We have conflicting reports at this time regarding whether Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, has survived a shooting at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson. Earlier reports I saw said she was killed by a gunshot to the head, but now it appears that she is still in surgery.
Others who were there were also shot (as many as 12) and some have died.
There is little information on the gunman, who was tackled by bystanders when he tried to flee. He appears to be a young 20s-ish man, and there is currently no information as to whether the shooting was politically motivated.
Here Chicago, and many cities, we're used to a lot of violence. Even when policemen are killed in the line of duty, which is far too often, we seem to acknowledge the fact and mourn, and then move on with our lives. But this kind of senseless killing that potentially is an act that is antithetical to our entire form of free government is a national tragedy. By all accounts, Congresswoman Giffords was engaged in exactly the kind of activity that a true public servant was supposed to be doing -- going out on the street, into the community, and talking to her constituents. If the gunman's motivation was to stifle free speech, our democratic form of government, or to try to advance some kind of political agenda, no form of punishment is sufficient, and no words too strong, to condemn such a direct attack on our democratic, representative form of government.
We'll say a prayer for the victims and for Congresswoman Giffords, and hope she pulls through, and is able to continue representing her constituents.
UPDATED x1 3:20 p.m.: Latest word is that Congresswoman Giffords is alive. Of course, the blame for the shooting is already starting. But before people start laying the blame at the foot of right-wingers (the obvious target), you might want to take a look at the eerie coincidences over at Daily Kos (courtesy of HillBuzz).
UPDATED x2 3:30 p.m.: Appears that doctors say they are optimistic about Giffords' recovery and she is out of surgery. Is this guy the shooter?
UPDATED x3 5:10 pm: Elected officials are being warned to take precautions in the wake of the Giffords shooting. New Congressman Bob Dold had this reaction to the shooting:
"As officials, it is one of the greatest honors to represent the needs and concerns of our residents, and we will not allow the deplorable actions of one effect our ability to serve our districts, states and country," said Rep. Bob Dold
UPDATED x4 8:45 pm: Though its been more than 12 hours since this tragedy, answers are slow in coming, and in many ways, may never come. The natural instinct in such situations is to try to understand, to make sense of what has happened, but sometimes it's just not possible. Right now, I'm sure the suspect is being questioned, and everyone is trying to find out more about this person, to understand what drove him to do this. Here's Ben Smith of Politico on what he's been able to piece together, and I'm sure we will learn much more about this obviously very disturbed, if not insane, person. More here.
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32 comments:
Amen
"Of course, the blame for the shooting is already starting. But before people start laying the blame at the foot of right-wingers (the obvious target), you might want to take a look at the eerie coincidences over at Daily Kos (courtesy of HillBuzz)."
This was gratuitous, crass, and, unfortunately, typical for this blog. Shame on you.
Anon 3:51, let's not pile on the faux outrage. Eric Erickson over at Redstate has a good perspective on the left's kneejerk tendancy to blame the right for tragedies like this:
....Unfortunately, the left is using this tragedy to score political points. Rep. Giffords was on Gov. Palin’s target list for defeat this past November. The left claims Gov. Palin has blood on her hands. So does the tea party movement.
Less than a year ago a gunman stormed into the Discovery Channel’s headquarters, taking hostages and threatening to kill them all. The left immediately accused the man of being a tea party activist.
Unfortunately for the left, the man turned out to be an envirowacko leftist raised on Algore’s global warming garbage.
Immediately, the left changed their tune and proclaimed that no longer could we as partisans accuse each other of causing things like this. There are just crazy people in the world and tragedies happen.
My, my how quickly they forget.
....
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/01/08/the-blame-game-and-prayers-begin/
Yeah, and those target cross hairs that the darling of the GOP put on Rep. Giffords had nothing to do with this.
This horrific attack is the result of the vitriolic rhetoric of the GOP/Tea Party heroes like Beck, Palin, & Rush.
You reap what you sow.
All that you've shown is a blogger saying "the left this... and the left that." One crass and classless blurb doesn't make yours any less creepy.
Larry,
Palin put crosshairs on her map of "targets".
Yes, the phrase 'target district' is routinely used by both cons and liberals. No one is criticizing Palin or anyone else for targeting Arizona.
What they are criticizing is her use of crosshairs aimed at Giffords and 19 other Dems.
Put that together with Republican Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment Remedies" refrain and the rash of over-the-top violent rhetoric emanating from conservatives and the inclination to think some nutcases are getting pushed over the edge is clear.
