Congresswoman shot in AZ (Update: in stable condition)

On her Twitter feed, Caitie Parker, a classmate of Loughner, described the one suspect in custody as "quite left wing" - which kind of puts him outside the realm of the Tea Party.

 

What an age we live in. The moment anybody does anything newsworthy, we can go on the internet and immediately find out everything about them.

 

To be fair, ramza commented on hyper rhetoric from either side there, and he didn't bring up the Tea Party.

 

From what we know about the guy so far, he was all over the map politically. His favorite books on his myspace page include the Communist Manifesto, and Mein Kampf, and Animal Farm; you couldn't draw a bigger triangle across the political spectrum if you tried. (That's assuming, of course, that he actually read any of those books, and didn't just put them on his list because he thought they'd sound cool.) His friend described him as left wing, but he also wanted to go back to the Gold Standard, and his "final thoughts" message includes the line, "Read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

He also wrote all these weird rants about grammar and currency that only made sense to him.

There's a certain kind of crazy that manifests as unfocused political rage. And this guy was definitely crazy as all hell; apparently, his teachers regularly kicked him out of class for making loud, creepy, nonsensical statements.

That said, it couldn't hurt to tone back the violence-themed rhetoric. Giffords had already been the target of threats and vandalism for over a year, ever since Palin first presented her as a target.

 

Just to add one more bit to the discussion, before I head off to church.

According to some reports that I have read, one of the citizens who tackled the shooter was also legally armed with a concealed firearm (I don't know if he had an Arizona permit or was carrying under their newer constitutional carry system that doesn't require a permit). However, evidently he didn't draw his firearm to stop the shooter out of concern for being misidentified as the shooter by any responding law enforcement. (That's a concern that I can understand, and if I had been in his shoes, I might have chosen the same course of action.)

Kimball Kinnison

 

Two years prior, DailyKos had listed her as a target, saying "this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district", with Giffords on the list in 2008! The DLC has also used the crosshair image on districts. Not two days before this horrible incident, a poster on DailyKos declared that Gifford was "dead to me" in a diary. I earlier pointed out that a classmate described him as "left wing" - and both myself and Vezner linked to the classmate's twitter feed.

I am not surprised that liberals are trying to score political points over this, after all Politico quotes a Democratic strategist saying Obama should tie this to the Tea Party. Even though, quite frankly, tying this guy to the Tea Party could only be done by someone caught up in either delusion or desperation.

EDIT: OH, and how about THIS violent rhetoric from a politician?

I'd like to think I have been shocked, but after the racism smears thrown at the Tea Party last year, I no longer am surprised this stuff comes from the left.

 

There's a world of difference between pointing out the overwhelming evidence of endemic racism among Tea Party adherents and throwing out wild accusations about the causes of a multiple homicide on the same day as the attack.

 

Normally, I'm not the type to be sentimental about tragedy, but the nine year old victim's story touched me.

 

The only "evidence" exists in either a desperate need to score political points - or in the delusion that disagreement over issues such as the level of taxation or whether the federal government should engage in massive social spending is prima facie evidence of racism.

If you want to keep racing to the gutter or living in a bizarro world, that is your business. But I will defend myself against the false accusations of racism that you are peddling, and I will give my frank opinion as to why you make them.

 

Smuggler, first off, you cannot call out the left for trying to score political points here, and then immediately post a link to an article labeled, "Did Barack Obama Cause the Shootings Yesterday in Tuscon?" You go on and on about how much you hate hypocrites, yet insist at all times that you're constantly entitled to be one.

Second, did you actually do any research on those quotes, or did you just take them all at face value -- from a site that calls Obama "Thug in Chief"? Obama's "I don?t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick" line refers to his holding BP accountable for the oil spill. Your site summarizes that line as "Obama on the private sector." Yeah, how dare he go after poor, innocent BP? Be thankful for Big Oil!

Another of your "quotes", the one labeled "Obama to his mercenary army", refers to a confere

 

I know, here's some more articles I just read on her and some of the other victims.



http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/08/arizona.shooting.other.victims/index.html?hpt=C2

Late Saturday night, the Pima County Sheriff's Department released identities of the six who died. Another 14 people, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, were wounded in the attack.

The 9-year-old was identified as Christina Taylor Green. CNN affiliate KVOA said family members described her as "excited" about the political process, and that the desire to learn more about it had motivated her to go to the Gifford event for constituents.

