Thanks RR

MSNBC is reporting the the parents of this kid won't let the FBI in the house. And have a plywood blockade preventing them from entering.

The neighbors are saying that they have lived there a number of years and have "never" had a pleasant exchange with this family.

TIS

Tom DeLay got three years in prison.
Delay

But he's so pretty.

He'd better forget all those nifty dance moves. Texas prison is no joke. My advice? Knock the meanest looking guy out the first day..or become somebody's b****!!!

Or go up to the local big shot on the block and tell him
"I'm think I'm p****d off at you but I don't know why? Do I got a reason? Give me your top ten reasons you're a piece of s*** and I'll let you know when something rings a bell"..

for crying out loud...this is going get out of fucking control pretty soon

Bam - Not to mention someone earlier today got arrested for threatening Oregon Senator Michael Bennet (D).

Come to think of it, what do Bennet, Davis (threatened IL. Congressman), and Giffords have in common?

They're all Democrats.

im not surprised by that...after the health care debate, alot of people took in heart what the republicans have said. theres too many crazy radical's who believe in 'big brother'.

Those who purport to care about the tenor of political discourse don't help civil debate when they seize on any pretext to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

Not to single out anyone in particular on this message board, but more particularly comments from those on the left like Paul Krugman who writes that the Tea Party is at fault because they've created a "climate of hate."

Of course, back during the '08 campaign when Obama emoted "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"-- it's just evidence of high spirits, but when Republicans do it ("lock and load") it somehow creates a climate of hate.

Shortly after November's defeat for the Dems, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthew's TV show and remarked what Obama needed was another Oklahoma City to reconnect with the American people. To judge from the reactions to Saturday's events, many on the left agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Loughner's killing spree might fit the bill.

Frank Nitti - You realize when you use that argument, you're conceding defeat right? You're effectively admitting the argument is right, since since both sides do it, its A-OK.

"Son you drink too much."
"Well you do too Dad!"

ronnie,

I don't even want to speculate why people do the things this kid did because it generally boils down to the fact that some in this world are simply close minded bigots. Perhaps in a more ideal world where conditions were better for all we could eliminate any need for such predjudices and hatred. I dunno.

But yes, both sides of the political aisle are guilty of using very combative tactics the past few years, no doubt about that. And if the Dems seriously want to blame this incident on Republicans, they need to look in the mirror and question why our President, who claims to be some sort of academic, always feels the need to be the classroom clown by making smug, snide, smart-ass remarks at every corner as if he's just so witty and youthfully exuberant--all the while wearing his mom jeans.

Seriously, I liked the guy coming into his presidency, and I'm all about having a minority in the White House, but he rubs people the wrong way. And IF the Republicans and their combative banter over the past years is at all to blame for this incident, then the Obamaites have to accept atleast some of the culpability as well.

There is a big major difference you're ignoring or just don't realize.

Were there liberals who were...off the deep end in rhetoric so to speak...when Dubya was in office? Yes. Quite a few of them called Dubya Hitler, fascist, the usual liberal overreaction to the Right Wing. But who feared them?

Who was publicly scared that liberal fuckheads were gonna take up guns and take politics into their own bloodyhands? I didn't. You didn't. Why would you? It's far far far from the 1970s when you had legitimate armed, violent terrorist groups from the SLA to the Weathermen. Those assholes either grew up and sold out to become middle class. And the new generation is too busy listening to their iPods or playing on Facebook or eating EasyMac in their dorm rooms. Capo went to school with quite a few of them I'm sure.

Why is this? Because all those exteme left wing, pretentious communist-wannabes of today don't....really do all that much. They bitch, they moan, they send out petitions, they march, they try to boycott, then march, and then petition some more. Remember when they were pissed about the Obama/GOP compromise on tax rates which even pissed off our own esteemed Lilo?

They were so pissed....nothing came of it. Nothing. Hell they're so angry at Obama, he's more popular with that base of his party than Clinton was at this point of his presidency. As I said elsewhere, the Democrats hate their base. Republicans fear their base.

It's Democrats "targeted" recently. I don't see liberal hippie metrosexual kids, armed to the teeth with their 2nd Amendment-protected Granola Bars, smashing Congressmen's offices during the Health Care debate or cry that governmental "Death Panels" are going into business or claim certain politicians in power have to be "stopped" using particular Fascist/Communist imagery/terminology.

