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When the Left AttacksPorn entrepreneur and Advocate columnist Michael Lucas calls out the Left for blaming the Giffords assassination attempt on right wing rhetoric.

By Michael Lucas

COMMENTARY: The moment the “Breaking News” banner went up on MSNBC, announcing the tragic shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona, the knee-jerk liberal invectives hit the Twitter Face Space.

Of course it was Fox News’s fault.

Of course the blood’s on Sarah Palin’s hands—note the political map she posted during the campaign showing gun sights on congressional districts she wanted to defeat.

And, of course, before we even knew the name of the assailant, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, what triggered him was immediately obvious: He had been brainwashed by the poisoned brew of Tea Party anti-government rhetoric.

Three days later, what’s most amazing to me is how this blame-the-conservatives story line is alive and well, even after the facts have come to light.

Loughner is a mentally deranged wack-ball. A list of his favorite books, according to the Wall Street Journal, included Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto. He had become obsessed with Representative Giffords, a Jewish congresswoman and supporter of Israel.

There has been no evidence or indication to support the accusations and insinuations that he was inspired by the Tea Party.

In fact, he was known to burn the American flag burner, which is hardly a Tea Party ritual.

But why let the truth ruin a good story?

As the National Review points out, the best comparison may be to Sirhan Sirhan, who in 1968 assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy because of Kennedy’s support for Israel.

Truth is, this is the situation lefties have been secretly waiting for. It’s the chance to say that the Right is fomenting a culture of violence that would eventually lead to the death of innocents. See, Glenn Beck is an accomplice to murder!

They conveniently ignore the examples of so-called violent incitement by liberal commentators. Remember how Keith Olbermann, back in 2008, joked about using goons to get Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race against Obama? He suggested getting, “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

To blame Sarah Palin for this shooting rampage, as they are doing, is, at best, intellectually dishonest. At worst, it’s its own form of hate speech. Even Barbara Walters said on The View this week that she feels bad for Sarah for all the fingers pointing menacingly in her direction. Come on, Sarah Palin is enough of a stupid joke as a politician that Democrats should want to help her get the next Republican presidential nomination.

I find it absolutely disgusting that liberals would try to exploit this horrific event for political purposes. It’s too bad for them that Congresswoman Giffords is a true moderate. She’s a strong supporter of Second Amendment gun rights, and is even herself a former Republican.

The people who have more to worry about, in terms of their safety, are conservatives. Some well-known conservative speakers require security details to accompany them on speaking engagements on college campuses. Bill O’Reilly talks about receiving constant death threats.

If we’re going to speculate on root causes for Loughner turning into a murderous sociopath, why aren’t we talking about the extreme violence in today’s video games and movies? Whenever there’s a school shooting, don’t we always point to guns and killing being glamorized by Hollywood? The Left doesn’t want to go there when they see an opportunity to seek revenge on the party that just shellacked them in the November election.

This is an extraordinarily sad story for the people injured and killed, as well as for our country. But as a new American citizen, who is proud to be part of what this nation stands for, it hurts me to see those on the Left trying to use this horrific event as a means to smear those with whom they disagree.

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Palin: Media Guilty of "Blood Libel" After Tucson Shooting

By Julie Bolcer

Sarah Palin released a video statement Wednesday in which she accused the media of "blood libel" for blaming heated political rhetoric for the Tucson shooting that killed six and critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday.

Palin was among those criticized in the hours after the shooting, particularly for a map from her SarahPAC last year that featured gun crosshairs over the districts of Democrats, including Giffords, who voted for the health care overhaul. Her video statement reported by CBS News called the shooting the work of "a single evil man."

"I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event," she said."If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

Watch the video.


Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.




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The Bombast and the Body Count

Seabra

By Wayne Besen

While the world focused on the tragic Arizona shootings, another horrific crime took place in New York City. The New York Post has reported that a Portuguese male model tortured and murdered his “sugar daddy” in a Manhattan hotel. For more than an hour, Renato Seabra, 20, beat Carlos Castro, 65, before he castrated the older fashion journalist with a wine corkscrew.

Seabra (pictured) said he murdered the journalist “to get rid of Castro’s homosexual demons”. The suspect then declared, “I’m not gay anymore!”

Like the Arizona assassin, Jared Loughner, there is no doubt that Renato Seabra is profoundly disturbed.

