pretty significant because it means that, for now, the Speech center of the ...

At Least Stand By Your Free Speech
Saturday morning 20 people were shot in a Tucson Safeway Parking Lot by a 22-year-old who stated on YouTube he “won’t pay Debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver.” Fifteen minutes after the news broke, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tweeted, “The price of gold today is at $1,368.90 an ounce.” None of us want to live in a society where hyperbole, exaggeration, satire, bad taste and horrible timing are subjective.  Stupidity is legal. ...

Sarah Palin Staffer: Giffords attack nothing to do with ex-gov
Source: WTSP A Staffer for Sarah Palin is defending the conservative politician against attacks blaming Palin and the Tea Party movement for the horrifying Arizona shooting that left six people dead and Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition. "We have nothing whatsoever to do with this," Palin aide Rebecca Mansour said in an interview with radio host Tammy Bruce, a Palin supporter. ... In March, Palin released a map featuring 20 House Democrats that used crosshairs ima...

Is America growing politically unstable?
Is America becoming less politically stable? A glance at some foreign Newspapers would certainly give that impression. This is an important economic question. The global primacy of Treasury Bonds and The Dollar stems mostly from the nation’s massive economic might. But confidence in U.S. political stability also plays a role. The shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, though tragic, shouldn’t alter those perceptions — unless Freedom of Speech suffers. Amateur criminal p...

Sarah Palin Virtually Pulled the Trigger, They Say. MoveOn, Lefty Bloggers Already Trying To Capitalize On Arizona Shooting!
Just 24 hours after the horrific Attempted Murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) by alleged gunman Jared Loughner MoveOn tried to rev up its membership to wage war against the forces of darkness in America today, i.e. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement. The radical left-wing group sent out an email appeal Sunday to its members with crafty wording. It starts out innocently enough (full letter text at bottom of this post): Dear MoveOn member, The tragedy in Tucson has shake

Waxman on Newsmakers: 'Repeal' disruptive and tragic for a lot of people
During his tenure as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, ranking member, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) was deeply involved in the framing of the Health Care law.  On CSPAN’s Newsmakers, Representative Waxman shares his reaction now that Republican leaders are moving forward in their attempts to Repeal the law.   On the first day the 112th Congress convened Speaker of the House Boehner began by calling for more openness, transparency and accountability.&...

"Both sides do it!"--Oh, really?
The most popular trope to excuse the right of all rresponsibility for decades of demonizing, violent and eliminationist Rhetoric: "Both sides do it!" Not so much: This has been out there for a very long time for everyone to see. A tremendous tolerance for violent rightwing rhetoric has been built up--particularly by so-called political "moderates", "Centrists" and the "objective Journalists" of the so-called "Mainstream Media". This is what they've all grown accustomed to--and devoted themse...

After Giffords shooting, Palin aide says crosshairs really surveyor marks
An aide to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on a conservative radio program Sunday that last year’s much-maligned ads by Palin’s PAC showing rifle crosshairs over 20 Democratic Congressional Districts - including Gabrielle Giffords’s CD8 in Arizona - were actually meant to represent surveyor’s symbols on a map. Local politicians responded to the Saturday shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and others in Arizona. Giffords survived the shoo...

8 still hospitalized after deadly Arizona shooting
This March 2010 photo shows a man identified as Jared L. Loughner at the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books in Tucson, Ariz. The Arizona Daily Star, a festival sponsor, confirmed from their records that the subject's address matches one under investigation by police after a shooting in Tucson that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wounded and at least five others dead. Police say a suspect is in custody, and he was identified by people familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22, of Tucson....

After Giffords shooting, Palin aide says crosshairs really surveyor marks
An aide to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on a conservative radio program Sunday that last year’s much-maligned ads by Palin’s PAC showing rifle crosshairs over 20 Democratic Congressional Districts - including Gabrielle Giffords’s CD8 in Arizona - were actually meant to represent surveyor’s symbols on a map. Minnesota politicians send wishes to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Reps. Bachmann, McCollum and Walz have begun issuing statements and posting online upda...

Arizona Massacre Prompts Political 'Cheap Shots'
When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords collapsed outside the Safeway in Tucson Saturday morning, felled by a hail of bullets that killed six and wounded another 13 innocent people that had come to see her, some were quick to claim that the carnage was the product not merely of the tortured mind and trigger-happy fingers of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner. Rather, many on the American Left said the horror could be traced to the malign influence of American Conservatives; members...

Constitutionalism and Reasonability
The comments on Mark’s post below have grown to the point where I’m not sure I want to intervene, and my Internet access is limited this weekend anyway, but Freddie’s comment early in the thread raises many important points, and I’d like to respond to them here. To find a grant of plenary power in what is clearly a restraint on the taxing power (the general welfare clause) or, worse, to find such a grant in the preamble, makes a mockery and a waste of the rest of Article...

