Daily Archives: January 9, 2011

January 9, 2011 · 8:27 PM

Profiles of The Six People Killed In Yersterday’s Attack

Courtesy of the Washington Post…

[...]

Christina-Taylor Green: A “Face of Hope,” this 9-year-old politician often wore red, white and blue in honor of her country.

Gabe Zimmerman: Recently engaged and one of Giffords’s aides, he was known as a master in dealing with other people.

John M. Roll: A widely respected federal judge, Roll received death threats in 2009 after his decision allowed a case brought forward by illegal immigrants to proceed to a jury trial.

Dorwin Stoddard: A fixture at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, Stoddard blocked his wife from gunfire, eyewitness reports said.

Phyllis Scheck: A great-grandmother, the 79-year-old retiree admired Giffords’s stance on border safety.

Dorothy Morris: The 76-year-old retiree, Dorothy Morris, attended the event with her husband and high school sweetheart George Morris.

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· 7:56 PM

Keith Olbermann Critic Calls Him “A Target,” And Asks “Won’t Somebody Stop Him?”

WTF? 

Mediaite

A woman whose online bio describes her as a “humor writer” (as well as “fine artist, excellent cook, devoted wife”) has called MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann “a target,” and asked for someone to “stop him.”

The post written by Andrea Rouda carries the headline “Speaking of Target Practice,” and–after listing murdered leaders including JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Benazir Bhutto–suggests “there are so many good targets still out there. Take Keith Olbermann.”

Rouda, apparently responding to Olbermann’s Saturday night “Special Comment” on the Arizona shooting spree, calls Olbermann “the Devil himself:”

In the wake of yesterday’s horrific shooting of a young congresswoman, the Devil himself who walks among us in the form of a TV “journalist” has decided that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are responsible and is spreading his usual vitriol.

Please, won’t somebody stop him?

Olbermann sent out a link to the page--which also features a picture of a puppy billed as the “Daily Puppy”–to his Twitter followers Sunday afternoon, resulting in well over 100 comments, most of them attacking Rouda, or suggesting that she should be sent to prison. Olbermann later used his Twitter account to urge his followers not to “act on” or even leave comments on the page, saying “it’s already being addressed.”

Screen shot from now defunct web page:

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· 7:21 PM

Megyn Kelly Takes On Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Over His “Political Spin” On Shooting

As usual, Fox News and others of their ilk have criticized Sheriff Dupnik for telling the truth.  Some have even called for the Sheriff’s resignation.

My question is, when is “free speech” applied to all?  Is it only a vehicle for the right?  Some would argue that he was commenting while in his official capacity as Sheriff.   I would retort by saying he spoke of the vitriolic hate spewing from radio and cable TV on both sides.  He did not single out the “right” soley.  His words were deliberate and chosen well, in my opinion.

Neither side of the political spectrum is without fault here.

Huffington Post reports:

Right-wing radio host Jon Justice, who is on KQTH FM 104.1 in Arizona, has called for Dupnik’s resignation and taken issue with the sheriff’s singling-out of talk radio.

Mediaite

On Fox News, Megyn Kelly interviewed the man in charge of the Arizona shooting investigation, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Kelly introduced the interview saying, “it is always a difficult task to try to assign reason to an irrational act, but that is one of the things that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is trying to do.”

From there, Kelly was persistent, yet extremely deferential as she expressed the doubts of many who are wondering why the Sheriff is so publicly offering his speculative opinion that “vitriolic rhetoric” helped lead to the tragedy. Although the sheriff had no specific evidence of such rhetoric yet, he claimed there is “no doubt in my mind that when a number of people night and day try to inflame the public, that there’s going to be some consequences from doing that and I think it’s irresponsible to do that.”

When he also warned that “free speech is free speech but it’s not without consequences,” Kelly questioned whether it was appropriate for a sheriff to be injecting their political spin? The sheriff answered that ultimately it’s up to the viewers to decide.

Video here…

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· 2:57 PM

Fox News abruptly cuts away from Tucson vigil after mourner mentions Sarah Palin

The Raw Story

The Fox News Channel abruptly cut to commercial after a mourner attending a Tuscon, Arizona vigil for those killed in Saturday’s shootings mentioned Fox employee Sarah Palin as one of the culprits behind a rising tide of violent rhetoric in US politics and media.

As they awaited the beginning of a Pima County Sheriff’s Department press conference, Fox News host Shep Smith cued a live video from the vigil for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who sustained a bullet wound to the head and was among a total of 19 shot in a sudden attack outside a grocery store.

At the vigil, which was carried live by some — including CNN’s website — a man stepped up to the microphone holding a candle and implored those in power to ask themselves why they actually want to be in such a position.

