oh this is terrible — hard to imagine it getting any sadder

Oh. Heartbreaking. Her eyes.

…

Please write to the Learning Channel’s customer relations and ask them to cancel Sunday’s final episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Here’s what I wrote to them:

Please cancel Sunday’s final episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska. You are promoting a person who may have helped incite a mass murder.

Their comment line appears to be very busy.

Why?

Does anyone know yet?

Tucson heading typo. Surely there is no “Tuscon” sunshine in this one. I’m all too mindful that my own state of North Dakota was part of the Palin bullseye crusade.

Whatever the context, the genesis of this madness, may those accountable be held responsible for their actions. And their words.

Tragic is the right word, Jane.

Thanks.

i’ll go in and fix.. thanks for the heads up

It is 360 degrees of sadness today.

tucson now spelled correctly

I have been grieving all day over all the people who have been killed or wounded in this terrible attack. My heart goes out to the parents who sent their little girl to an activity they thought she would enjoy, I cannot even imagine their pain. All my love and blessings go to all involved in this tragedy. I have lit a candle, perhaps we can have a sort of virtual vigil, light candles, and send our thoughts to the dead and wounded and their families.

Oh, oh.

Jane for me anyway compassion is what is needed for the victims and the alleged causers. Federal Judge, Congresswoman, 9 year old and the others murdered in cold blood along with their friends and families need our empathy. The losses, the pain and suffering and the long road to healing is the burden that we need to address now. I think you are wise not to jump to conclusions. Federal, State and local crimes were committed and a task force must be in the works as well as the manhunt for the alleged collusion.
I would like to see more kindness in response to losses suffered today. Just my 2 cents.

That poor little girl — so brilliant, so full of promise — all gone now.

I can’t even begin to imagine what her parents must be thinking right now.

In sequence at TP are posts about this massacre and the Muslims forming human shields for Coptic Christians in Egypt.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy,

The affirmation of El-Sawy preceded the Tucson events. A sorry way to end this day.

Pro forma’s not gonna cut it on this one.

glad i had my pain meds today…the sorrow and pain are deep….im a child of the 60s violence,300 million guns in this sick,sick,sick country..no healthcare,but arsenals of destruction…aiyh!!!
good nite…ive had enuf…rest her dear little soul,i hope she didnt suffer

The Second Amendment … used always to OFFEND life, never to DEFEND it.

g’nite sadly

Just did so, thank you for posting that.

Thank you Jane for telling us about this beautiful young girl who we have lost. So much sorrow today.

Suzanne,
What a horrible day for our country.

So when do we get rid of the guns? I fear we’re in a new stage of American development, one big shape-shifting necropolis.

I decided to stay up after all; I need to be in the company of like-minded people. My heart is breaking for this little girl and her family.

Isn’t that just awful.

I suppose one could point out “hope” was pretty important theme for this one guy we know, and whole hell of a lot of literary metaphors could be pointed out about right now.

a tragic day — i so want for there to be something good to come out of all this horror

Christina has recently been elected to serve on her school’s student council, and was active in baseball and ballet. And according to the NBC DC affiliate and the Sydney Morning Herald, she was born on 9/11 and was included in the book “Faces of Hope, Babies Born on 9/11.”

The GOP Public Relations Nightmare just hit 11 Cripes. Thanks for getting us a picture Jane we can win this if every post on this subject has at least one picture of Christina on it. We make this personal to people with pictures we appeal to emotional choice deciders this way.’
Now we need direction some GOP hate monger probably Sarah inspired this guy to shoot we find out who and boycott their advertisers.

So, pups, what should we do about this?

Any AZ pups or maybe the other Lefty blogs know if any GOP Media or hate groups besides Sarah might have said something recently to set this Murderer off?

Me too. Whatever could that be? I need friends here tonight.

typo Tucson reverts back to Tuscon after refresh [mod: delete this comment] ]

How about we all march down to our local FOX affiliate and take OUR public airwaves back from the people who are filling OUR public airwaves full of hate.

Find out which GOP hate Monger set off the Murderer and Boycott his advertisers. Then we try and help find a way the victims can sue the GOP media and or hate group. Then we go and look up any GOP secret funders of said group and see if the families can sue them.
I am open to more ideas.

