So is there any connection between Sarah Palin's website that put a target on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and someone shooting her point blank in the head? Watch for Palin to clean up the site and do her little witch dance to get out of responsibility for it. Didn't anyone think that people carrying guns to political rallies wouldn't eventually do this?
Frankly I've had one decade too many of Republican howler monkeys like Limbaugh and Coulter and Palin using metaphors and sly inference -- and outright calls to violence and killing judges and congressmen. What does it take to make these tea-sucking, rabble rousing, hate mongering bastards into responsible American Citizens? Probably nothing short of orange jump suits and handcuffs and meantime, watch them looking like the cat Sylvester with yellow feathers all over his lips.
And in the meantime, it's pump out the bullshit, pump out the bullshit and hate hate hate, so don't count on the voters coming to their flaccid senses any time soon.
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Update from Octopus. Here is the SarahPAC page mentioned by Captain Fogg (above):
And here is what Spencer Giffords, the Congresswoman's father, said when asked by a reporter whether his daughter had any enemies:
"Yeah. The whole tea party."
Internet discussion sites (the more civilized ones) are already abuzz with "reasonable" denials from wingnuts:
ReplyDeletelet's not jump to conclusions,
no need to blame one party or ideology,
let's wait for details to come out,
reserve judgment until such time as we know the shooter's motive,
blame is not the answer,
etc.
If they backpedal any faster, they may trip over their own words -- or their guns left behind at town hall meetings.
I'm reading such things - take Matt Lewis, please.
ReplyDeleteHe "hates to see" them Liberals politicizing a political murder sez he. And after all, Sarah said it was sad so she can't be held responsible for literally painting a target on Giffords. And by the way, a chief judge is dead too, and a little kid. Yep, there's no difference between the Teaf*ckers and Liberals. Yes, sir.
How long before someone invokes John Wilkes Booth and claims both sides are the same?
Is this not a smoking gun for open and/or concealed carry? And especially at political Rallies? All those in favor of the rights of unregulated militias to bear arms should get in line to wash innocent blood from their hands. It is time for us, as a nation, to take up the unconstitutionality of standing un-regulated militias.
ReplyDeletehttp://aol.it/eD3KnA
ReplyDeleteRead it and weep - really.
I can't say it better than Elizabeth did. I've been afraid of this happening since last summer when Palin put the crosshairs on my now former Congressman John Boccieri and he and his family and staff received death threats. I'm sorry my fears were And I don't think it was an accident that it happened in Pima County.
ReplyDeleteOf course -- they call for assassinations, advocate second amendment remedies, and paint target signs on Democratic reps -- but when someone finally heeds their calls, all of sudden they are not responsible, they never meant it literally(?), and we are politicizing it for an unseemly gain.
ReplyDeletePredictable crap.
I want Sarah Palin and all the right-wing politicos and talking heads who as much as peeped about "second amendment remedies" or such investigated in connection with this act of domestic terrorism.
What - Libs got no sense of humor? I mean my ears are full of complaints that Kathy Griffin -- who speaks for all liberals made fun of Willow Palin, so aren't both sides just as bad?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm still hearing of that terrible liberal affront when the intelligence community warned us about right wing domestic terrorism not long ago. The nerve of these militant liberal, commie traitors!
ReplyDeleteYup. They've been warning about the dramatic rise in militia groups and right-wing hatred for the past two years.
ReplyDeleteIt means that they've brought on themselves, no doubt, through all this unnecessary harping.
They will all distance themselves from their own violent rhetoric and act as if they have never engaged in inciting others.
ReplyDeleteSmoke and mirrors; the politicians' favorite props.
Our good Captain spared me the heart break of writing another diatribe. i was in the midst of writing one when I noticed our Captain's post (and I hope he doesn't mind my adding the SarahPAC image).
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is a bitter irony to note that Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment during the GOP's grandstanding stunt last week.
After two years of constant Birthers, Deathers, and Flat Earthers, I am sick of this shit; and it all started when Rush Limbaugh said: "I hope he fails."
'During the his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.
ReplyDelete"I don't see the connection," between the fundraisers featuring weapons and Saturday's shooting, said John Ellinwood, Kelly's spokesman. "I don't know this person, we cannot find any records that he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just don't see the connection."'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congresswoman_shot
I blogged on this too, Capt. We're supposed to withhold judgment until we know more about the kid who did this? We're supposed to ignore Palin's cross hairs on Dems she and other tea baggers want to get rid of? Sharron Angle's "second amendment solutions?"