Tucson aftermath: Here come the gun laws
Well, that didn't take long.  Within a day of a deranged lunatic's murderous Shooting Spree in Tucson, we are being told that for our "safety" in a world polluted with such thugs, we need more restrictions placed on our ability to defend ourselves from them.  So far, the "there oughta be a law" (or, preferably, a bunch of laws) crowd seems to have identified three fronts along which to advance new encroachments on liberty: hardware ban-type laws, expansion of "prohibited purchaser" lis...

Congressman Reportedly Moves to Criminalize Threatening Speech Against Members of Congress
Unfortunately, one of the most predictable things to follow a madman’s attack in this country is a slew of new laws proposed by politicians — often laws that threaten First Amendment or Fourth Amendment rights. In the first of what may be a slew of such measure following the Arizona massacre, Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) has indicated that he now plans to introduce Legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or incitin...

GOP Leaders Respond to Arizona Crime
Over the weekend many of the leaders in the Republican Party responded to this criminal action perpetrated against a fellow member of Congress on Saturday. It is important that their words be heard because of the din of the Old Media and the Democrats is so loud as to have drowned out the sorrow that the GOP leaders exhibited over this incident. “We are all still shaken by the shooting that took place in Tucson on Saturday, and we are thinking especially today about the six people whose li...

Solar industry praises Giffords as 'one of the strongest advocates for solar in Congress'
The solar industry praised Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) this weekend as “one of the strongest advocates for solar in Congress.” Giffords and 19 other people were shot Saturday in Tucson, Arizona. Six people were killed. Giffords remained in critical condition Monday, but doctors say they are “cautiously optimistic” that she will survive. In a letter to the group’s members shortly after news of the shooting broke, Solar Energy Industries Association President Rhone Resch

Warren Goldstein: No Moment of Silence: Speak Out Against Violent Language and Guns
I confess. Rather than observing the nationwide moment of silence President Obama called for 11AM this morning, I wrote this post. Silence is the last thing we need right now. We need Speech: forceful, civil, principled, intelligent speech about the intensifying connection between mainstream violent speech and the so-called "fringe" violent action it encourages. No longer do demagogues get to claim that their casual use of violent imagery has no effect beyond the airwaves or cyberspace. This w...

Sheriff Dupnik: People In Media Make Money Off 'Keeping The Public Very Angry'
Source: Talking Points Memo Sheriff Dupnik: People IN Media Make Money Off 'Keeping The Public Very Angry' Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik continued criticizing political Rhetoric on MSNBC today, saying that "millions of people in this country are upset with the tenor and the attitude of our people. I think America has become very angry." He also had some thoughts on the media, telling host Chuck Todd: "There are people in the industry that you're in who make a pretty good living off of keep...

Remember This? Of Course Not.
In case you happen to be Facebook friends with a women’s studies Professor, the content of whose latest posts we can only guess, ask her to remember the years 2002 to around 2007. This was the run-up to the Iraq War—its planning, execution, and escalation. These years also just so happened to coincide with an era of extended dementia, an orgy of the most vile, childish, callous work of the Activist Left, a time when violent radical Rhetoric reached its most rabid masturbatory peak. Rem...

Glenn Beck Emails Sarah Palin About Arizona Shooting
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin emailed each other about the shooting in Arizona, and Beck read some of their exchange on his Monday Radio Show. Both have been cited by some as having contributed to the climate that may have indirectly led to the shootings. Palin, in particular, has drawn criticism for the map she put up that placed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Congressional District, among others within crosshairs. "Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the sa...

MoveOn.orgs Spin
MoveOn.org has sent out a blast email blaming “hate” on the shooting in Arizona. From their email: Windows were smashed at Representative Giffords’ district office last March just a few hours after the House vote on Health Care reform.2 At one of the infamous town hall events in August 2009, a man attending the event accidentally dropped a Handgun on the floor that he had been hiding under his arm. And violent tendencies have been inflamed by the careless and irresponsible rh...

Loughner Conviction Could Come Down To Why Judge Was At Giffords Event
Whether Jared Lee Loughner is convicted federally of killing Federal Judge John McCarthy Roll could come down simply to why he showed up to Saturday's event with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). In the Criminal Complaint filed against Jared Lee Loughner, the FBI is building the case that U.S District Court Judge John Roll attended Rep. Gabrielle Giffords "Congress on your Corner" not by chance or on a social visit, but for official government business. So why does Roll's reason for attending t...

Obama Leads Moment of Silence after Shooting
Monday, January 10, 2011 By Lou Kesten, Associated Press In this March, 2010 photo provided by the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Giffords poses for a photo. Giffords was critically wounded during a shooting at a political event Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) Washington (AP) - A somber President Barack Obama led a moment of silence on Monday for a nation stunned by an attempted Assassination against an Arizona congresswoman that left...