“And I say to you, Sarah Palin,” he began, just before Fox News abruptly cut the feed.

In video that seemed to be unavailable late Saturday, the man continued, calling for violent rhetoric in politics and the media to be toned down. His sentiment was seemingly echoed by Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.   More…

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· 5:47 AM

Tucson Tea Party Leader: We Won’t Change Our Rhetoric After Giffords Shooting

TPMDC

A leader of a Tucson-area tea party group condemned the mass shooting in Arizona that included Rep. Gabriel Giffords (D-AZ), but told TPM that this doesn’t mean her group is going to tone down their rhetoric: “I think anytime you start suppressing freedom of speech, I think it’s wrong. I live here and I didn’t hear anything [in the 2010 campaign] that concerned me in terms of inciting violence.”

Allyson Miller, a founder of the 500-member Pima County Tea Party Patriots, told TPM in an interview today that the members of her group, as well as the entire city of Tucson, were “deeply saddened” by the events of today and said “there is no place for violence” in political debate.

“This is outrageous,” she said.

Miller was quick to distance her group from the shooting and said that she felt she had to go on the defensive after news of the tragedy began to spread. “I did feel, you know, very like ‘why are they jumping to this conclusion before they even knew the person’s name?’ They’re jumping to this conclusion that it has to do with the hotly contested Congressional race,” she said. “Well, apparently, from what I’ve seen so far…it’s looking like that’s not the case.”

The race she’s referring to was between Giffords and Jesse Kelly, a tea party-backed Republican, who held one event in June that said “Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

The suspect, now identified as Jared Loughner, left a trail of rambling YouTube videos on the internet, in some accusing the government of “mind control” and “brainwashing.”

Miller said she knows the members of her tea party, who she called “reasonable individuals” closer to her age of 55 than the suspected shooter’s 22. She said she’s never seen the suspect at an event. “That’s why we put out our press release [condemning the shooting] so quickly. I just felt like all the fingers were pointed at the tea party.”

There’s one thing Miller didn’t feel she needed to defend — the heated rhetoric of the 2010 campaign against Giffords. TPM asked if, after the shooting, Miller thought tea party activists in future campaigns should temper some of the tougher talk.    More…

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· 5:36 AM

Violent Rhetoric and Its Consequences

The story of AZ Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting and the subsequent killing of 6 people along with 12 people wounded has shocked America. 

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords spoke on MSNBC about the ramped up rhetoric of violence  which occurred right after the passage of the Health Care Bill:

In a climate where some are advocating violence to get what they want politically, to the partisan politics touted on talk radio, to politicians claiming that the people should be

 armed and dangerous or

public would bring down an out-of-control Congress with  2nd amendment remedies  

and Jefferson’s quote, taken out of context:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,

…one can say with a modicum of certainty that we live in dangerous times.

The above statements may not have been direct suggestions of violence, but the rhetoric is ugly and to mad men and mindless haters, it’s a “call to duty”.

Keith Olbermann’s special comment:

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· 4:30 AM

Intern’s actions may have saved Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ life

Gabrielle Giffords - 2009
Image via Wikipedia

USA Today

 Daniel Hernandez had been U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords‘ intern for five days when she was shot Saturday outside Tucson.

The junior at the University of Arizona was helping check people in at the “Congress on Your Corner” event when he heard gunfire. He was about 30 feet from the congresswoman. When the shots began, he ran toward them.

“I don’t even know if the gunfire had stopped,” he said Saturday night as he kept a vigil at the University Medical Center cafeteria, gathered near a TV watching tributes and getting updates.

When the shots began that morning, he saw many people lying on the ground, including a young girl. Some were bleeding. Hernandez said he moved from person to person checking pulses.

“First the neck, then the wrist,” he said. One man was already dead. Then he saw Giffords. She had fallen and was lying contorted on the sidewalk. She was bleeding.

Using his hand, Hernandez applied pressure to the entry wound on her forehead. He pulled her into his lap, holding her upright against him so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. Giffords was conscious, but quiet.

Ron Barber, Giffords’ district director, was next to her. Hernandez told a bystander how to apply pressure to one of Barber’s wounds.

Barber told Hernandez, “Make sure you stay with Gabby. Make sure you help Gabby.

“Hernandez used his hand to apply pressure until someone from inside Safeway brought him clean smocks from the meat department. He used them to apply pressure on the entrance wound, unaware there was an exit wound. He never let go of her.

He stayed with Giffords until paramedics arrived. They strapped her to a board and loaded her into an ambulance. Hernandez climbed in with her. On the ride to the hospital, he held her hand. She squeezed his back.

When they arrived at the hospital, Hernandez was soaked in blood. His family brought him clean clothes because the FBI took his for evidence.

More…

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