And it's only "kneejerk" that folks would consider conservatives at least partially culpable given the litany of other conservative terrorists in recent years like Byron Williams, Richard Poplawski, Nancy Genovese, Scott Roeder, David Adkisson, or, of course, Oklahoma City bombers Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
Even Republican leaders are advocating that everyone tone down the rhetoric.
That doesn't mean we can't still have a healthy, vocal debate over the issues of the day -- but there should be no quarter for gunsights on maps, talk of Second Amendment remedies, suggestions to shoot Federal agents in the head and the like.
Take off your partisan blinders for a minute and look at the humanity of this event.
A 9-year-old girl is dead because some nut tried assassinating an elected Democrat.
Have you googled Jared Lee Loughner - if not you should. He is an extremely disturbed young man and after watching his youtube videos I think you'll agree.
His actions were reprehensible and regardless of party affiliation, everyone is in agreement.
Jared made the decision to kill. Jared is responsible. Period.
Let's just pray for Congresswoman Giffords, her family and the families of those killed or injured in yesterday's attack. Just pray.
RonN read this:
By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.
With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."
The critics were a bit short on particulars as to what that meant. Mrs. Palin has used some martial metaphors—"lock and load"—and talked about "targeting" opponents. But as media writer Howard Kurtz noted in The Daily Beast, such metaphors are common in politics. Palin critic Markos Moulitsas, on his Daily Kos blog, had even included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district on a list of congressional districts "bullseyed" for primary challenges. When Democrats use language like this—or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"—it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. But if Republicans do it, it somehow creates a climate of hate.
There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.
American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"
Set aside as inconvenient, apparently. There was no waiting for the facts on Saturday. Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill.
So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?
To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.
To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?
To all the anonymouses making excuses here --
Please explain why cons are so quick to condemn an entire world religion for the actions of a few crackpots who target Americans but are equally quick, if not even more swift, to make excuses for domestic crackpots who also target Americans?
I provided a very brief list of recent tea party terrorists in my earlier posting.
Every one of those incidents was excused away by both right-wing leadership (from con media to elected officials) and by the partisan con laity, just as this incident is.
For the record, the first person of authority that I heard mentioning the right-wing vitriol was the Pima County Sheriff. Is he to be dismissed as just some nameless "lefty"?
Yes, the assassin made the decision to specifically target Rep. Giffords all by himself.
My point is that when a pot is already near boiling -- and we all know crackpots are out there walking among us -- then a pervasive crucible of vitriolic hate doesn't take much to push that pot to boil over.
The fact remains that, as the Pima County Sheriff said yesterday, Arizona has become a Mecca for hatred and bigotry and that is the furnace in which Rep. Giffords, her would-be assassin and all the dead were living day in and day out.
If Palin and her political operatives didn't themselves see her crosshairs-embellished target list as being unnecessarily incendiary then why'd they remove it from their site?
An inferno of overheated and often-times violent rhetoric can and too often does lead to violent action. Cause. Effect.
It's a lesson which too many conservatives avoid recognizing for some reason (other than, from what I've read, perhaps Mark Kirk, Lamar Alexander and a few others who are making statements about it).
To your point, this isn't about %$#^ing politics. This is about human lives being snuffed out.
Why does your own partisanship blind you to this?
NOT THAT THE ADULTS' LIVES ARE ANY LESS IMPORTANT BUT A LITTLE GIRL WAS KILLED!!! It was supposed to be a Saturday morning civics lesson for a 9-year-old student council school girl.
She's dead, you dunce.
Surely this hits as close to home for our host Larry as it does for me.
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that putting crosshairs on a friggin' political map is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that saying Second Amendment Remedies might need to be used if the election doesn't go their way is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that having a national radio host say Americans in uniform should be shot in the back of the head is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?!
No, instead these things are rationalized away with pithy links to random blog posts and excuse after excuse.
"Who Me?"
Take a look outside yourself if you can and you'll see it's so much more than sad on so many levels there's really no word to describe it.
--
PS - Larry, the Daily Kos diarist to whom you refer via HillBuzz has profusely apologized for his poor choice of words.
Were you to engage yourself in the comity of the moment you'd take time to balance your link to HillBuzz's own "kneejerk" excuse-making by linking directly to Blue Boy's follow-up response to the right-wing using him as a foil in their race to inoculate themselves politically from their own toxic rhetoric.