((( Chris ))) You have a friend here…

I just saw a refresh of Giffords reading the Constitution this week, reading the 1st Amendment, how totally ironic. Would that be reason to go after her?

The little girl, sadness on top of sadness today.

The irony of all of it is overwhelming.

fork.. ok, i fixed it again… let me know if it reverts back

the malevolent puke media, it kills. and kills more.

in realms far and near.

it must be stopped.

this is serious.

Thanks, love!

Oh, and all of the elderly who were killed and injured, gives new meaning to “death panels?” It is beyond belief.

I’ve tried to hold back from commenting much today on events, trying to figure out what went on and how the pieces fit together before drawing conclusions.

Comment argue the Lake is like that book the FDL book club had the Difference we solve problems better than experts by having such a varied group commenting and expressing ideas.
Your voice really helps.

Wow! You are so right. Arizona death panels.

cant sleep

Koch brothers=funders of Tea Party and reichwing….investigations NOW

you are not alone… luckily, the lake is open 24/7

We must demand the police reveal details about this Murderer’s internet history what sites did he visit. What did he write? What Groups did he belong too?

Yes plus who sold him the gun a straw buyer maybe?

knock
knock
me too

The only way this will stop is to shut down the hate monger’s microphones. Murdock, Fox and Company own Radio and TV stations in addition to the network. These broadcast facilities are licensed and subject to renewal by the FCC in accordance with the following directive:

“Before we can renew a station’s license, we must first determine whether, during the preceding license term, the licensee has served the public interest; has not committed any serious violations of the Communications Act or the FCC’s rules; and has not committed other violations” which, taken together, would constitute a pattern of abuse.

If you want to stop this madness here’s how you can do it:
“The Manual also outlines how you can become involved in assessing whether your local stations are complying with the FCC’s rules and meeting these service obligations, and what you can do if you believe that they are not. In exchange for obtaining a valuable license to operate a broadcast station using the public airwaves, each radio and television licensee is required by law to operate its station in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” This means that it must air programming that is responsive to the needs and problems of its local community of license. To do so, each station licensee must affirmatively identify those needs and problems and then specifically treat those local matters that it deems to be significant in the news, public affairs, political and other programming that it airs. As discussed at page 29 of this Manual, each station must provide the public with information about how it has met this obligation by means of quarterly reports, which contain a listing of the programming that it has aired that the licensee believes provided significant treatment of issues facing the community.

Boycotts don’t work, but you can make change by challenging a licensee’s fitness to hold said license. Every radio and Television station is required to have available for inspection by anyone of the general public during regular business hours a file commonly called the public file which lists all of the items a station has done to fulfill it’s commitment to the community of license.

It scares the hell out of them when you walk in the door and ask to see that file. If they refuse to show you the file they are in serious legal jeopardy and all that entails.Boycotts don’t work, coordinated public action going after their licenses is very effective. Years ago RKO General lost the licenses to ALL of their radio and television stations for far less an unrelated charge having nothing to do with RKO’s broadcast division. These wern’t small town outlets, they were in the top 10 broadcast markets in the country. As a result RKO General once a leading broadcast group is now relegated to the dustbin of history and they did not incite violence nor was anyone murdered by their indirect/direct actions.

If you really want this to stop here’s a link to get you started: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/de…

You are all smart enough to make this happen, the question is will you?
Otherwise sit, rant and suffer…

thank doG. Sometimes I don’t know what I’d do without the Lake.

I want the names of everybody who threatened the Congresswoman released to the Press and the Net. I want them all investigated by the Lefty Blogs we have the people and the expertise.

very lucky,disturbing day

We can only do our best to bring the better angels of our nature forward, to do all we can to make a better day tomorrow (how hard could That be?), and to work harder than ever for peace and justice.

I need a rest, going to try to put this horror out of my mind and go to sleep.

Take care, everyone.

Time for me to shut this awful day down. I wish for all of us a peaceful sleep and a much better day tomorrow. G’nite.

g’nite bg

And a child shall lead. None of the murders that took place in Tucson can grip my heart like that of this wide-eyed child of real promise. Those who spew the “second amendment remedies” and their media enablers must be fired from their public platforms.

For now, it is clear, the lives of our children are threatened by this poison, but handsomely rewarded, speech.

