Top lawyer to represent accused Arizona gunman

POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The CNN Washington Bureau’s morning speed read of the top stories making news from around the country and the world. Click on the headlines for more. President Obama began working Monday night on the Speech he will deliver during a memorial service Wednesday for the Victims of Saturday's Mass Shooting in Tucson, Arizona. White House officials say Obama has determined the broad idea of what he wants to say and is working with his team of Speechwriters on drafting his remarks. According to ...

Monica Yant Kinney: Arizona tragedy becomes grist for political mills
Hours after a troubled 22-year-old massacred six people and wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others in a Tucson, Ariz., Parking Lot, my in box began filling up with unsolicited missives from officials and interest groups miles from the crime scene. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence wanted to make sure I knew that "we have too few laws to protect our families and communities from this kind of bloodshed, and the laws we do have are riddled with too many Loopholes." Ce...

Loughners Father Chased Son Hours Before Tucson Shooting
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By Amanda Lee Myers and Justin Pritchard, Associated Press This Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011 photo released by the Pima County Sheriff's Office shows shooting suspect Jared Loughner. (AP Photo/Pima County Sheriff's Dept. via The Arizona Republic) Tucson, Ariz. (AP) - Mysterious black bag in hand, Jared Loughner ran into the desert, his angry father stopping pursuit in his truck. Hours after Randy Loughner's futile confrontation with his 22-year-old son Saturd...

FBI Launches 'Bureau Special' to Probe Shooting
Hundreds of FBI agents are working on an investigation aimed at understanding why a former community College Student, with no history of violence, went on a shooting rampage outside a Tucson, Ariz., Supermarket last weekend. The suspect, Jared Loughner, 22, allegedly killed six people, gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and injured 13 others as he opened fire during a political event at a local shopping center on Saturday morning. Inside the FBI, the investigation is known as a "Bure...

Judy Clarke: Jared Loughner's 'Amazing' Attorney
She counseled Ted Kaczynski 13 years ago this month when the Unabomber was toying with the government in advance of his Guilty Plea. She helped an unrepentant Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber, avoid a death sentence. She was present and accountable during the chaotic trial of Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her two small Children in a car in a lake. She even represented Zacarias Moussaoui, the mercurial Al-Qaeda conspirator. All of those defendants faced capital ch...

Jared Loughner and the ins and outs of the insanity defense (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Washington's top five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting Jared Loughner and the ins and outs of the insanity defense Mark Sanford exits the stage 5 House freshmen to watch: a nurse, an FBI agent, two policy wonks, and a political operative ACORN leader avoids Prison for voter Fraud Conspiracy Most people consider Jared Loughner, the man accused of shooting and killing six people and wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to be mentally ill. Lo...

NYT: Cops Previously Visited Loughner Home
With all the evidence against the suspected Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, a Guilty verdict could still prove very difficult. Jan Crawford reports on the latest details of the case. As new details are released of Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner's alleged behavioral issues, Dean Reynolds reports on the latest Mental Health laws in Arizona. Jared Loughner, 22, is charged in the shooting that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded and killed six people in Tucson, Ariz. (CBS) In thi...

Arizona officials reveal disturbing details about suspect in massacre
Doctor: No change in Rep. Giffords condition Ariz. survivor: 'It was like a bad crime drama' TUCSON — Investigators revealed more disturbing details Tuesday about the events leading up to the Assassination attempt against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, including a menacing handwritten note in the suspect's home with the words "Die, bitch." Just before Saturday's shooting, a mumbling Jared Loughner ran into the desert near his home after his father asked him why he was removing a black bag ...

Obama to Arizona as shot lawmaker fights for life (AFP)
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will lead Americans in national mourning Wednesday after an Arizona shooting tragedy unleashed a polarizing national debate about the violent Rhetoric rocking US politics. Obama will fly to the southwestern state to lead a tribute service for the six people who were killed and the 14 wounded in the Assassination attempt on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is fighting for her life in a Hospital. His trip will take place after the family of th...

From the Unabomber to Loughner
Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of the Tucson Shooting Spree on Saturday, is to be defended in court by the renowned Trial Lawyer Judy Clarke. Clarke is no stranger to high-profile cases: she has represented the 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber; Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who murdered her two sons, and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. The Kaczynski trial was the subject of a 1999 Reporter at Large by William Finnegan, “Defending th...

Unabomber Lawyer Will Vie to Represent Loughner
Yahoo! Buzz Judy Clarke will ask a Phoenix Federal Judge today to appoint her as Mr. Loughner’s defense counsel, according to the Arizona public defender’s office.  Mr. Loughner is due to make his initial court appearance today after Federal Prosecutors charged him Sunday with the killing and attempted killing of five federal employees, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords , who remains in critical condition. Separate state charges against Mr. Loughner are expected. The...

Insanity plea in Arizona shootings may be hard to make stick
The disturbing photograph of Jared Loughner that has been released after his arrest, as well as the writings and statements attributed to him, seem to point to a man with delusional thinking and Mental Illness. Even if that is found to be true, the attorneys for Loughner, the 22-year-old College Dropout who has been charged in the Tucson shootings, may find it difficult to mount a successful insanity defense. The rules regarding such a legal strategy were tightened over the years in the wake o...

