True Face of Progressivism Exposed in a Tragedys Aftermath.

ACTION ITEM: Create debate team style flashcards to help people better counter the Lefts talking points when surrogate speaking
How can you help people better debate the Left? Here’s something else you can do to help counter the media and Left’s (redundancy alert!) talking points against the Tea Party and Conservatives:  if you ever took debate in school, are a teacher, or are just great at organizing information, you can help collect all the instances of the Left’s hypocrisy you are seeing emerge right now into debate team style flashcards that people can use to better counter any Leftists they en...

Vitriol spinners losing the battle for hearts and minds?
The view from our front porch at daybreak this morning: Deck cranes of the container ship "West Bay" out of Hong Kong catch the sun's early rays dockside at Eastern Minerals across the street. "It looks like the vitriol spinners are losing the battle for hearts & minds," we just twittered," referencing a brand new CBS News poll that finds "Most Americans Feel Rhetoric, Tucson Shooting Unrelated": Overall, 57 percent of respondents said the harsh polit...

Twitter roundup
BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:37pm Matthew Dowd: "If the jobs #s don't improve... the president could locate his HQ on Mars & it wouldn't make a difference" https://j.mp/fpEz8S The Over/Under for 2012 - Matthew Dowd - Politics - The Atlantic Obama will need better numbers to win BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:21pm Much credit to @ezraklein for retracting his attack on Joe Lieberman's motives https://j.mp/dE7rmx (original post on it: https://j.mp/gp9Qpa) Ezra Klein - A good...

Most Americans don't see link between Arizona shootings, political rhetoric, poll finds
A sizable majority of Americans said they did not believe that harsh political Rhetoric was the reason a gunman opened fire over the weekend in Tucson, killing six and wounding 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll released Tuesday. The finding comes as Republicans and Democrats have sparred over whether recent heated political Rhetoric may have been a factor in the shootings. Giffords was among 20 lawmakers targeted in campaign literature by Sarah Palin, the conse...

David Brooks Fails To Name Names At The NY Times
David Brooks is correct in his overall analysis of the media smear against Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement: All of this evidence, which is easily accessible on the Internet, points to the possibility that Loughner may be suffering from a Mental Illness like schizophrenia.... In short, the evidence before us suggests that Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it. Yet the early coverage and commentary of the Tucson massacre suppressed this evid...

On Jared Loughner: The politicized mind
Before he allegedly went off on his shooting rampage in Tucson, Jared Loughner listed some of his favorite books on his YouTube page. These included: “Animal Farm,” “Brave New World,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Through the Looking Glass” and “The Communist Manifesto.” Many of these books share a common theme: individuals trying to control their own thoughts and government or some other f...

The "Politicized Mind" Of Gabrielle Giffords
David Brooks is astonished, sickened, appalled that an attempted Assassination of a sitting congresswoman should be immediately regarded as something possibly ... wait for it ... political. In fact, Loughner must be seen in a context in which politics does not exist: The evidence before us suggests that Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it. So why, one has to ask, does this person with Mental Illness, carefully select for Assassination an alread...

"Sarah Palin made him do it!" means Narrative failure
"Sarah Palin made him do it!" means Narrative failure While it's still too early to say this conclusively, I think that people who want to read their various political narratives into Jared Lee Loughner are ultimately in for a disappointment. The man's mind is so messed up that he's the political equivalent of schizophrenic word salad (schizophasia): Judging from Mr. Loughner's own website, his mind was a mess of Conspiracy theories, influenced by tracts like "Mein Kampf" and the "Communist Ma...

In They Are Who We Thought They Were News..
I had put this in the replies in yesterday’s Afternoon Open Thread, but I thought about it, and decided to FP it. 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 as...

The question a few months from now
Wolf Blitzer on CNN asked a question about the Arizona shootings: the question is, is there any evidence that the suspected shooter in this particular case was a Sarah Palin fan, read Sarah Palin’s website, was a member on Facebook, watched her tweets, or anything like that? Mr. Blitzer is not alone. NYDN: “Giffords’ blood is on Sarah Palin’s hands.” So the question a few months down the road is this: will all this ridiculous hyperventilating in the media tarnish ...

George Stephanopoulos: 'No Evidence' Shooter Was Motivated by Politics, Focuses On It Anyway
According to Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos, there's "no evidence" that the Arizona shooter was motivated by political ideology. But, that didn't stop the ABC host from speculating during a discussion with possible Republican Presidential Candidate Tim Pawlenty. After allowing that "crazy voices" inside Jared Loughner's head probably prompted the rampage, Stephanopoulos continued, "But this has sparked a debate about the political debate in ...

Random Round-Up 01-11
President Obama Job Approval A secret $6 billion Bailout for Puerto Rico? Smooth move dumbasses. John Adams tried that 200 years ago with the Alien and Sedition Acts and that was an epic fail. Why isn't that liberals have no new ideas? Dem planning bill that would outlaw threats to lawmakers Boehner will keep flying commercial Debt default is no laughing matter In Budget Crises, an Opening for School Reform School systems can put Students first by making sure any Layoffs account for teacher qu...

Arizona Republics SCATHING smackdown of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik
Send Sheriff Clarence Dupnik a POSTCARD, not a letter or email, telling him what you think of his job performance. This is one of the most direct and scathing smackdowns I’ve ever seen a newspaper hand an elected official. It’s essentially a bare-bottomed spanking, which Clarence Dupnik may or may not actually enjoy. The Arizona Republic is much more charitable towards this man than we’ve been.  In the article, the paper gives Dupnik a pass for anything he did the day Jar...