Or to put it another way, which particular GOP politicians in the last election were cited in liberal PAC ads with target bullseyes....no I'm sorry surveyor sights
...next to them in a pseudo-hitlist? How come no threats in the last few days against GOP politicians?

Do I expect certain right wingers to possibly take "action"? Like some of my neighbors here in Tennessee? More likely than the (very few) liberals around here. But will they? Probably not. 99.9% won't outside of bitch/moan on the Internet and call-ins to local radio about the evils of big government intrusion in their private lives inbetween collecting their federal disability/military pension/social security checks. Or buy the new Glenn Beck book. Those phones/computers btw powered more than likely by TVA, a relic of the New Deal.

I wouldn't be surprised if a crazy violent local from around these parts was involved in a tragedy like what happened on saturday. Not a guarantee, but I wouldn't be shocked at all. Or to put it another way, I look at the Middle East and who are the ones detonating the bombs or demanding "heresy laws" in Pakistan? Religious book-thumping fucktard ultra-conservatives. They're the Mullahs in Tehran. The "liberals" in that country were the protesting/voting kids who got their skulls bashed in by the Mullah's goons back in summer '09. In the name of Allah, bah gawd!

Or for that matter, which group was founded in my state of Tennessee back in 1865 down in Pulaski? The Ku Klux Klan. They did alot in the name of their god too. So did Tim McVeigh. Hell to be even more tangental, Mark David Chapman was a born-again Christian. Notice it? Its called a pattern. Not a rule. Not a law. Not a fact of nature or life, but a pattern.

So come on dude, none of this morality equavalence bullshit, at the very fucking least on this one issue You're right about the mainstream discussion talking about the "noise" that's become the story instead of the story (especially the suspect) itself. But on the "noise" itself, don't play dumb or ignorant with the obvious. Don't follow the Newsmax narrative. Don't claim there is smoke but no fire. Or the other way around, I'm not sure.



Because he's an asshole?



What President didn't rub some people the wrong way? Washington, Lincoln, JFK, FDR, Reagan whoever all pissed off certain American people because of their policies or because he was from the other party or because of what they perceive about him personally. It's natural within politics. Without this, how can we have political parties or elections or shit, a debate?

Lincoln died because John Wilkes Booth and his gang were outraged after Lincoln called to give freed blacks the right to vote. They were going to kidnap him, but the idea of giving American blacks citizenship apparently drove them over the edge.

And really, "minority"? I doubt pizzaboy got behind Obama in the last presidential election because he was mulatto or had a funny name. For that matter, Republicans didn't back McCain because he was a senior citizen.



There are lots of things to shit on Obama about. How about that recent Tax Compromise? Good politics, probably bad policy.

His surge of military involvement in Afghanistan (liberals would have been screaming more bloody murder if Dubya was still in office), his recent order to FEMA to build new nuclear fallout shelters in major cities to grabbing more executive branch power (with Dubya precedence) and demanding total unchecked/unbalanced executive authority on Guantanamo, how long detainees can stay detained or may or may not be charged (if ever). Obama recently has become fond of the "Signing statements" that he blasted Dubya for relying on.

His Administration lawyers might just be the first White House in American history to claim in court that the Commander-In-Chief has the unrestricted right to give the order to assassinate anybody anywhere anytime if said subect is deemed a threat to national security. And of course there is always the economy.

Whatever, some of those are legitimate concerns/complaints among others. But none of this retarded Birther bullshit or that he's an Al Qaeda Manchurian Candidate or the new Stalin/Hitler that will force millions of abortions and use health care reform to send dissidents off to detention camps (Thank you Michelle Bachman) or whatever sillyness.

Dubya wasn't Hitler. Obama isn't Hitler. Neither have the whiskers. Only thing those three had in common asides from getting elected to the executive office of their countries was that they all wrote lousy books.

Back to the topic itself...

What we must remember is the story itself. From all the reports put out so far, this is the basic picture: The suspect allegedly was in political affiliation a liberal before 2006, pothead too. One of his parents was a county public official. Suspect also allegedly quit the reefer and apparently lost his head (mental disease?), cutting himself off from friends and going off in his own private little world of conspiracy theories that make no sense to anyone except himself.

Then he appeared (unless I'm mistaken) at a rally for the Congresswoman in '08 and was miffed that she didn't answer his perfectly reasonable question (to him at least) about the power of grammar. Or something. Anyway he took that gun and went off on a suicidal assassation attempt (he left letters behind at his home addressed to authorities) and targeted her personally. This wasn't random.