To all the anonymouses making excuses here --
Please explain why cons are so quick to condemn an entire world religion for the actions of a few crackpots who target Americans but are equally quick, if not even more swift, to make excuses for domestic crackpots who also target Americans?
I provided a very brief list of recent tea party terrorists in my earlier posting.
Every one of those incidents was excused away by both right-wing leadership (from con media to elected officials) and by the partisan con laity, just as this incident is.
For the record, the first person of authority that I heard mentioning the right-wing vitriol was the Pima County Sheriff. Is he to be dismissed as just some nameless "lefty"?
Yes, the assassin made the decision to specifically target Rep. Giffords all by himself.
My point is that when a pot is already near boiling -- and we all know crackpots are out there walking among us -- then a pervasive crucible of vitriolic hate doesn't take much to push that pot to boil over.
The fact remains that, as the Pima County Sheriff said yesterday, Arizona has become a Mecca for hatred and bigotry and that is the furnace in which Rep. Giffords, her would-be assassin and all the dead were living day in and day out.
If Palin and her political operatives didn't themselves see her crosshairs-embellished target list as being unnecessarily incendiary then why'd they remove it from their site?
An inferno of overheated and often-times violent rhetoric can and too often does lead to violent action. Cause. Effect.
It's a lesson which too many conservatives avoid recognizing for some reason (other than, from what I've read, perhaps Mark Kirk, Lamar Alexander and a few others who are making statements about it).
To your point, this isn't about %$#^ing politics. This is about human lives being snuffed out.
Why does your own partisanship blind you to this?
NOT THAT THE ADULTS' LIVES ARE ANY LESS IMPORTANT BUT A LITTLE GIRL WAS KILLED!!! It was supposed to be a Saturday morning civics lesson for a 9-year-old student council school girl.
She's dead, you dunce.
Surely this hits as close to home for our host Larry as it does for me.
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that putting crosshairs on a friggin' political map is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that saying Second Amendment Remedies might need to be used if the election doesn't go their way is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that having a national radio host say Americans in uniform should be shot in the back of the head is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?!
No, instead these things are rationalized away with pithy links to random blog posts and excuse after excuse.
"Who Me?"
Take a look outside yourself if you can and you'll see it's so much more than sad on so many levels there's really no word to describe it.
To all the anonymouses making excuses here --
I provided a very brief list of recent tea party terrorists in my earlier posting.
Every one of those incidents was excused away by both right-wing leadership (from con media to elected officials) and by the partisan con laity, just as this incident is.
For the record, the first person of authority that I heard mentioning the right-wing vitriol was the Pima County Sheriff. Is he to be dismissed as just some nameless "lefty"?
Yes, the assassin made the decision to specifically target Rep. Giffords all by himself.
My point is that when a pot is already near boiling -- and we all know crackpots are out there walking among us -- then a pervasive crucible of vitriolic hate doesn't take much to push that pot to boil over.
The fact remains that, as the Pima County Sheriff said yesterday, Arizona has become a Mecca for hatred and bigotry and that is the furnace in which Rep. Giffords, her would-be assassin and all the dead were living day in and day out.
If Palin and her political operatives didn't themselves see her crosshairs-embellished target list as being unnecessarily incendiary then why'd they remove it from their site?
An inferno of overheated and often-times violent rhetoric can and too often does lead to violent action. Cause. Effect.
It's a lesson which too many conservatives avoid recognizing for some reason (other than, from what I've read, perhaps Mark Kirk, Lamar Alexander and a few others who are making statements about it).
To your point, this isn't about %$#^ing politics. There is no "option A" or "option B." This is about human lives being snuffed out.
Why does your own partisanship blind you to this?
NOT THAT THE ADULTS' LIVES ARE ANY LESS IMPORTANT BUT A LITTLE GIRL WAS KILLED!!! It was supposed to be a Saturday morning civics lesson for a 9-year-old student council school girl.
She's dead, you dunce.
Surely this hits as close to home for our host Larry as it does for me.
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that putting crosshairs on a friggin' political map is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that saying Second Amendment Remedies might need to be used if the election doesn't go their way is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?
What will it take for conservative partisans to realize that having a national radio host say Americans in uniform should be shot in the back of the head is beyond the pale and should be immediately shunned?!
No, instead these things are rationalized away with pithy links to random blog posts and excuse after excuse.
"Who Me?"