ReplyDeleteI think the person we need to listen to is Rep. Gifford's father who, when asked if his daughter had any enemies answered, "yes, the whole tea party."
I realize that I am talking to the choir here, but I wonder how the tea slimmers would have reacted to the graphic above had it been put out by oh, say...Alan Grayson, or Nancy Pelosi, with tea bagger targets in the cross-hairs?
ReplyDeleteI have a low patience bar with hypocrisy. It is hypocrisy to say or infer one thing, and then deny it later. This event was destined to happen...and look out, there's more on the way, because no one will be taken to account for inciting it.
This is a terrible thing and my thoughts are with the injured and the dead, but I suppose it surprises none of us. Congresswoman Giffords seems to have a chance at recovering despite the seriousness of her injury.
ReplyDeleteI listened to the brief YouTube audio messages said to have been posted by the suspect, and frankly, to me it reads like the tangled chattering of a madman. The slim political content makes no sense because it's enmeshed with other bizarre notions about numbers, literacy, currency (a term used in a strange manner, to say the least), religion and mind control.
In a sense this event is obviously political since a politician was (I presume) targeted. That is an attempted assassination, right? But in an another sense, it isn't fully political -- the suspect sounds like a psychotic, not a rational agent with a more or less coherent politics. I recall reading that when President Reagan's would-be assassin committed his act, he was trying to get Jodie Foster's attention, apparently based on her role as an underage prostitute in Taxi Driver. Grievous acts can be "political" or have political implications without the doer even being capable of intending them that way.
Still, it may be the case that lunacy follows the path of least resistance in a given environment, and chooses its targets accordingly. I'll leave it at that.
Serious thought needs to go towards getting members of the House and Senate better security. They should not have to worry about this sort of thing happening to them, and it's an insult to the republic that it has happened to Rep. Giffords and the others today.
Several months ago, Keith Olbermann was suspended from MSNBC News for making 2 campaign contributions without permission of his overlords. It turns out, Congresswoman Giffords was a recipient of one of those donations. At 8:00 PM tonight, I will be watching Olbermann's MSNBC News Special with rapt attention.
ReplyDeleteThis kid could not even get accepted into the military in 2008. His videos seem to express some serious issues, and he was known for being a loner. On his own profile he listed quite a few books that show he was quite well read...
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line issue is this country needs gun control. I am not sure what type of handgun this young man had but he was able to walk into a crowd of people and shoot at point blank range and I find it hard to believe that of the hundred or so shoppers milling around no one in Arizona had a gun on them....so the whole argument of having guns to be able to protect ones self or to fire back when fired upon seems to be a fallacy.
In light of this incidence, and the hostage taking at another mall and the bankrobbery all in Arizona and all in the last few weeks...its time to get over the fallacy of guns as protection.
Its time for congress to buck the biggest most powerful special interest group next to Wall Street: The NRA.
Even Rep Gifford supported the NRA....
Maybe now that the guns are pointed at them we can do something about it...I am sure the Mexicans would appreciate it too!
Please, let us not forget about the 9-year old child who died today. Her name is Christina Taylor Green, who had just been elected to the student council of her school. According to one Twiiter account, Christina was featured in a book, Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.
ReplyDeleteChristina Taylor Green, 2001 - 2011. R.I.P.
I thought this response from the Tucson Tea Party was particularly callous and hideous:
ReplyDelete"Tucson Tea Party founder tells TPM that her group is "deeply saddened" by today's shooting spree but will not tone down its rhetoric."
"and I hope he doesn't mind my adding the SarahPAC image"
ReplyDeleteNot at all, thank you. I was looking for it myself and didn't have the time to find it.
If Giffords survives a point blank shot to the head, the likelihood is that she will never be the same. The rest of America will be the same though. Boner will moan and weep and lower the flag to half mast and then they'll get back to "targeting" anyone who dislikes corporate feudalism and everyone else will as always, have their own axe to grind, their own gestures guaranteed to solve the problem their last grand gesture had no effect on: the same narrow conceits, the same politics, the same straw men.
Get used to it, that's what this greatest country on earth is like.
A quote from a recent news article:
ReplyDelete"Descriptions one of Loughner's high school classmates posted on Twitter only added to the mystery. "He had a lot of friends until he got alcohol poisoning in '06, & dropped out of school. Mainly loner very philosophical," @caitieparker tweeted. "As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." And, most ominously, "He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'"
Hmmm.....