From those YouTube videos he posted on-line, nothing he cited is specifically Tea Party. It's less anti-government and more the broad generic anti-authority paranoia shared by all fringes. In fact alot of his so-called "favorite books" from ALICE IN WONDERLAND to yes both COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and MEIN KAMPF are all about an author unveiling the real reality behind the misleading manufactured "reality." Then again, friends of the suspect claim he liked to fuck with people in general by shocking people with outrageousness this side of your usual FAMILY GUY segway sketch which they think explain that booklist, but who knows?

Is the Tea Party to blame for this particular tragedy? Is Sarah Palin? No. The "noise" I mentioned in my previous post that the media is speculating/attacking from now is honestly all based from that Palin ad I posted which at the time it was distributed a bad idea by that PAC. Now in retrospect its definately even much more a very bad idea.

Her camp spinning the "targets" as surveyor's sights (what?) only digs that PR hole she's in even deeper.

That's like claiming a Christian cross is actually a plus sign. Couldn't her flunkie staffers just admit they screwed up, we're sorry, it was a mistake at the time? Did they really think anyone would disagree with that?

Her (and the basic Tea Party community) being over-reacting defensive just makes them look more guilty than they necessarily are on this incident. Nor not exactly swatting down the Beck-expressed public idea that the American republic would fall if she would to fall herself. That last bit isn't bad PR or bad spin, just being narcissist, which is expected of most if not all aspiring presidential candidates. Including our current President.

Back to the point unless we discover otherwise, until then there is no direct evidence that the suspect was directly inspired or influenced by that PAC ad or certain specific Tea Party rhetoric. Did this pamphlet, passed around Dallas a few days before JFK visited, inspire Lee Harvey Oswald?



We have no evidence that it did, and to argue that it did is just from pure speculation. Not like the police found it in his house or he had it in his pocket or whatever. But none the less its still a toxic visual political link (fair ot not) that gave Dallas a bad name.

Both of your posts are dead on accurate, Ronnie .

See how smart you can be when you're not too busy playing a Billy Madison type manchild?

Erm, I don't know if I'd agree that all (or most) violent lunatic extremists are on the right, and that the left is "too busy listening to their iPods or playing on Facebook or eating EasyMac in their dorm rooms." Just about any serious Marxist I've ever met is of the mindset that a violent revolution is necessary to advance the cause.

But yes, I'm sure we all hoped that the violent extremists on the right would have died out after the Civil Rights era and their children would have taken a different route. It appears otherwise, and we'll have to indeed fight many of the same fights our parents and grandparents engaged in.

That's why EVERYONE, on BOTH sides, need to chill out over the coming years and stop inciting this stuff. Unfortunately, humans are inevitably the same, and I have a feeling that after the smoke from this incident clears partisans will go back to being partisans and supporting 'their team,' trying to discredit and dismiss the other side, all the while manifesting a hatred that they claim to be fighting against in the first place.

For that matter, some people just need to get a life and stay out of political discussions all together, especially when they use political banter as an outlet for some pent up anger they've built up over the years.

Like my grandfather always said: Why do people always feel the need to blab about one thing or another?? What the hell is so important that everyone feels they need to run their mouths at every second of the day?? Everyone wants to talk and discuss things when they ought to be eating, sleeping, or working. THAT'S IT. Sounds strange, but if some (not anyone here) adhered more to this old adage I have a feeling there would be less loons on both side.

As far as I'm concerned, they'd better stay out of my way all together. Maddow, Beck, Olbermann, O Reilly, Limbaugh; you're all corporate whores straight out of Orwell's 1984, propogating one false paradigm after another.

Some excellent points here. Their is no direct causal relationship between the crap the right spews out and the act of a deranged persone, but the fact of the matter is that there a lot of nut jobs in this country and the media needs to do a better job of not giving publicity to politicians who say outlandish things such as Sharon Angle's call for the people to use "Second Amendment Remedies," or to tolerate hosts who
declare political ponents "The worst person in the world."

If you want to get a grip on things, use your remote and skip over Fox, MSNBC, and CNN even. The BBC does a nice job of reporting the news, and magazines like The Economist also do. If you want a "liberal slant" there is always the New Yorker, and if you want a "conservative slant" there's the Wall Street Journal (although its editorial page is over the top).