Take a look outside yourself if you can and you'll see it's so much more than sad on so many levels there's really no word to describe it.
Well said, Rob_N.
Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman in his op-ed this morning, "Climate of Hate." based his opinion on examining the data and seeing the patterns.
Although there are many good points made to highlight, these two stand out to me:
But even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people.
If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.
I strongly encourage all of you -- regardless of your party affiliation -- to do your own soul-searching and ask yourself what you can do to tone down the vitriolic rhetoric and return to civil discourse.
I know I for one will no longer participate any blog/discussion that allows people to make threats of any kind against others. That includes any contact with people who name themselves "Ellen Slayers" -- not because I am defending Ellen, but because the implication of violence has consequences.
Your deletion of my comment speaks volumes.
Jim- I check and your comment got held up in the spam filter. It's now published, it was NOT deleted. As you may have observed, we are loath to delete comments around here (even for folks like Rob_N who we've kicked off the blog in the past). Try to get equal treatment like that on the left-wing blogs like Ellen.
My apologies, TA. Thank you for publishing.
However, your comment about equal treatment on "left-wing" blogs was unnecessary. One way to stop the hate is to stop the blame game & finger pointing. We could all keep the comments & discussion about the issues & moderate the comments that include inflammatory statements.
Let's be decent.
Fair enough, Jim.
But not fair enough to repudiate your original post or your equally creepy 4:17 reply. In court they would call yours self-rehabilitating testimony, sustain the objection and strike it from the record. The basis of that evidentiary rule is that speakers who attempt to rehabilitate themselves without or before being impeached are inherently untrustworthy.
You've done yourself no credit this weekend.
Rob N,
The crackpot who went on a senseless rampage in Tucson was not motivated by politics. He is mentally ill - follow the news. He's a registered Independent and did not vote in 2010 - does not believe in God - believes in burning the flag - hardly a tea partier or right winger.
He is ill. He acted alone. He is solely responsible. No one else is.
Even Richard Roeper (clearly more liberal) stated in his Sun Times column today that "Conservatives didn't attack in Arizona - lone lunatic did"
Give it a rest already.
@ anonymous 10:19 am --
So all of Loughner's screeds about the gold standard, "individual" currency, government control, and on and on have nothing to do with politics?
Sounds more like a Glenn Beck transcript, a Sunday dinner with father and son at the Paul family home, or any number of tea party manifesto pamphlets handed out last summer. Partisan conservatives from Drudge to you are flailing about, alternately calling Loughner a lone gunman, a pot-smoking hippy, a registered Democrat and who knows what.
Methinks you're each hoping to find any excuse to stop having a rational discussion about what constitutes healthy debate over issues versus what crosses the line into dysfunctional arson-of-the-mouth.
Even though posting maps with a bullseye on Giffords' district, or plastering Tucson with posters of a target on Giffords, or talking about using Second Amendment Remedies may be permissible in our little-l liberal society thanks to the very freedom of speech which allows violent rhetoric and imagery to dominate the conservative airwaves ... that doesn't make it ok, regardless of what led Loughner to kill.
In other words, ALL assassins and murderers are by their very nature mentally unstable and almost all are a "lone wolf".
But how can you not comprehend that surrounding those kinds of people with 24/7 dehumanizing messages of hate, anger, and violence only pours more fuel on their already unstable embers?
Here's a little math for you ... there are 3,000,000 Fox viewers.
Only 1/1,000th of a percent of 3,000,000 is 30.
Scott Roeder ... Nancy Genovese ...
Byron Williams ... David Adkinsson ... and on and on.
If only 1/1,000th of a percent of Fox viewers are insane enough to believe Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly and the others that liberals are "killers" who "hate" America and want to "control" every aspect of American "society" beginning with taking away your guns and ammo and moving on to every other right ....
Wouldn't that be too many "lone crackpots" for you?
One is too many for me, yet they seem to keep popping up and killing (or at "best" -- if there is such a thing -- trying to kill) folks they consider to be liberal, whether they are or not.
In Larry's first comment to this post he claimed "Unfortunately, the left is using this tragedy to score political points."
Perhaps some cynically are, just as there are those on the con side making excuse after excuse (even laughably revising recent history on the fly and contradicting themselves ad nauseum).
I could care less about politics.
A husband protecting his beloved wife is dead.
An engaged fellow in his 30s is dead simply for doing his job and reaching out to the community.
A Republican Federal judge, just out getting groceries, is dead.