Boycott all commerce associated with this plague, and let those sponsers know our wallets will not open until these trash-talkers are gone.

g’nite twain

Hey dear!
Long time no see!

Yep time for the FCC to grow a spine and take some licenses.

In spite of everything, firedoglake was a good place to be today. You’re a treasure, Jane.

AZ’s very liberal gun laws I think they just went out the window.

Seconded.

Hi Jane,

Can we find out if there were any Tea Party’ers shot?

In attending similar events, my experience has always been that I’ve been out-numbered by the right wingers, who usually organize informal protests around the public events. Can’t imagine it would be any different in Arizona.

I guess what I’m suggesting is that if the victims were all Democrats, it lays waste to any argument that this was just one psycho devoid of political motivation.

fwiw, and of course I’m lacking the facts. But it will be interesting what comes out in the next few days.

bravo

g’night bg and Twain, sending wishes for peaceful dreams…

i cut and pasted,but im ready!

Hey!

Lovely snow on the ground. Waiting for more. MrCE and I around the fire, hopes dashed and very sad.

I think he showed up and tried to jump the line to talk to Giffords, but they told him to go to the end. Which he did, then rushed to the front and started shooting.

The Sheriff said that Giffords was the target. The rest of it appears at first glance to be somewhat indiscriminate. But you would expect that an event with a Democratic Congresswoman would have Democratic staffers and supporters in attendance, I suppose.

glass of wine,and lay head down again,peace be with you

hey! not to go OT, but our team won…

You, too. Yes FDL was a good place to be today. Tough day all around.

((( Jane ))) You continue to rawk, and I thank you.

I know what I’m thinking: I’ve heard too much about the necessity of outrageous airport searches & the potential danger shoes present. WHAT is Obama’s team & Congress doing to lower the probability of home-grown terrorist attacks HERE in OUR Country? My GOD, this is a sitting U.S. Congresswoman, a sitting Federal Judge and MANY innocents. Is this any different from a suicide bomber?
I believe this horrible, horrible incident calls for a much stronger response from our President than he provided. I want outrage, I want a leader who screams that he will not tolerate this under his watch! I want a President who’s not afraid of offending every voting block out (except Progressives)! I want our President & Congress to treat this horrifying act as the act of terrorism that it is?

hope you sleep with ease sadly

We already got Sarah for targeting the Congresswoman the idea the shooter did this with no prompting is ludicrous we need to dig up every GOP death threat against the Congresswoman. If we can link GOP media to this then we push the FCC angle.
If Fox can’t report the news without lies and hate strip their license it does not serve the public good to have them inciting Murder.
Cause and Effect

We left Tucson because it felt like something just like this was about to happen. The hate was so thick you could feel it, in spite of the fact that most of Tucson is a little blue sea of hope in a blood red state. But it felt like everyone had a gun. The day after 9/11, we asked our college-age neighbor – who I had mistaken for a DFH – how it made him feel . . . the probability that things would never be the same, that we’d end up in a war, that he might be drafted. He said, well, when I first heard about the attack, I reached under my bed and got out my gun. More recently you’d see people in the grocery store with guns on their hip. On New Year’s Day, in broad daylight, outside Sunflower Market, a health food store, three white, suburban looking teenage boys – maybe 14 or 15 years old – walked by and one of them took a great big gun out of his pocket. They had just walked into the store and shown that gun to the manager and then apparently had second thoughts about what to do next. Two of my women friends, both quite liberal, both in their early 60s, were planning to get guns since everyone else had them. Gunshots were quite common in my neighborhood near downtown. It’s hard to explain the Wild West mentality of the place if you haven’t lived there.

I want any GOP group that threatened the Congresswoman listed as a terrorist group and investigated like one.

You’re a good person, doing some of the finest work I’ve ever encountered anywhere.

Sheriff spoke today about a Giffords event where someone stood up and a gun fell out of their pants. Hadn’t heard about that one.

I read here regularly, but never post. Tonight I delurk because I’m just nonplussed by the picture of that child, that lost child.

I’ve felt sick about this all day. And seeing this girl just twisted my insides another four turns.

What have we done to ourselves? What are we doing to ourselves. In the name of all that is good and right, how in the world to we make this stop?