Green was born on September 11, 2001, the affiliate reported. She was the daughter of Los Angeles Dodgers scout John Green and the granddaughter of Dallas Green, former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Another victim was 76-year-old Dory Stoddard. Pastor Mike Nowak at Mount Avenue Church of Christ in Tucson said Stoddard was a retired construction worker.

Witnesses told CNN that Stoddard tried to shield his wife during the incident. They said he was shot in the head and fell onto his wife, Mavy. She was shot three times in her legs. Nowak said the bullets were removed and she is expected to make a full recovery.

Also killed were 76-year-old Dorothy Morris and 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck, according to authorities.

An aide to Giffords, Gabe Zimmerman, was among the dead, as was Chief Judge John Roll of the U.S. District Court for Arizona.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Dallas-Green-s-granddaughter-dies-in-Arizona-sho?urn=mlb-305133

Among the six killed and 13 injured reportedly in Tucson, Ariz. was 9-year-old third-grader Christina-Taylor Green. Green had two personal connections to Major League Baseball; She was a daughter of Los Angeles Dodgers scout John Green and a granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green.

From the portrait painted in the Arizona Daily Star, she seemed like a neat little girl all on her own:

? Already a good speaker, her father said, Green recently was elected to the student council at her elementary school.
? Green told her parents she wanted to attend Penn State and make a career helping those less fortunate.
? She loved animals and dancing ? especially ballet ? along with hip-hop and jazz music.
? She was athletic, too; Green liked to go swimming with her 11-year-old brother, also named Dallas. She also was the only girl on her Little League baseball team. She played second base.

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that, aside from the girl and the judge, the rest of the victims were senior citizens in their late 70's.

Can we please move this discussion elsewhere?

 

Words aren't enough for how tragic it is, Raven.

And to add to the tragedy, here was a politician doing exactly what politicians should be doing; going out to meet her people in open, friendly discussion. All anyone there wanted was a nice conversation and maybe some groceries. And some deranged ********, someone none of them had wronged or even met, decided his insanity was more important than all of that, and that he was entitled to do what he did. He's done irreperable harm to good, decent people, just because he wanted to.

I'm not opposed to the death penalty. But maybe a more fitting punishment would be to lock this kid up for however many decades he's got left, sealing him away in a cold, dark room with nothing but his madness for company. Well, his madness and Roscoe the weightlifter.

 

This is truly a crappy situation, but while the guy is certainly crazy I don't think our current political discourse helps matters. While I don't think that ****, Sarah Palin, or even many of her compatriots are complicit in setting this guy off I'm not sure it helps that a lot of their rhetoric involves guns and having their opponents in the 'crosshairs'.

Or this

As someone posted on fark:

I quoted it because it's much more elegant than anything I could say.

 

Did I say he was? Do you really think I care about some thrice-damned political movement when almost twenty people got shot five minutes from where I work?

 

And we know nothing about this guys veiws. You said it you're self he was all over the map politically. So come off the Sarah Palin thing. This ranks right up there with blaming movies, videos games, and TV shows when teens shot up there school.

All we know about this guy is that he was not right in the head that's it. We know nothing else about him. We don't know who he watched or even if he ever voted. Guys like this don't care what side of the political spectrum is on. This does not help stop guys like this by going after Sarah Palin. What are we going to blame The Beatles for Charles Manson? Are we going to blame white rich people for Seung-Hui Cho? Are we going to blame Goth music, Heavy Metal, Grand Theft Auto, Doom, The Basketball Diaries, and Marylin Manson Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I mean we have really learn nothing from those things other then to blame someone else.

Oh it's Goths and Goth music that caused the Columbine High School massacre.

I mean really need I remind people that it was Tipper Gore Al Gores ex that went after guys like Dee Snider because she thought he was the reson for teens acting the way they do. This is how far we have fallen. Some pulls out a gun shots a lot of people and we jump on the who and what can we blame band wagon.

Well I'm not going to blame any one. I'm not going to blame the left or right here. All I'm going to do from here on out is say I hope Gabrielle Gifford get's better and no one should be shot at by crazy people like Jared Loughner.

Oh and just to show I'm not basie here I'm going to say to JediSmuggler the same thing we don't know Jared Loughners political views. So don't bring up anything about him being left wing. People like Jared Loughners don't care what any ones views are. So yeah both should take a time out come back and see Jared Loughner for what he is a crazy person who jumped off off the cliff a long time ago.

 

What I'm saying, ani, is that it's in everyone's best interest to tone down the violent rhetoric, because we've seen, in the past, what it can contribute to. This guy in particular? Who knows what set him off? Hell, the guy who shot Reagan was just a nutbar who thought it would impress Jodie Foster.