A girl only a year older than my daughter, learning first-hand about democracy, is dead.
As I've said before this isn't about politics.
This is about how we talk to each other and debate the issues of the day in a rational manner.
All too sadly, so many people are choosing to revert immediately into a partisan crouch to perhaps defend their own past statements or beliefs too ingrained to be shaken even by these Americans' deaths who were killed simply for participating in our democracy's freedoms.
Sorry - that should be @ anon 11:04.
--
And no, I don't believe I should "give it a rest already". None of us should.
Six Americans cannot "give it a rest" ever again.
Why do you think I should? Just because it makes some partisans (con or lib) squirmy and uncomfortable?
I was raised to keep working hard with every fiber of my soul for justice; to keep trying my damned hardest to make things better for folks less fortunate than me.
I'd say Americans who were shot in cold blood would be less fortunate than I, wouldn't you?
I'd also say that those who would potentially be the next victims of the next so-called "lone lunatic" would appreciate it if we could all work on figuring out a way to prevent them from being the next victims, wouldn't you?
Rob N,
Chill out - Loughner was not given marching orders by the Tea Party.
Do yourself a favor and pick up today's Sun Times and read Roeper's column. He's spot on.
As to protecting folks from "lone lunatics", well, you tell me how to stop the John Wayne Gacy's, Boston Stranglers, Richard Specks and Jeffrey Dahmers. Are their victims less important or just less politically important?
After all the leaps to judgment by those who always have politics on their minds and the Rahm "never let a crisis go to waste" mentality, comes a New York Times article which stated on the morning of the attack, the shooter was chased out of his house and into the desert on foot by his father while carrying a black bag.
The shooter a couple of hours later pulled his gun out of a black bag according to other news reports.
The sheriff's office also visited the home several times prior to the shooting to deal with this guy over various disturbances.
The whole situation is just too sad and stunning to contemplate in a short paragraph or two.
And as for RobN's leaps to judgment, I recall his recent past claims that Dold spoke at a meeting that I attended (Dold never spoke at that meeting) and his claims that everyone was bussed in (no busses were present in the parking lot or nearby that day) so his credibility with me remains less than zero.
RobN tried to portray Dold falsely as a Tea party guy back then.
Let's leave the leaps of logic out of things until the rest of the facts come in, shall we?
Louis G. Atsaves
@ anonymous 1/11/11 8:26am...
Would you have the gall to tell the families of the six victims to "chill out"?
No one is claiming Palin or Fox or Beck or Limbaugh told this nut to go kill people.
What folks are calmly and rationally questioning is why conservatives (A) feel a need to use violent rhetoric 24/7 and (B) feel a need to distract and distort so as to make excuses for continuing to use such violent rhetoric 24/7.
Simple as that.
----------
@ Louis...
1. There is video of Dold speaking with Norquist at the event you attended. Norquist even endorsed him in this video. The video was posted by Dold for Congress to YouTube.
Are you really still saying none of that happened?
2. Norquist's "Americans for Prosperity" website listed the event as a stop on their bus tour.
Are you really still saying that didn't happen?
3. Dold and his campaign workers and volunteers attended numerous Tea Party events; Dold told Fox News he thought the Tea Party "has a great voice out there"; and, Dold famously told a member of the NW suburban Tea Party during their spring 2010 meeting (in the publicly-funded Arlington Heights library ironically) that he's "more conservative than I let on."
Are you really still saying none of that happened?
You can question my credibility all you like. That's your right.
But the facts beg to differ.
Dear Lord! Louis, please tell me you don't engage in this sort of blatant ad hominem argument in court. But Louis here need not fear his reasoning. He was born correct, has lived every breath accurately, has complete recall of his entire waking moments and has, never, ever, no not ever been even slightly off target. Louis Atsaves is, and always will be right.
I picture Louis as a pufferfish, with a monocle and a fake British accent, espousing ad nauseum.
RobN, I love your circular arguments. Return to your website for the answers which you repeatedly rejected in favor of your deliberate fibs. Again, your credibility with me remains at less than zero for good reason.
Quit making things up. About Dold. About Republicans. About me, TA and others. Try to be credible for a change.
Today's Tribune relates 51 police reports on campus on the deranged shooter, including Pilates and Yoga classes. The more facts that emerge, the sadder the whole situation becomes. How can there be 51 police reports on one student before some action was taken?
Louis G. Atsaves
"Louis Atsaves is, and always will be right."