Housing prices in AZ should go down even more.

Nothing quite so pleasant as living in a land ruled by a document whose preamble lists only 3 reasons for its existence, one of which is “promote the general welfare,” and then generations later brings forth the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and the enablers of, and apologists for, the GOP.

This has been an awful day.

I note the first mention of the shooter’s character on HP was that a neighbor claimed he smoked pot. The second mention was a quote from a neighbor, perhaps the same one and perhaps the quote alluded to, that he smoked pot and didn’t attend church. The only photo shown is of him with long hair in a high school photo, yet the only description I’ve heard of his appearance was that his hair appeared short-cropped. Numerous reports cite his grammar-challenged ramblings and countless posters on the net have diagnosed him as a delusional paranoid schizophrenic, not acting on any political persuasion whatsoever. And his reading list seems a tad anarchistic, given his adoration of Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto.

I don’t even have to listen to Limbaugh. I already know what he said.

“So, there you have it, my friends! We must arm ourselves! We must stand up to this army of long-haired, delusional, paranoid, schizophrenic, grammar-challenged, pot smoking, anarchistic, Glock wielding Islamo-fascist feminazi atheists!”

Welcome to FireDogLake, RFShunt. Be sure to return in more pleasurable circumstances.
/~~~

Sounds like a bunch of GOPers might have been targeting her for awhile then? If so we need names. If GOP media besides Sarah’s website has been saying things that might be considered violent we need their names their advertiser’s names and maybe we start calling the FCC.

Jeebus….I used to smoke pot (can’t anymore because of my job) and I don’t attend church. So what does that make me, in the eyes of the right?

how in the world to we make this stop?

Get rid of lying hate TV and radio help the families sue GOP media into bankruptcy. Go after GOP moneymen supporting hate groups. Pray for the families

Having your insides twisted is a really good way to describe it. The minute I heard about it this morning, I became almost hysterical. Had to cut my shopping trip short because I was about to cry – and I’ve been crying all day. It really made me feel like I have to stop adding to the anger and the hate. No matter how righteous I feel it may be to despise people like Sarah Palin, for instance, it’s time to stop. Enough.

What did he write about? The pot and no church charge sound like more GOP spin/lies.

She looks like my sister when she was young this is to much I’m taking a break for awhile.

Thank you for your heartfelt comments. And welcome. Would that it were better times.

I’m here often, LurkingMod (what a thoughtful thing – a lurker’s concierge) I’m just not inclined to speak mostly.

Tonight I’m in tears over this, and as I said I’ve been shaken by it all day long, and I guess I wanted to reach out to the people I knew would understand that reaction.

Thanks for the response.

I have many dear friends there but frankly, I hope the boycotts of the state continue until things change. I am struggling with Jan Brewer’s response in her press conference – she looked sincerely horrified. Maybe this will be some sort of reckoning. Who knows. I am unable to predict what happens next in ‘murka, it’s too crazy.

Here’s a link to the Democratic Leadership Committee target map, which preceded Palin’s map by 5 (five) years: http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171

RFShunt is a very good long-term friend to FDL.

You reaction was probably so strong since you lived in the area and saw it coming.

Yes, of course. Let’s hope Sarah now feels the same.

Rambling, disjointed rants. A neighbor (in Tucson, let’s be clear) called him a pot-smoking non-church goer. A loner. His youtube videos were reportedly still up and are pages of text. One of them was posted at HP. It just irked me that the first comment on his character was aimed at pot, then atheists. The only photo of him is a b/w picture where he looks like carrot top. It’s a campaign.

GET BEHIND ME, SATAN!!!!!

I just don’t know what to say any more. Seeing the picture of the little girl, reading about her,

I just don’t know what to say.

Let’s not show any more pictures of the perp. Anger mixed with sadness is way too much.

Thank you, Jane

“No matter how righteous I feel it may be to despise people like Sarah Palin, for instance, it’s time to stop.”

It’s part of what’s been running through my head. I’m so pissed at that crosshairs map and I’m pissed at myself for being pissed. Not pissed at myself, worried for myself. I know I’m being pulled into the vortex, feeding the wrong wolf.

I’m sporadically active politically, but today’s going to change that I think. When I’m not so torn up in the future, I think I want to do a lot more to (coolly, calmly) dismantle the machinery behind this.