But tragedies like this show everyone what violence really does to people, and that political violence, like most violence, is a terrible thing. Now, more than ever, is the time to be calm.

Except when it comes to punishing the shooter. **** that guy. How about we all just unite in mourning the dead and pummeling him?

 

When Democratic strategists are saying ?They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,? unity is going to be hard to come by.

And trying to drag Glenn Beck into this incident was quite despicable as well, Geist. You can't try to jab at someone, then cry for a truce when you're about to take return fire when you get called out on the lies and smears that seem to be the SOP from the political left these days. I have constantly pointed out how Beck has been AGAINST violence, yet you never acknowledge it - and instead persist in insinuating that somehow he has something to do with these acts. A person who does that sort of thing is a smear artist and a liar.

It is also quite obvious that many on the left tried to pin this tragic incident on the Tea Party before the facts came in. You can't just drop those inconvenient facts own the memory hole. It's really not worth discussing things with you until you can accept that.

 

Wow, I mean, I figured the stem cell thing would've attracted a pro-lifer rather than just an out-and-out nutbar. I hope she gets through this alive.

 

Really, Smuggler? Rewriting reality again? Where do you think you are, Conservapedia?

The conversation Smuggler's referring to begins here. It's about how a Beck listener was arrested on his way to go shoot up the Tides Foundation, which Beck relentlessly attacked on his show and which he'd otherwise likely never have heard of. In that conversation, as Smuggler's forgotten, I acknowledge where Beck has called for nonviolence, but I also point out where he's sympathized with killers, even in the same breath where he claims not to. Here's a sample:

 

I am not surprised that liberals are trying to score political points over this, after all Politico quotes a Democratic strategist saying Obama should tie this to the Tea Party. Even though, quite frankly, tying this guy to the Tea Party could only be done by someone caught up in either delusion or desperation.

I would surmise it's for posts like this that A-R wrote "I really hoped it wasn't a Republican that got shot".

Mr 44 and KK and others responded but... that post of Alpha's wasn't saying "I think Republicans are to blame for this". It was saying, "if it had been a Republican who died, we'd never hear the end of it".

In other words, because it was a liberal that was the target, this will eventually go away. In fact, the fact that the shooter had left-wing sentiments along with many others is probably becoming the most "gee wow, did you notice that" factoid. Ensuring, most likely, that this will go away without further political embarrassment.

And that's ok.

But it wasn't what Alpha, to me, seemed to be saying. He was saying that if the shoe was on the other foot and if it had been a member of the Tea Party that had been shot, the reaction to this entire event would NOT be the same three weeks on. The above post is in evidence of this: even when it is a Democrat who was shot, it is the Republicans who are still the victims.

 

Why the edit, Ken? Geist is completely and absolutely right. I'm glad I read it and also saved the page before you edited it. You ought to restore it, because Smuggler needs to read it, on the off chance that something will break through the fog and actually register.

Also, this is all more evidence to me that the Republican party is essentially a party of bullies and authoritarians.

 

I'll second that. If you look on Sarah Palin's Facebook page right now, in the comments on her "thoughts and prayers" post, a commenter says that "the real tragedy" -- in a mass shooting where six people, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed -- is that people are being mean to Sarah Palin about it. The real tragedy.

 

Yep, of everything I've read and heard so far, this rings truest.


KW, thank heavens you've saved the whole post for posterity. I'd hate for any of this thread to get lost.

 

On a less partisan note: Lots of good info in the video portion of this news report.

Also, in the text portion, you can read about Giffords' intern, who helped care for her and the other wounded at the scene.

 

I'll second that. If you look on Sarah Palin's Facebook page right now, in the comments on her "thoughts and prayers" post, a commenter says that "the real tragedy" -- in a mass shooting where six people, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed -- is that people are being mean to Sarah Palin about it. The real tragedy.

Well y'know, it's like this... something like this happens, and feelings can get raw.

That there might be or are Democratic strategists out there looking to pin this on Republicans is not surprising. It's not like the Democrats don't have thier own Karl Roves.

And the thing is: SO WHAT?

Something like this happens, hey, here's a suggestion: why not just nod your head and let yourself BE the bad guy for a couple of days? Just acknowledge that you can't win everything, that sometimes getting hit with something that's not your fault isn't the most important thing that's going on right now, even if it's not fair, and come back later when things have cooled down.