Point is no one wants to discuss the issues, they just want to shout over each other. Real talk about real issues does not equal good ratings, so we are stuck with the promotion of toxic
politics and opinion for a while.

For God's sake will they please shut up about the 2012 elections? We just had elections in 2010.

My fear is though (and I'll bet I'm right)is that absolutely NOTHING will be done to change anything. With the people's right to "bear arms" and "freedom of press", just try changing anything.

As far as guns go, I heard yesterday that in AZ you can actually go into a bar with a gun (as long as you don't drink) Really? Nobody really seems to care about putting limits (or enforcing)exactly WHO can own a gun because God forbid it hamper someone's right, so don't check-out anyone? We blame it on mental health, upbringing; the school or parent or coach or someone who should have known. Who???? Nothing will happen!!

As far as the media goes, you've of course got "freedom of the press". Who's gonna tell someone not to say something or not to report the news. They get these nutjobs and it's a story and they air it on tv. Then they only need to say "freedom of the press." Do you really think the media (in any form) will monitor itself? So, what is the answer??

Don't misunderstand. I am for both rights, but I am also for regulations and better checks on gun ownership and think that responsible journalism is possible as well.

TIS

As DT alludes to above, most of the cable channel news outlets constitute the Cliff Notes of domestic and international issues and events. They appeal to one's emotions. A viewer attaches themselves to one or the other of them because they assuage the viewers feelings. In-depth analysis of news content by a viewer presents quite a challenge which I'll bet most Americans are unwilling to meet.

The current rants on gun control make me laugh. After the Columbine massacre, there was an outcry for better gun control. After the Virginia Tech massacre, there was an outcry for stricter laws regarding the sale of weapons. Now, there will be another outcry. It will die down until the next shooting rampage.

I am so sick and tired of people complaining about how easily this man obtained an automatic weapon. Why are these weapons even for sale? Nobody needs an automatic weapon. If you want to hunt or protect your belongings, do you really need an automatic weapon to do it? Of course not. It's absurd. They should be banned, end of story. The only thing they're used for is to kill humans, so leave them for the military only.

Them and Us

I disagree; respectfully. I think both sides have blood on their hands for this one, ron, and it seems I'm not in the minority on that one here on these boards.

And a little off topic, but you have to give your South Eastern brethren credit for one thing: everything weird happens in Florida and Germany, right? Well, now the Wild, Wild West appears to be back on the lunatic scene after Saturday's tragedy(not to mention the holocaust taking place in Northern Mexico, SW United States with the drug cartels).

But even with all the cousin fucking, rebel flag wearing, and gun toting machoism that goes on down there in your neck of the woods, it's out in the country, and people can choose to get up and move out of the frickin woods anytime they want. You don't hear about terrorism taking place out in the country and small rural towns (even in the big towns).

But when you combine these small minded personalities with a burgeoning infrastructure and technologically inclined cultural landscape you get rogue-outcasts like this kid in AZ, who can walk out in a mass public gathering and start shooting politicians with no legal entities present to stop them--just old elderly men and a brave female (who apparently were forced to be the heroes of the day in the absence of any other legal deterrents)

No, in the deep South we have what they call gentlemen's code, and despite all the banter that may come out of sectors of the region from time to time, I think most down there are God loving and God fearing people who would never act this way with their guns.

Speaking of Florida and other lands of the strange....

Not to be even more ghastly truculent than is necessary right now, but since we're talking about gun control, did anyone hear about this:


He's out on bail and walking around right now.

Care to defend this one Nitti?

Rush Limbaugh: Lougher has the full support of the Democratic Party

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11...t_n_807543.html

Dems are sure to blame too for this one quip. Because it's everybody's fault for everything.

This isn't over though. The prosecutors and school district intend to have the case dismissed because of governmental immunity. Also the police claim they would do exactly the same thing if this situation happened again.


Family to get $1.8 million in dad's jailing, teen's false sex-assault interrogation

A West Bloomfield Township family will get $1.8 million to settle a lawsuit against the police department, after the father was prosecuted and jailed after being accused of sexually assaulting his severely autistic daughter — a prosecution that eventually imploded..

The charges against Julian Wendrow were dropped for lack of evidence in March 2008, after he had spent 80 days in the Oakland County jail. His wife, Thal Wendrow, was also jailed, and the girl, 14, and her brother, 13, were placed in foster care for months.

The settlement was made public in district court filings today.