My son called to tell me a congresswoman (among others) had been shot and I knew immediately it was Gabby. Tucson is a very small town – everybody knows everybody and if you volunteer for the Dems, you see Gabby and Raul everywhere. I disagreed with Gabby the blue dog on most issues but I thought she was incredibly dedicated and brave in the face of these constant threats. One of my friends usually went to Gabby’s meetings and I was worried about her (she didn’t go this time). I’ve been watching a parade of familiar faces on CNN tonight. It’s so fucking sad.

RFShunt. I know what that is. An engineer in radio, perhaps?

You peeked at my dossier, did you Jane.

I came here because I did an angry, kinda snarky, graphic for you and was trying to figure a way to send it. When I saw that picture I….it just DID something to me. It sent me past mad, past snark. I don’t know where it put me, somewhere without skin over my nerves.

Me too. I feel like America is quite literally coming apart at the seams. The predictability of this event did not stop if from being incredibly shocking. Somebody early today said our democracy is in great peril. I’ve thought that for my whole life, but this still seemed beyond the pale, beyond my ability to process it.

There’s a church with a bell and I thought it was just an ornament until I heard it ring tonight at 9 PM nine times. Only silence and rain after that.

RFShunt. I know what that is. An engineer in radio, perhaps?

What smart people there are here. Not radio, television. And not an engineer, but in it long enough to know some of the engineering.

The shunt gets rid of the RF – the radio frequency. It’s my internet name because I’m convinced we need to pull mainstream broadcast media out of the circuit of our lives.

“Get rid of lying hate TV and radio”