However, that does not absolve those who placed the dangerous idea that homosexuality is attributable to demons in Seabra’s head. Where might he have gotten such a notion?

We can start with the “ex-gay” organization Exodus International, where its President, Alan Chambers, once wrote, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy, is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.”

Chambers also told a crowd of social conservatives, “We have to stand up against an evil agenda. It is an evil agenda and it will take anyone captive that is willing, or that is standing idly by.”

Given this harsh rhetoric, it is understandable that an unbalanced individual distressed about his sexual orientation might resort to violence. After all, Chambers clearly states that homosexuality is evil and then offers a remedy, which is to “stand up” against the perceived evil spirits and not stand “idly by”.

In Jeff Sharlet’s latest book, “C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy”, a Ugandan man justifies supporting the death penalty for gay people because, “They” – the gays – “are trying to end the human race.”

His comments sound strikingly similar to Focus on the Family’s founder James Dobson, who once told The Daily Oklahoman newspaper that same-sex marriage will “destroy the earth.”

This week, Pentecostal preacher Cindy Jacobs warned that the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has caused God’s wrath, including the “potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.”

It is irrelevant whether Sebra or Loughner were directly influenced by the “spiritual warfare” of these preachers or the Tea Party’s vitriol. What matters is that the constant demonizing of certain groups of people – whether minorities, liberals, or employees of the federal government – sets the stage for bloody reprisals.

Social conservatives would likely counter that sanguinary acts come from the hands of deranged individuals. Technically, this is true – however public figures generally understand that a small percentage of their audience is unhinged from reality. So, providing fiery rhetoric that can incite mentally ill people to take criminal actions is grossly irresponsible and an abdication of moral leadership.

A perfect example of this disconnect is Rush Limbaugh. Even as he defended right wing extremists today from accusations that their rhetoric led to the Arizona massacre, blogger Jim Burroway provided a photograph of a Limbaugh promotional billboard in Tucson painted with bullet holes and the headline, “Straight Shooter”.

Such violent imagery was in line with Sarah Palin’s infamous graphic targeting vulnerable Democratic legislative districts with crosshairs. As we now know, critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was one of the legislators in Palin’s gun sights.

Unfortunately, the media tries to draw a moral equivalence between the rhetoric of the left and right, which is inaccurate and unhelpful. This bogus media attempt at “balance” obfuscates the reality that the vast majority of alarming rhetoric comes from Republicans and Tea Party adherents.

The root of the problem is people like Sarah Palin who say, “Don’t retreat – instead reload.”

It is people like Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) that inflame old passions by hinting at secession.

It is the Republican Party that wins power by attacking immigrants, bashing Muslims, and using anti-gay marriage amendments to drive voters to the polls.

It is House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who allowed the healthcare bill to be portrayed as a step toward communism.

It is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey who helped organize the bitter Town Hall health care meetings designed to intimidate legislators.

It is the GOP that disrespects the office of the President by acting as though Bill Clinton and Barack Obama lack legitimacy.

My intent is not to say that most Republicans are bigots, nor are I implying that the names I’ve mentioned are directly responsible for causing deaths. However, they have soured the political climate in America by consistently catering to bigots, pandering to religious extremists, serving as apologists for militia kooks, and entertaining the wild fantasies of sick conspiracy theorists. Instead of restoring sanity, they have treated these crackpots as if they were legitimate, even respected, constituencies.

It is time America stops living in denial and considers the possibility that over-the-top bombast may lead to a body count.

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Why I find Sarah Palin’s response to Arizona shootings’ aftermath ‘reprehensible’

By Brody Levesque

Tucson residents hold vigil outside the office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the aftermath of Saturday's attempted assassination and mass shooting.

It is not often that I find it necessary to set aside my press credentials and lend an opinion to public discourse on any given subject that I report on. However, that said, I need to comment not as an American which I am not, nor as a Canadian which I am, but rather as a human being and responsible adult living in a divisive and polarized society here in the United States.

Earlier today, former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, issued a video statement in response to the tragic assassination attempt on the life of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, which resulted in Rep. Giffords being critically injured, six persons left dead, including a nine year old child and a sitting federal judge, and 13 others seriously injured.

In the initial hours as law enforcement commenced their investigative work, the Sheriff of Pima County, Ariz., in a press briefing, made an impassioned statement regarding what the good sheriff felt was of a contributory circumstance to the shooter’s actions — the elevated vitriolic rhetoric that has been seen, heard, and utilized in the American political process particularly over these past three years.