Glad to hear someone finally say it! Now go tell that to my wife! : -)
Louis G. Atsaves
Louis, go ahead and link to whatever explanations you think you made clear.
Again, it's your right to consider my credibility to be zero or less than zero or the sum of the parts of whatever but you've still never actually explained why you think Dold speaking with Norquist on video camera at that event does not depict Dold speaking at that event; why Norquist and AfP claiming that event was a stop on their national bus tour was not a stop on their bus tour; nor why Dold and his campaign workers attending so many tea party rallies and speaking favorably of the tea party so regularly is not an indication of Dold and his campaign attending tea party rallies or speaking favorably of the tea party...
You and I agree fundamentally on one thing, Louis.
Your arguments do sound downright circular as illustrated so clearly here.
--
As for your question about Loughner's police record...
There can be that many police reports and he can still buy a gun at Wal*Mart! because (A) social services and, in particular, public mental health funding has been cut, cut again and cut some more in Arizona and Pima County in an effort to avoid asking citizens to pay even one more penny in taxes and (B) as even our host Mr. Falbe (being no stranger to the vitriol of Second Amendment remediaries) will likely admit Arizona has some of the most lax gun oversight in the country and it is relatively easy for literally any adult to buy a gun, no questions asked.
Oh, and has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, this domestic terrorist who favored Ayn Rand and other ultra-libertarian writings and rantings can have all these police reports and still buy a high-capacity clip (actually, several) because our friends in the Republican Party let the common sense Clinton-era ban on said high-capacity clips lapse.
There was a good reason these types of clips were included in that law -- actually, there are 6 incredibly heart-breaking good reasons.
At the time, the cons' rationale for letting that oversight expire included something about hunting or somesuch.
What or whom was to be hunted using these high-capacity semi-automatic handgun clips was never publicly made clear by our conservative friends, though some of their more toxic "Liberal Hunting Season Now Open" and "Democrat-Hunting License" t-shirts and bumper stickers make evident...
To that end, why conservatives think it's funny for them to "joke" about killing their fellow Americans but conversely get all up in arms if a Muslim terrorist talks about killing Americans is even more unclear.
Personally, it angers me whether it's a domestic terrorist or a foreign terrorist, or even someone "joking" about it.
Larry, not sure if your spam filter is catching comments or you've decided you don't like me anymore (again)...
Feel free to post whichever of my comments you prefer, or not. It's your blog.
--
@ Louis - very simply, if you think I've made something up about you, Larry, Dold or anyone then provide evidence. In fact, you claim such evidence is at Illinois Reason.
Link to it.
Otherwise, the other commenter's analogy of you being a pufferfish is quite apt.
Again, it is absolutely your right to think whatever you like of my credibility.
The facts remain:
1. Dold and Norquist are on video speaking at the event in question.
2. That event was labeled a stop on the AfP "bus tour" by Norquist's AfP website.
3. Dold and his campaign workers attended many tea party rallies and spoke highly of the tea party throughout 2010.
None of these facts are any less factual just because you dislike me mentioning said facts.
--
And Loughner can have such a police record and still buy a gun and high-capacity clips because:
1. Arizona and Pima County have cut funding for social services and in particular public mental health services in order to avoid asking citizens to pay even one more penny in taxes.
As I recall, you and our host Larry and a great many other Republicans are consistently ranting against paying taxes.
Either you pay more taxes to have a social safety net or you don't.
2. Guns are very easy to get in Arizona due to lax oversight laws. In fact, AZ's GOP Gov. Brewer recently signed a law making it even easier for anyone to walk around with concealed guns.
3. The type of high-capacity clips he used were banned under the common-sense Clinton-era restrictions.
Conservatives let that oversight lapse using the notion of hunting as one rationale.
What conservatives wanted to hunt using handguns with high-capacity clips was unclear, though some conservative bumper stickers "joke" about hunting liberals and Dems.
Why conservatives think it's funny to joke about or otherwise make dog-whistle allusions to killing their fellow Americans, and then put up Facebook videos claiming they are victims when they get called out for it, is even more unclear.
Rob_N: Wasn't deleting you - for now, I'm holding you on honorary probation.
Two things occurred - first, I usually have moderation activated for posts older than 5 days so I don't have to police the older posts, which is often where a lot of junk/spam comments appear, as you probably have experienced yourself. I turned that off for now since this post is still active.