I don't think the point of this is what political philosophy this lunatic dabbled in. Clearly, he is mentally ill. The point of this is the atmosphere encouraged by the TBs and others on the right that promoted militant violence as a metaphor for getting rid of political opponents.
ReplyDeleteGiffords' opponent in the Nov. election, Jesse Kelly, in a political poster, was shown with a military camoflage outfit and an automatic weapon on his lap, asking his supporters to come to a target practice as an exercise in defeating Giffords.
What the hell in god's green teeth does an automatic weapon and a shooting range have to do with debating political differences? Of course not a damn thing. This guy was playing on the macho, ignorant fears and feelings of victimhood his supporters carry around in them.
The fact is that this acceptance of crazy gun rhetoric is responsible for the weak-minded and the mentally unstable to act out their fantasies.
Everyone's talking about the "heated political rhetoric" but who will actually stop it?
Apparently, the Tucson Tea Party will not, as they clearly stated in a recent declaration.
Supposedly the AZ police are looking for a "person of interest," possibly an older accomplice. We shall see.
ReplyDeleteBut Shaw's point is correct, and it's what I meant when I suggested earlier that "lunacy follows the path of least resistance in a given environment, and chooses its targets accordingly." When you live in an environment filled with militia-style rhetoric and anti-government hate speech, it's not too hard to figure out what that "path" is likely to be if somebody's mind comes unhinged.
What difference do the exact contours of a person's politics make if said person believes, or has been encouraged (directly or indirectly) to believe, that the only way to express them is to attempt an assassination and commit mass murder? A weird mix of left/right, here/there/everywhere views will serve just as well, and probably better, than a coherent politics.
"What the hell in god's green teeth does an automatic weapon and a shooting range have to do with debating political differences?"
ReplyDeleteNothing. It's traditional however. within a week after 9/11 they were selling Osama targets at shooting ranges and there's software that allows the noncomposcienti to make Obama targets - insert the tyrant of choice and click on print. "Revolution speaks from the muzzle of a gun," said Mao and the Republicans seem to agree. They just don't want their fingerprints on it. Watch how frantically they wipe.
I've yelled myself hoarse about the likely results of the hyper-hyperbole and calls to armed rebellion and some of you have too. Nothing happens in this country without a tragedy to trigger it. Will it happen now? I'm hoping for some self-criticism from the revolutionaries, but it's not going to happen.
They'll starting saying "the blame game" withing hours if not sooner and use that to avoid the blame they deserve.
You know there's a law against endangering the public by shouting "fire" in the absence thereof. What about applying that to political parties shouting Kill Kill Kill in a country full of weapons?
Vigilante,
ReplyDeleteJust as a point of information, I think you'll find that concealed carry at political rallies and a great many other places is already illegal and One can't even legally carry at a football game here in the land of sunshine.
Drawing or even suggesting that you have a weapon without there being probable cause that you will be immediately killed is quite illegal. In fact there are so many restrictions beyond the requirements for getting one, that I and many others who have permits simply don't carry weapons.
Of course this fellow might conceal an illegal weapon quite as easily as a legal one. Why after all should he care?
Some states do allow open carry as we've seen the Tea Party Patriots doing in an open threat to government officials and institutions. This scares hell out of me and here a ban would be enforcable. Any openly displayed weapon is an intimidation under many circumstances - a rally is one of them.
In any even, the man broke every gun law he could break and of course we do ban murder in this country. Anyone premeditating murder isn't going to worry about the law and because we have almost as many guns as we have people here, it's as easy to obtain one illegally as it is to obtain, Meth, Coke, Weed and Oxycodone, all of which are subject to more bans than guns.
Maybe we should ban hate speech? It's easier to enforce, I think.
Adding to this absurd horror is the fact that Giffords was targeted by the right-wingers because she supported health care reform.
ReplyDeleteWhat country is this where people who advocate affordable health care are targeted for assassination?
Her shooter apparently needed mental health care, but got a gun instead -- it's much cheaper and easier to obtain.
What society accepts the reality in which it is easier for a sick person to obtain a gun than health care?
Elizabeth - What society accepts the reality in which it is easier for a sick person to obtain a gun than [mental] health care?
ReplyDeleteQuote of the day !!!
You may try Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa (ninjiom-hk.cwahi.net). i know alot of people use it, its also non alcoholic, though it's effectiveness is not as good as alcohol based cough medicine, but it's still good to use on not so serious scratchy throat.
ReplyDeleteapprently ( according to the instruction) children from 2 to 12 can use it.