Commentators, reporters, and the public immediately took positions both pro and con on the sheriff’s remarks, which by the way, he has consistently maintained accurately reflect his viewpoint through the course of the unfolding aftermath in Tucson.

During the coverage of this tragic event, myself, colleagues, and others in the blogosphere and media included a particular graphic that had been employed in the campaign by the political action committee headed by Palin, advocating specific “targeting” of opposition congressional districts including Representative Giffords in the last election cycle.

The graphic(s) were clearly depicting a series “gunsight crosshairs” superimposed over various congressional districts including Congresswoman Giffords’ district. This was intentional on our part to illustrate, in part, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s assertions.

Dupnik has been under relentless fire from conservatives since his impassioned and impromptu plea for an end to hateful and violent rhetoric. So much in fact, as ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer reported last evening on “World News Tonight,” the Sheriff and conservative hard line radio pundit Rush Limbaugh have traded barbs.

Which brings me to today’s Palin video, my colleagues at Politico reported:

Palin has faced criticism for images that look like gun crosshairs to identify the districts of Democrats who were vulnerable in the 2010 elections, that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot on Saturday.

Responsibility lies “not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election,” Palin said.

Palin placed blame on the media.”[E]specially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn,” she said. “That is reprehensible.”

 I want to highlight specifically the former governor’s choice of using the term ‘blood libel’ when attempting to deflect responsibility for her own rhetoric and her critique of the media.

By using the term “blood libel” to describe the criticism about political rhetoric after the shootings, Palin was inventing a new definition for an emotionally laden phrase.

Blood libel is typically used to describe the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. The term has been used for centuries as the pretext for anti-semitism and violent pogroms against Jews.

Given that Congresswoman Giffords is Jewish, its absolutely reprehensible to ‘coin’ a term to use in a public statement such as that made by today by Palin.

Instead of taking ownership and accountability for the mere chance that the troubled and obviously mentally at risk shooter might have been influenced by such rhetoric, Palin, and in fact nearly all of the so-called conservative right, have attempted to blame the poisonous atmosphere that surrounds the American political landscape on the opposition and those who decry such vitriol.


The New York Times reported this morning:

Ms. Palin was not the only one to respond to criticism Wednesday. Sharron Angle, the Tea Party-backed Republican who lost her Senate race against Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, also issued a statement defending herself against criticism.

“Expanding the context of the attack to blame and to infringe upon the people’s Constitutional liberties is both dangerous and ignorant,” she said in the statement, according to media reports. “The irresponsible assignment of blame to me, Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement by commentators and elected officials puts all who gather to redress grievances in danger.”

Ms. Angle said during the campaign that voters could pursue “Second Amendment remedies” if the political process doesn’t work for them. In the wake of the shooting, those remarks have been criticized anew.

But Ms. Angle said in her statement Wednesday that: “Finger-pointing towards political figures is an audience-rating game and contradicts the facts as they are known – that the shooter was obsessed with his twisted plans long before the Tea Party movement began.”

 I see this as a massive effort to minimize the reality of this entire tragic event which no rational thinking individual cannot but help wonder what may have influenced the shooter’s decision, contributing to his apparent twisted mental state.

my colleagues at Politico Palin offered this:

“We will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults,” she said.

When is it acceptable to put gun sights on a political opponent in campaign literature, to encourage 2nd Amendment “solutions” and wanting your supporters to be “armed and dangerous?” This is definitely NOT nonviolent rhetoric, and this in no way “condems” violence.

I thought about embedding the former governor’s video recorded remarks, and decided that I am not going to be a party to further enabling her to spread a message that contains such a vile use of that term, attempting to redefine blood libel, in her efforts to be a ministrant to her core audience and followers and justify without holding herself accountable in a continuation of irresponsible political rhetoric.

I find that conduct reprehensible.

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Pro-LGBT Congresswoman gunned down in Arizona shooting; federal judge fatally wounded

Rep. Giffords

By Brody Levesque & Darryl Morris

TUCSON, Ariz. — U. S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) underwent surgery after being shot in the head at a public event in Tucson, Ariz. today. At least five people were killed in the shooting incident, including a federal judge.

Giffords, 40, a member of the House LGBT Equality Caucus and a strong supporter of gay rights, was shot at close range in the head during a “Congress On Your Corner” event outside a Safeway grocery store in northwest Tucson.

