Why Was Giffords Targeted?

Arizona Sheriff Dupnik Was Aware of Loughners Mental Illness, Did Nothing
From Reuters: The suspect in Saturday’s shooting rampage in which a U.S. congresswoman was critically wounded was unstable and had been known to make Death Threats in the past, the local sheriff said. The FBI is investigating whether the man is the same person who posted a rambling Internet manifesto accusing the government of mind control and demanding a new currency. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, of Tucson, was taken into Custody moments after the shooting at a political meeting held by Dem...

Readers agree with me: Right wing off the hook in Arizona shootings
Since the summer of 2001, Drowning Pool’s thrashing metal anthem “Bodies” has been a ubiquitous Pop Culture presence. “Bodies” has been used on at least a half-dozen theatrical trailers for films such as “The Punisher,” “Friday the 13th: Jason X,” “Stop-Loss,” and “Daredevil.” It’s been utilized in Video Games, HBO’s “True Blood” and a number of pro wrestling events. When Red Sox closer Jonathan...

There Is Yet No Loughner / Far-Right Connection
It is worth stating again that there is at present no — zero — evidence that purported Tucson shooter Jared Loughner was affiliated with any Tea Party group or other mainstream conservative cause. But nor is there any reason to think that Loughner was aligned with even far-right or radical political causes.  Some people who study right-wing Militia groups and those who align themselves with the so-called Patriot movement said Mr. Loughner’s comments on subjects like the Am...

Giffords promoted softer political discourse in email to GOP colleague day before shooting
Stumble This! Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) on the eve of the shooting that left her in critical condition and six others dead wrote an email to a Republican colleague promoting a softer public political discourse. "After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation," Giffords wrote to Trey Grayson, Kentucky Secretary of State who resigned to take a position as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Giffords wrote the congr...

Jared Loughner Not Tied To Anti-Semetic American Renaissance Group, Either
In the aftermath of Saturday’s tragedy, the most wanted commodity in the political world seems to be a shred of recognizable political identity to attach to shooter Jared Loughner , and so far no major ideology- neither left nor right- has sufficed. The latest group to be dismissed as an influence in Loughner’s heinous acts is the previously accused group “American Renaissance,” described by the Department of Homeland Security as an “anti-semetic” ...

Pima County Sheriff Dupnik Jeopardizes Justice and Must Resign Now
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has blathered in radio, television, and newspaper interviews non-stop since Saturday’s massacre in his county.  He cannot possibly be doing his job to properly and thoroughly investigate the tragic loss of life on his watch in Pima County, Arizona. Monday , Dupnik even went so far as to blame Talk Show host Rush Limbaugh PERSONALLY for the Murders in Tucson.  See report here on Real Clear Politics.  On Sunday, Dupnik admitted in his interv...

Jared Loughner Charged
Jan.  10, 2011  Jared Lee Loughner Charged with 5 Counts of Murder, Attempted Murder and murder involving a member of Congress.  He indicated he understood the charges in court and his lawyer spoke to him offering her guidance.  The same lawyer Judy Clarke who has defended another mass murderer the Unabomer Ted Kaczinski has seen insanity defenses before. Loughner has said nothing about why he did the murders and what drove him to trying to assassinate a US congresswoman in...

When Violence Comes From the Right, Media Hear No Evil
Despite the work of media Watchdog groups like Media Matters, and groups that track right-wing Extremism, like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, the corporate media insist on ignoring the influence of the Far Right’s toxic rhetorical drumbeat of hatred and anger in promoting a political context where violence can break out. “At a time like this, it is terrible that we do have to think about politics, but no matter what the shooter’s motivations wer...

Times Goes to Left-Wing SPLC to Suggest Shooter Had 'Far-Right' Leanings
Monday’s front-page story from Tucson, the site of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Murder of six others, began with concerns from suspect Jared Loughner’s college classmates about his bizarre and aggressive behavior, but the Times switched to the role of politics in his life. Times reporters treated as an objective source of facts an unlabeled left-wing group that reliably finds right-wing “hate” wherever it looks on the right. Sure enough, the Sout...

Exploring the Mind and Behavior of Jared Loughner
Jared Loughner is not cooperating with police, remaining silent since being taken into Custody. So we only have his past patterns to use to try and understand his character and his motivations for arriving at the Tuscon Safeway with a loaded gun on Saturday. It looks increasingly clear that Loughner was a normal teen who gradually lost touch with reality, probably due to Mental Illness. He was anti-government but not in a coherent way. And it appears he held a grudge against Gaby Giffords. Ti...

Fed's seek link between Arizona shooter and incendiary device
A federal Task Force investigation is now underway to determine if the Arizona shooter, Jared Lee Loughner is in anyway linked to incendiary devices in Maryland and Washington D.C. last week.  The Maryland Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes Law Enforcement members from all three levels of government is now the lead agency in the investigation.  On Thursday, two incendiary devices detonated at two separate government buildings in Maryland resulted in two minor injuries.  Al...

Jared Loughner appears to be clinically scitzophrenic, not a right-wing extremist. Leading conservatives argue this means that
A virtual who's who of Conservatives - from George Will and Marc Thiessen to virtually every well-known conservative media figure and blogger has now reacted with outrage to the idea that violent Rhetoric by Conservatives had anything to do with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Many, in fact, reverse the accusation and claim that they are the Victims of a new "McCarthyism" or a "blood Libel" when critics suggest that violent Rhetoric by Conservatives in any way contributed to ...