Patrick Kennedy Blames Vitriolic Rhetoric
From the Politico: Patrick Kennedy points finger at Sarah Palin By Brett Coughlin January 10, 2011  Patrick Kennedy, who lost two uncles to assassins’ bullets, says there’s an obvious connection between the violent Rhetoric of today’s politics and the massacre in Tucson. Perhaps it should be noted that both of Mr. Kennedy’s uncles were killed by leftist radicals. Lee Harvey Oswald was a radical Communist (who had earlier hoped to kill Richard Nixon). Sirhan Sirhan is a rad

Halperin: Hey, why did conservatives defend themselves from being smeared?
Say, isn’t the phrase “war stations” a use of violent imagery?  I’m just sayin’ …. “I think the media and the politicians have behaved pretty well so far”? The normally sensible Mark Halperin from Time runs off the rails in this segment from today’s Morning Joe, and that was hardly the worst of it. He blamed the “anger of the right-wing commentariat,” including George Will, for the Controversy started when CNN and other media o...

Hey Sarah, At Least Stand By Your Free Speech (Guest Voice)
Hey Sarah, At Least Stand By Your Free Speech by Tina Dupuy Last 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.” Coincidence? Yes. None of us want to live in a society where hyperbole, exaggeration, satire,

Evaluating Palin's Response to the Giffords Shooting (The Atlantic Wire)
WASHINGTON, DC – Sarah Palin hates violence and war--she just happens talk about it because it makes a middle-aged mom with glasses and a hair pouf sound tough. Harsh judgment, but even those who see no connection between Palin's rough Rhetoric (complete with gunsights) and the Giffords shooting aren't impressed with her response to the tragedy. Giffords's shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, appears to have been mentally ill and did not mention Palin--or the infamous map--a single time in his p...

Harrison Ford Wont Appear On CNNs Piers Morgan Tonight, Says Host Is Fixated On Looking For Truth
We can forget about seeing Han Solo on the soon-to-debut Piers Morgan Tonight. According to a post on The Fan Carpet, actor Harrison Ford has nixed the idea of being a guest on Piers Morgan ’s new Talk Show, saying Morgan seemed to be interested in “the truth.” Horrors! Ford made it clear he sees his role as a celebrity guest on TV as driven by one thing only: selling his movie, like the recent TV news-based Morning Glory: (Piers Morgan)’s promoting his show as looking f...

Brave Woman Who Grabbed Clip from Shooter Blames Right-Wing Media and Rhetoric In Fox News Interview
Patricia Maisch, 61, was the brave woman who kept alleged shooter Jared Loughner from unloading a second clip into a Tuscon crowd on Saturday. Wounded herself from a bullet, she saw him attempting to equip his gun with another magazine, grabbed him and knelt on his ankle, delaying the reload and potentially saving many more lives.  So when Fox News interviewed her on Sunday, they clearly wanted to know if her strength could translate to psychic healing as Americans grappled with the tragedy...

Loughner's Parents Blame Themselves
It's always the same old story -- everyone knew Jared Loughner was unbalanced but no one chose to do anything. Loughner's father is expected to release a statement. Meanwhile, the right and the left battle it out over what motivated Loughner to shoot. The left contends that Sarah Palin had some sort of influence over him and that the right's anti government Rhetoric helped create Loughner. But Loughner's "politics," if you want to call it that, were erratic. He is registered to vote as an inde...

The Stone-Throwing AFL-CIO Boss Who Lives in a Glass House
Intellectual Dishonesty. Other than, perhaps, sheer hypocrisy , there just doesn’t seem to be any other term that describes the Left’s behavior in the aftermath of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson. On Monday, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka weighed in, stating in a post on the AFL-CIO blog: We must find ways to passionately debate and even disagree with each other without using words that can give unstable individuals an incitement to engage in violent acts. [snip] We do not know wh...

What do you do when you think government is fucking you over?
By Michael J.W. Stickings For some interesting background on Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year old charged in the Arizona shooting, see this piece at Mother Jones, based on an interview with a close friend. Key passage (emphasis added): [Bryce] Tierney, who's also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period [2007]. He's unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges ...

Media whitewashes ultra-right in Arizona massacre
Here the central role was played by the ultra-right media campaign mounted by Fox News, Talk Show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, including one Republican Senate Candidate who called for a "Second Amendment solution" to political issues -- i.e., the use of Firearms. As the World Socialist Web Site explained yesterday (See "Arizona Assassination spree tied to political right"), the political conceptions in Loughner's Internet postings are...

Glenn Beck Defends Sarah Palin With New Pledge Scam
It was a no-brainer that Glenn Beck would jump on the hastily gerrymandered “FOX ‘News’ Protect Palin” bandwagon after the Tucson massacre. Beck has a lot invested emotionally in the Half-Governor. Not only is she his BFF—she was his first guest on Fox “News”—but he is also knew that an attack on Sarah Palin for her “target maps” would quickly spread to the Beckinator himself. As offensive as the bulls eyes might have been—and the...

Tea Party Express fundraises off Arizona tragedy, lies about Daily Kos
Uh, what? From a Tea Party express Fundraising email: The media didn't tell you that the left-wing website, DailyKos, had targeted Congresswoman Giffords, putting a BULLSEYE on her, did they? But that's just what happened. The media didn't tell you that because it never happened. It's fantasy. It's a lie. And of course, since they can't verify the existence of such a bullseye image on this site, they'll claim it was scrubbed. Except that no one got a Screenshot of this supposed bullseye image....