NPR reports at least 13 people were injured, and that among the dead are U.S. District Judge John Roll.

Giffords is alive and out of surgery, according to Dr. Peter Rhee, director of trauma at the University Medical Center in Tucson.

“I’m as optimistic as you can get in this situation,” Rhee said, but said he will monitor her closely in the next 24 hours before determining her prognosis.

The Shooting:

Giffords was talking to a couple shortly after 10:00 a.m. when the suspect, identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, ran up and fired from about four feet away.

A witness, Steven Rayle, a Tucson doctor, told The Washington Post, that he saw the gunman, a young man wearing sneakers and what appeared to be navy blue sweats, approach Gifford with a semi-automatic handgun raised. The gunman said nothing before shooting the congresswoman once in the head, Rayle said.

After Giffords fell, he said, a number of people sought to flee the scene but were trapped — hemmed in by the table and a concrete post. The gunman then fired into the crowd, he said.

“It was so close, and sort of a tight thing, there was nowhere easy to run,” Rayle said. “So most of the crowd got it, you know.”

“People that were there were just sitting ducks,” Rayle said. “I don’t think he was even aiming. He was just firing at whatever.”

After a few seconds, Rayle said, the man stopped shooting and tried to flee.

Loughner was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody. Authorities recovered a single weapon, a pistol with what was described as an “extended magazine.”

The Shooter:

Loughner told authorities at the scene he had acted alone, although it was not certain that was the case, officials said. A former classmate described Loughner as a pot-smoking loner who had rambling beliefs about the world, The Associated Press reported.

Federal law enforcement officials were poring over captured versions of a MySpace page that belonged to the suspect and over Youtube video published to the Internet weeks ago under an account “Classitup10″ and linked to him.

The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by U.S. officials, included a mysterious “Goodbye friends” message published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to “Please don’t be mad at me.”

In one of several Youtube videos, which featured text against a dark background, Loughner described inventing a new U.S. currency and complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in Giffords’ congressional district in Arizona.

“I know who’s listening: Government Officials, and the People,” Loughner wrote. “Nearly all the people, who don’t know this accurate information of a new currency, aren’t aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn’t have happen (sic).”

The Judge:

U.S. District Judge John Roll was among the dead. Giffords had worked with Roll in the past to line up funding to build a new courthouse in Yuma, and President Barack Obama hailed him for his nearly 40 years of service as a judge.

Roll, a married father of three children, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. He had served as chief judge since 2006.

Law enforcement sources said that Roll lived nearby and stopped by the Safeway to say hello to Giffords.

“The devoted husband, father of three, grandfather of five, and friend to all who knew him, will be greatly missed by his family and community,” said a statement released by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. “He was a warm, compassionate judge and inspirational leader in what is one of the busiest districts in the country.”

“Chief Judge John Roll was a dedicated jurist whose death is a terrible loss to Arizona and to the country,” said Vice-President Joe Biden in a statement today.

Giffords was first elected to represent Arizona’s 8th District in 2006, and re-elected last November. The “Congress on Your Corner” events allow constituents to present their concerns directly to her. The Congresswoman is married to Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly, a NASA
astronaut and U.S. Navy pilot.

“I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping all the victims and their families, including Gabby, in our thoughts and prayers,” said President Barack Obama in a statement today at the White House. Watch here:



“We are shocked and saddened by the events involving Congresswoman Giffords and our hearts go out to her and the other victims of this awful tragedy, said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

“Gabby Giffords is a champion for LGBT equality and a principled leader for Arizona. We wish her a speedy recovery as our thoughts and prayers are with her family as well as with the families of all of those touched by today’s horrific violence,” Solmonese said.

House Speaker John Boehner condemned the attack.

“An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” Boehner said in a statement. “Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society.”

Giffords’ Tucson office was one of three damaged last March by vandals who targeted Democrats in advance of the U.S. House vote on President Obama’s controversial health care legislation.

Following the vote, Giffords landed a place on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” map, which targeted legislators who voted for the health care bill. The map was criticized as an incitement to violence, and as of Saturday afternoon, is still posted to Palin’s Facebook page.

Giffords was one of at least 10 House members who had raised concerns about their personal security following the healthcare vote, although there’s no indication at this time that the gunman who shot Giffords was motivated by politics.

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