Homeland Security walking back Jewish claim on Giffords
You will recall that I posted yesterday that the attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords' life was because she is Jewish. That post was based on a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that was posted by Fox News' Greta van Sustern on her blog. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is walking back that memo. Fox News's report yesterday initially claimed that a DHS memo had outlined the possible connection, and defined American Renaissance as a "pro-white Racist organization" th...

DHS uses Giffords shooting to push loose borders political agenda (Jared Lee Loughner, American Renaissance)
The Department of Homeland Security and various media sources are using the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner as an opportunity to try to smear opponents of illegal Immigration, focusing on the higher-level white racial separatist group American Renaissance (DHS memo at [1], report at [2]). Not only do they get that group's ideas wrong, but they mislead about what was in Loughner's videos and what appears to have been on his MySpace page. From the memo at [1]: no direct conn...

On the memo
Fox News has published the memo reportedly compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and distributed to Arizona Law Enforcement. The memo suggests that the suspect Jared Lee Loughner, 22, may have had an anti-Semitic motivation in targeting Rep. Gabriella Giffords (D-Ariz.) and that he may have been influenced by the Racist group American Renaissance. Earlier Sunday, officials had downplayed that there was such an official DHS memo per se. A read of the document suggests that it may be c...

DHS links Arizona shooter Loughner with white supremacist American Renaissance
 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a memo linking Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shooter Jared Lee Loughner with the anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, white supremacist Hate Group American Renaissance. According to a Law Enforcement memo based on information provided by DHS and obtained by Fox News, Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, may have been influenced by a pro-white Racist organization that pu...

DHS memo suggests suspect influenced by racist group
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a memo to Law Enforcement authorities suggesting that the suspect in the Arizona shootings Jared Lee Loughner was influenced by a Racist group, Fox News reports. No direct connection, but strong suspicion is being directed at American Renaissance, an organization that Loughner mentioned in some of his Internet postings and federal Law Enforcement officials are investigating Loughner's possible links to the organization. The organization is a month...

ADL urges "thorough examination" of Loughner's motives
In the wake of reports that investigators are probing Jared Lee Loughner's possible ties to a white supremacist organization, the Anti-Defamation League calls in a statement Monday for a thorough examination of whether the suspect was "influenced by Extremist literature, Propaganda or Hate Speech" in his targeting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the first female Jewish member of Congress elected from Arizona. "ADL remains in contact with Law Enforcement as investigators endeavor to ...

Wisdom from Rothbard on the Arizona Tragedy
Once again, after the weekend tragedy in Arizona, the collectivists are showing their true colors.  Take this shrill diatribe by one William Rivers Pitt.  It is an object lesson illustrating how ideologues and fanatics (both “left” and “right”) will callously exploit any tragic series of events as a means to advance their agenda.  It is the ethical stance of the totalitarian True Believer: “the end justifies the means.”&

Arizona gunman in court as Obama leads mourning
The man accused of trying to assassinate a congresswoman in an Arizona Shooting Spree that left six dead appeared in court but said nothing to shed light on his motive. President Barack Obama led the American nation in a somber minute of silence to honor the 20 people gunned down in Tucson -- where he will attend a memorial service on Wednesday, the White House announced. Flags were at half-staff at the Capitol in Washington, where hundreds of aides and lawmakers crammed the storied steps of Con...

Jared Loughner Is a Tragedy, Not a Nut Job or the Embodiment of Evil
I'm haunted by last week's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," in which a disturbed young man opens fire on dozens of people on a college campus. Several doctors are put to the ultimate test when they realize the man they are trying desperately to save is the shooter. Back in the waiting room, relatives of the many Victims are comforting one another – except for a tearful woman sitting alone in a corner. Dr. Jackson Avery walked out of the operating room rather than help save the perpetrato...

A moment of silence
The talking heads started in right away after the shooting. Once again they had no idea what they were talking about. This article will not be seen by many because it doesn’t cover Cleveland, Oh politics. The real reason is the truth. The truth is powerful and national politics affect everyone otherwise you would not pay federal Income Tax. The examiner review team obviously doesn’t understand that. The talking heads, the same people who are always asked when it comes to politics, ar...

Loughner is Anti-ZOG, Truther; Likely Schizophrenic
As Yael of the BokerTov blog notes, “Yep, two and two IS four.  I could feel it in my Zionist kishkehs:” (JTA) — A U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo reportedly notes that Gabriel Giffords is Jewish in describing the motives of the Arizona congresswoman’s alleged assailant. The memo, obtained by Fox News Channel, says that Jared Lee Loughner mentioned American Renaissance, an Extremist anti-immigrant group, in some of his own postings. “The group’s

Talk Radio, Blamed For Shooting, Blames Others
Conservative commentators and the liberal Media who tried to indict them seem to have created a Gordian knot of fingers, as they attempt to point at each other and find blame after the shooting in Arizona of a Congresswoman and more than a dozen others. Jared Lee Loughner, based on postings on the Internet, is mentally unstable. But, according to Reuters, that hasn't stopped both ultra-left-wing and Right-wing Media from blaming each other, trying to put the tragedy at the other's doorstep. It's diffi

Sarah (Reload) Palin and Rush Limbaugh Condemned For Their Hate Speech; Beck Takes Stand Against Violence By Holding Gun
While we don’t know for certain what  Jared Loughner’s motivation was in the attempted Assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, there is an increasing consensus among reasonable people that the hate-speech which has been common on the right is dangerous to Civil Discourse and our Democracy. This has become a turning point in the career of Sarah Palin, who prefers to pander to the Far Right than to speak to the concerns of mainstream Americans. Most likely this week will mark the end o...