Report: Unabomber Lawyer Clarke to Represent Loughner
Yahoo! Buzz Since Sunday evening, the rumors have been out there that Judy Clarke, the lawyer who has represented a handful of notorious criminals throughout her career, will represent Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of opening fire at a political event in Tucson on Saturday. CNN says it’s true now, citing a “federal judicial source.” (Click here, meanwhile, for a PDF of the federal charges filed against Loughner. Murder, Attempted Murder, Manslaughter and like Crimes of vi...

The Worst Sheriff in America
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By Michelle Malkin There are many heroes who showed indomitable courage and grace under fire during this weekend's horrific Tucson massacre. Blowhard Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was not one of them. If the White House has any sense, President Obama will stay far away from the demagogic Dupnik and his media entourage when he visits Arizona on Wednesday to memorialize the Victims. Indeed, if the White House is truly committed to unifying the country, it wil...

Obama to be nation's consoler at memorial service
WASHINGTON — Searching for unity out of tragedy, President Barack Obama will honor the Victims of the Arizona Mass Shooting in personal terms and remind those in grief that an entire nation is with them. The president is again stepping into his role as national consoler, a test of leadership that comes with the job. His mission at Wednesday's memorial is to uplift and rally, not to examine political Incivility. Set to speak during an evening gathering in Tucson, Ariz., Obama will remembe...

Arizona shooting: The claim that more guns means less crime is just silly
I walked into a drugstore in Phoenix the night after the Tucson shooting and saw toy guns for sale. They were a garish red plastic, with bright orange tips, and bore the notice that it’s strictly illegal to paint the guns in any way to resemble real ones. Yet here, as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik declared after the shooting, just about anyone can buy and carry a gun almost anywhere at any time. So why bother with toys? Sheriff Dupnik is the one politician (sheriffs are elected) who...

Giffords staff boosted by support
TUCSON, Ariz. — If we keep busy, we’re fine. This has become the mantra of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s staff in her district office, where those closest to her attempt to manage an overwhelming flood of constituents, cards, candles and flowers while their boss fights for her life in a Hospital bed 4 miles away. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 Giffords’s Communications Director calls the past few days a “time of extremes” — for as rand...

Obama to be nation's consoler at memorial service (AP)
WASHINGTON – Searching for unity out of tragedy, President Barack Obama will honor the Victims of the Arizona Mass Shooting in personal terms and remind those in grief that an entire nation is with them. The president is again stepping into his role as national consoler, a test of leadership that comes with the job. His mission at Wednesday's memorial is to uplift and rally, not to examine political Incivility. Set to speak during an evening gathering in Tucson, Ariz., Obama will remembe...

Arizona suspect's troubles didn't prevent him from buying gun
Tucson, Ariz. — Jared Loughner had trouble with the law, was rejected by The Army after flunking a Drug Test and was considered so mentally unstable that he was banned from his college campus, where officials considered him a threat to other Students and faculty. But the 22-year-old had no trouble buying the Glock semiautomatic pistol that authorities say he used in the Tucson rampage Saturday that left six dead and 14 injured, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Gabrielle Giffords on her Jewish roots
Martin Peretz publishes Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Az) description of her Jewish roots. My grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, was the son of a Lithuanian rabbi. My grandfather changed his name to Giff Giffords for reasons of Anti-Semitism and moved to Southern Arizona from New York more than a half century ago. In the 1940s, he founded my family’s tire and automotive business, El Campo Tire, which grew into a successful and thriving business for 50 years, which I ran for several years b...

Washingtons top five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Washington's top five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting Jared Loughner and the ins and outs of the insanity defense Mark Sanford exits the stage 5 House freshmen to watch: a nurse, an FBI agent, two policy wonks, and a political operative ACORN leader avoids Prison for voter Fraud Conspiracy It’s a well-worn mantra in politics to never let a crisis go to waste, so it comes as little surprise that public officials and the chattering...

Hundreds Attend Mass to Remember Those Shot in Tucson
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By Pauline Arrillaga and Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Roxanna Green, mother of murdered nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, center, attends a community Mass to mourn the Victims of Saturday's shooting on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011 at St. Odilia Catholic Church in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/David Sanders, Pool) Tucson, Ariz. (AP) - They came by the hundreds, a few cradling their own small Children even as they gathered to remember someone else's baby. Young a...

What We Know
There's a whole lot that we don't know about what led Jared Loughner to go on a shooting rampage last Saturday, and we probably will never know. So when we speculate about it, we're not only guessing and assuming facts not in evidence, we're tailoring the events that make no sense into something that does. That's the way the mind works. So when David Brooks says that there's no possible political motivation behind it, he's guessing just as much as those who are blaming Sarah Palin's unfortunate...

01.11.11 Open Thread
For all of of US Open thread aficionados, here’s tonight’s, squeezed between two very hot posts … … by Reverend Amy and Mssr. Johnson, the bad-boy, brilliant writer of irony and satire. Tonight, I’d like to point you to David Brook’s op-ed on the Tucson shootings in The New York Times: “The Politicized Mind.” Yes, well, it IS David Brooks. However, he sometimes makes very astute, insightful remarks, and this is such a case. Brooks’ op-ed wo...

Must we put his name in lights?
I haven’t posted much on the Arizona killings. The enormity of the tragedy demands a respectful silence, unless one actually has something useful to say. Most everything constructive I would say has already been said by someone else with greater force than I would muster. I would mention again the importance of long-term care and rehabilitative medicine. The typical 9mm bullet is quite adequate to lacerate Human Body parts, sometimes beyond repair. Every day, thousands of doctors, nurses,...