I am SO with out on that. See #103

There are several videos posted where he is talking to the camera. He seems like a well adjusted young man. Don’t let them convince you of his instability. An ordinary young man incited to violence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6kozuXRkwQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfC88DOzqkg

~~~ModNote: The authenticity of these video clips is questionable at best.~~~

Yes, I am an engineer,education in RF, and I know what it is. It’s pretty sophisticated so I knew you weren’t casually connected.

Nice metaphor as well. Glad you popped in!

I think it’s important to recognize that he is really a pretty typical young man. Handsome, healthy, educated, well-adjusted. He smoked pot? So what? The right is inciting ORDINARY CITIZENS to violence.

That is not the same kid.

Yes, yes.

I saw the headline and thought – it finally happened, it was inevitable. But inevitability doesn’t make it any less heart-wrenching, does it? My reaction surprised me, it was so overpowering. Maybe knowing that it’s likely to happen makes it even more terrible when it does.

I’m usually a very optimistic and jovial guy. I always believed that things will turn around, that politics is like a pendulum and we’ll get back to a place politically like the outcome of the New Deal. That my grandparents lived through the depression as poor immigrants and came through it just fine and we will too.

But I’ve been reading Naomi Wolf and watching the items in the fascist checklist get ticked off one by one. I’m not so sunny about it now.

I’ll tell you, though. Sunny or not, I’m not about to curl up in a little ball and not do anything.

I think the victims and their estates have a nice case against Palin and Jesse Kelly, for a foreseeable outcome of their inciting acts. It would be a class action, given the number of victims, sadly. Palin will plead in defense that SHE couldn’t foresee it, but that is only because she has less intelligence than the Reasonable Woman standard that is applied in civil liability cases. I look forward to her bankruptcy filing. Jesse Kelly – the schmuck who held the M-16 Shooting practice to “remove Giffords from office” – already began his campaign to unseat Giffords in 2012. A nice Wrongful Death lawsuit by the victims should end that campaign in a hurry.

They noted that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ tea party-backed opponent, Jesse Kelly, held a fundraiser at a shooting range in which he invited supporters to “help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office” by shooting an M16 with him.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1144492.ece?nsm=true

The Tea Party backed this guy which branch of the Tea Party and who funds them? We might get the Koch brothers.

and she was not the only child killed by US violence today – likely, there were others right inside the USA, but there surely were others who were killed by US violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and God only knows where else.

All of this violence has to stop, and stop damn soon.

The conundrum is WHAT to do. I’ve been wanting to see people out in the streets – civil disobedience, not violence. But I also do not trust my fellow Americans to have my back. The police state that Naomi Wolf speaks of is ready and waiting to quell any uprisings. I have no idea what to do.

I hope the Tea Party likes bankruptcy we got rid of the Ayran Nation that way:)

Aahh… sorry

Some food for thought:

Six people were killed in that incident in Tuscon, Arizona. This will be a big deal in the news and in conversation for many days to come. Last year, over 2,000 Pakistani civilians were killed by Predator drone attacks. These were not terrorists, but “collateral damage.” That’s six a day, every day.

Not much talk about that in this country.

Palin insinuates mass murder. Obama actually does it.

I call you out for a typical right-wing False Equivalency. On your linked map, please tell me WHERE the individual congressmen’s names are? Now, go look at Mz. Half-Term’s map – with Gabby Gifford’s NAME under the crosshairs. Are you a schmuck? Or didn’t you notice any difference? What an ignorant reply.

Ah. Nice to meet you, Starbuck.

I realize I might have sounded like I was lecturing about what the term means. I wasn’t talking down, honest. I was explaining my choice of handle because the metaphor is really important to me. It’s metaphorically what I’m trying to do with the rest of my disreputable life.

We try our best here to stop the wars. Today the next few weeks well AMERICA is our house we have to get it in order.

Thanks lets not forget the GOP loves to use violent threats the Left hasn’t been violent in decades.

They noted that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ tea party-backed opponent, Jesse Kelly, held a fundraiser at a shooting range in which he invited supporters to “help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office” by shooting an M16 with him.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1144492.ece?nsm=true

I am hoping there are some hungry, dogged, creative plaintiff’s attorneys in Tucson… I would certainly contribute to a Legal Offense Fund for this case.

We like to pretend that America is a functioning democracy and it becomes very hard when someone walks up and shoots a representative point blank and then kills or wounds 18 other people. The violence is just a continuum; it starts here and makes its way across the globe. Americans are bullies and think that violence and death are ultimately acceptable solutions.

“Government is not a job-creator,” Kelly said last week at a debate with his fellow Republican candidates, including state Sen. Jonathan Paton and political newcomers Brian Miller and Andy Goss. “It is a job-crusher.”

But for Don Kelly Construction, the firm where Kelly manages pipeline projects, government funding would appear to create quite a few jobs.

Kelly himself estimates that close to 90 percent of the firm’s work comes from government contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. And around the country, the firm—which is owned by Kelly’s father, Don Kelly—frequently bids on public-works projects funded by both stimulus dollars and federal earmarks.

Here in Pima County, Don Kelly Construction has recently done work on a Pima County sewer-pipeline project that was worth roughly $11 million to the company. While most of the funding for the project came from local bond dollars, $2 million came from stimulus funds.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/in-the-pipeline/Content?oid=1816200