Second, I think one comment did get caught in the spam filter - try not to use the "@" symbol, i.e., "@Louis" - I think that makes the spam filter think there is a reply e-mail address embedded in the comment and that's one of the things it looks for.
The Management
RobN, you and I debated your nonsensical lies about Dold at your site to death. I'm not going to repeat myself here. Anyone can go to your site and see that:
1. You rejected eyewitness accounts which contradicted what you reported, and
2. You rejected eyewitness accounts which contradicted what you reported after the eyewitness accounts were disclosed to you multiple times.
Leaping to a conclusion then desperately seeking "facts" to try to support it is your modus, and when you fail, you fail spectacularly.
So stop repeating those ancient lies about Dold, myself, TA and others.
Facts are stubborn things. And so are RobN and Ellen when they are proven wrong.
Louis G. Atsaves
That's what I figured Larry. Those spam filters can be dogmatic, eh.
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Louis,
My good man, you're the one who brought this stuff up on a thread about people being shot to death during a terrorist's assassination attempt.
But since you brought up your failed, months-old arguments and chose to impugn my integrity even though you still offer no evidence whatsoever for your claims -- whilst I provide a plethora of evidence countering every single one of your claims -- I had little choice but to either ignore your petty rants or defend myself from your still-baseless rhetorical assault.
I chose the latter.
And again, all the facts remain the same.
You say you saw no bus at the AfP's Yom Kippur Northbrook stop on their national "November is Coming" bus tour.
Ok.
That doesn't mean they didn't call it a bus tour. In fact, at the time I linked to where they did call it that just so you could see for yourself.
You clearly are still refusing to accept facts as facts for some reason.
So, here we go again... the AfP "November is Coming" bus tour webpage is still online which means I can still link to the exact bus tour in question.
The page even has a headline that says "Bus Tour Events" and you and everyone else interested in whether or not AfP called it a "bus tour" can zoom in to Northbrook, IL on their handy US map and click the red pin to get a pop-up that says:
"Northbrook, IL
Updated Sep 28, 2010
Date/Time: Friday, September 17, 2010, 7-8:30PM
Location: Renaissance Chicago North Shore
Street Address: 933 Skokie boulevard [sic], Illinois, 60062"
You can choose to ignore this fact for as long and as often as you like.
That's up to you. But your decision to ignore it doesn't make it any less factual.
And again, I challenge you to kindly link directly to where I ever lied about you, Congressman Dold, Mr. Falbe or anyone else.
Otherwise, you'll sadly continue to play the part of a pufferfish as an earlier commenter remarked.
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All that said, I will note again that in his first comment on his own thread, our host Mr. Falbe quoted a conservative pundit that "Unfortunately, the left is using this tragedy to score political points."
Again, I'm not trying to score any points - political or otherwise - unlike, apparently, Mr. Atsaves who feels a need to hijack this discussion to have a sidebar tantrum about old facts and redress what he apparently still holds as some sort of odd grudge...
Personally, I'd rather come to agree at least on basic facts and then have a healthy debate on what those facts mean for our nation's and our children's future.
Instead, Mr. Atsaves chooses to dispute a minor fact such as whether a bus tour from last September was indeed called a bus tour.
No wonder there is such a polarized divide between conservatives and other Americans in modern times.
Not sure if Larry just hasn't gotten around to clearing out his spam filter or not but the post I wrote last night hasn't yet appeared so I'll condense quite a bit.
--
Larry, I completely understand re spam filters. No worries.
--
Louis, You have yet to actually produce any evidence -- a link, a quote, etc. -- as to what you think is a lie about you, Larry, Rep. Dold, or anyone.
Quite plainly, facts are still facts.
And yes, the fact is Grover Norquist came to Northbrook on Sept 17, 2010 as part of his AfP organizaiton's "November is Coming" Bus Tour.
Just because you didn't see a bus doesn't mean they didn't call it a bus tour.
In fact, the webpage promoting their bus tour is still online...
http://novemberiscoming.com/beta/?portfolio_item=bus-tour-events
That you would enter a thread about domestic terrorism and the possible ramifications of overheated political discourse, much of which unfortunately peddles in violent imagery and allusions, in order to hijack said thread to try and settle some bizarre score which you feel slighted over is in my humble opinion completely bizarre and beyond petty.
You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs of the facts before us -- ie, whether or not Dold speaking on video at an event constitutes him speaking at that event or whether or not an event promoted as a bus tour stop actually is a bus tour stop.
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