The Oakland County prosecutor’s case was based almost solely on statements the daughter reportedly made using facilitated communication, a widely discredited method in which the child typed on a keyboard with the assistance of a school aid. The girl, who does not speak and functions on the level of a two-year-old, reportedly typed that her father had been raping her since age seven. Prosecutors pursued the case, even though a physical exam showed no sign of assault.

The family sued in federal court in 2008, alleging 38 counts of false imprisonment, wrongful prosecution and other misdeeds.

The Wendrows named the police department as a defendant in part because of a two-hour interrogation a detective conducted with the 13-year-old boy, shortly after his parents arrests, wrongly telling him they had videotapes of both the boy and his father sexually assaulting the girl. The boy had no adult representative present for the interview....

Lawsuit

What's to defend?

The Huffington Post decided to abridge Limbaugh's statement, although to their credit they did supply the full audio. Here's in total what Limbaush said...and he's absolutely right about SOME in the Democratic Party and its far left buddies in the media, including one Paul Krugman.

"...It appears that what Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Democrat Party, the Democrat Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America; the bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia of America; the mean-spiritedness of America.

So he sits around, he gets reports, he understands. He probably never paid any attention to Sarah Palin. All of his friends say he didn't like things political. This guy's been on the sheriff's radar in Pima County since 2007, long before Sarah Palin was nominated to run with McCain and long before there was a Tea Party. That smiling mug shot, this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention, and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can (plus a local sheriff) doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder but something lesser. He's a victim, he's deranged, and yet he's smiling. He's snickering at every one of us in that mug shot..."

These lies are extreme even for Limbaugh. There is no one who is hoping this maniac gets away with murder and attempted murder. There is no one in the Deomcratic party who has played this idiot to be a victim. Rush makes it up as he goes along, and anyone who take him seriously is a moron.

I hope a house falls on palin and buries her until her feet curl up.

Did anyone try to watch that Palin speech?

Josh Marshall said it best about the already derided "blood libel" speech: "Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them."

Sarah Palin's charge of 'blood libel' spurs outcry from Jewish leaders

By James Oliphant, Los Angeles Times

Sarah Palin's remarks Wednesday in which she accused critics who would tie her political tone to the Arizona shootings of committing a "blood libel" against her have prompted an instant and pronounced backlash from some in America's Jewish community.

The term dates to the Middle Ages and refers to a prejudice that Jewish people used Christian blood in religious rituals.

"Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a 'blood libel' against her and others," said David Harris, president of the National Democratic Jewish Council, in a statement. "This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries -- and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today."

"The term 'blood libel' is not a synonym for 'false accusation,' " said Simon Greer, president of Jewish Funds for Justice. "It refers to a specific falsehood perpetuated by Christians about Jews for centuries, a falsehood that motivated a good deal of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination. Unless someone has been accusing Ms. Palin of killing Christian babies and making matzoh from their blood, her use of the term is totally out of line."

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head Saturday and remained in critical condition in a Tucson hospital, is Jewish.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said "it was inappropriate at the outset to blame Sarah Palin and others for causing this tragedy or for being an accessory to murder. Palin has every right to defend herself against these kinds of attacks, and we agree with her that the best tradition in America is one of finding common ground despite our differences.

"Still, we wish that Palin had not invoked the phrase 'blood libel' in reference to the actions of journalists and pundits in placing blame for the shooting in Tucson on others. While the term 'blood libel' has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."

Early Wednesday, Palin posted a lengthy video on the Web in which she defended the provocative speech employed by her and other conservatives -- and condemned the violence in Arizona. Yet she also strongly pushed back at any notion that inflamed and sometimes gun-laden rhetoric played any role in the attack. She called allusions to that effect "irresponsible."

Her critics in the media, she contended, "should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

Last year, Palin's political operation targeted Giffords' district in a map that critics said were gun sights, but a Palin aide argued earlier this week were surveyor's marks. That map immediately became a focus of controversy in the wake of the shootings, with some directly blaming Palin for the attacks.

Prominent conservatives rallied around Palin and the terms "blood libel" soon began circulating -- and some were angry that Palin wasn't more urgently defended by party leaders.

"To the gutless GOP establishment who watches in silence the blood libel against" Palin, wrote commentator Andrew Brietbart Tuesday evening, hours before Palin's statement was posted. "We will be watching."

And although she was criticized by some on her Facebook page, the power of Palin's appeal to her admirers was also on full display. Within hours, more than 25,000 people had expressed their support for her remarks.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times