I don’t think Jesse Kelly’s family should get any more government contracts ever.

Not at all RFShunt. I didn’t feel like you were. Actually it felt like a kinship.

The conundrum is WHAT to do.

It’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? (And doesn’t THAT reference date me)

As I’ve gotten more interested in activism, I’ve been trying to figure out what is the best use of my limited, remaining time. I agree, going out into the streets isn’t it. In the ’60s that was meant to make the media take notice. The media, at least the MSM, is hopeless now.

I have some ideas, both for myself and in general, but I’m still too naive politically, I think, to really trust them.

Agreed America is not a functioning democracy but we are not giving up on her. The Tea Baggers and Hate Media have gone to far.
Death threats even as a joke yep thats terrorism once someone gets killed. If Obama and the FCC won’t act we and even if they do act we boycott everyone connected to this.

The GOP loves money more than anything else so lets take away what they love.

The webpage for the international edition of CNN.com has a picture of the shooter as a long-haired hippie.
This is just the beginning of a campaign to paint leftists and progressives and liberals as a threat to the establishment. Make no mistake about it: The right-wing noise machine is going to paint liberals and political dissidents, other than the teabag “patriots,” as a danger, an inherent threat to the established order.
This is how it started in Germany and this is what we can expect from now on, especially since the fascist-wing of the Money Party now controls the House of Representatives and can call hearings on things like domestic terrorism.

Remember Bobby Kennedy’s statement to the crowd after MLK’s assassination? He was impassioned, he was a leader, he felt how important it was to use that opportunity to appeal to our better angels. Obama’s statement tonight, in comparison, made no mention of the hatred or the fanning of the flames that led to this event. He acted as if it happened in a vacuum. He’s not going to do anything about it except heighten security and further isolate our representatives from us.

Giffords faced a great deal of backlash last year from conservatives who were upset over her support for health care. In fact, she was one of several Democrats whose offices were vandalized after the reform laws passed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20027915-503544.html

Who hates healthcare more than the GOP? The TeaBaggers now we just need to show the murderer was influenced by Tea Bagger and or GOP ideas. If he is crazy he won’t ask for a lawyer while being questioned by the police. If he asks for a lawyer lets see if the lawyer has any GOP/Tea Bagger connections.
The Murderer’s police confession why did he shoot? The GOP will be sweating blood over what he says in response to that. Can we get that confession to the public soon ?

Desperate move how do they explain why the killer shot a Dem? Given the Hate Media’s constant threats nobody is going to buy this guys a Dem.

I’m sorry, but fuck fuck fuck, fuck everything. What are we going to do? Our country and the world are falling apart before our very eyes. It’s all such insanity and madness. I am losing the ability to deal with all of this anymore. I can’t stand it, I really can’t stand it.

I’m right there with you. Short of leaving the country (which I have already tried to do and failed), I have no answers.

Then we go without him we help the family sue the GOP media and the moneymen behind the Tea Party if there is one thing the Lake is good at is research:)
We kill Sarah’s dream of the Presidency. Jesse Kelly we help the families sue him and his family I’m sure they gave to the Tea Party and his campaign with the M-16 fundraiser.

Kabuki Gone Deadly!

Jane, Glenn, Rachel, Keith, and others shouted from the hill tops, that the TEA PARTY was created by the elites. The Tea Party was never and has never been a grass roots movement.

(Remember Fox News has already cause the death of a doctor, Rachel was one of the few new people to put discuss this issue)

One of the reasons that the Tea Party was created was to hide and cover the fact that OBAMA was a trojan horse.

ABC, CBS, New York Times, NBC, Fox, all of the so call liberal and conservative media promoted the TEA PARTY as ANTI OBAMA.

Tea Party says Obama is a NAZI
Tea Party says Obama is a Socialist
Tea Party says OBAMA is a Radical Liberal etc.

the elites knew, that the intelligent left would figure out that OBAMA was a trojan horse, so they created a monster call the TEA PARTY, to dis-credit the claims of the intelligent left calling Obama a trojan horse.

On 1-8-2011 the monster the MSM created has killed 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, and the MSM acts like they are shocked.

Today the MSM wants to throw Sarah Palin under the bus, the same Sarah Palin who 15 minutes of fame should have ended 2 years ago. MSM you created SARAH PALIN. All of the major network anchors fall over themselves to do interviews with Sarah Palin. (the intelligent left knew Sarah Palin was never qualified to be vice president, president, etc. 2 years ago)

So a lot of people in the MSM have blood on their hands tonite!

(If the MSM had real reporters and wanted to help the people of the USA they would have gave some of Sarah Palin air time to people like Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, Jon Walker, David D, etc. but no the MSM gave all their time to Mrs. can see Russia from Alaska)

This week, we all watched the MSM tell us how OBAMA picking Bill Daley was going to help him improve his relationship with Wall Street.

This is the same WALL STREET that has made record PROFITS! (a lot of members of the MSM ignore this obvious fact.)

Rachel said it best, Obama wanted to punch the hippies again.

What the MSM doesn’t want to report, and keeps silent, is the anger on the LEFT! Because they know that progressives have a lot of real reasons to be angry and furious at what is happening in the USA. (the current USA MSM does not like the TRUTH, they want to drink TEA)

How many intelligent people in the MSM really think Obama is a progressive?

Today we all witness what happens when KABUKI GOES DEADLY!!! 5 americans are dead, because of the KABUKI games.

MSM you are not innocent, a lot of you all have blood on your hands, some of you need to get under the bus with Sarah Palin, you made her.

Remember MSM, you help create and nurture a lot of these monsters. You were warned by members of the intelligent left but as usual you ignored us.

These are the worse of times in the USA, times like these require real Journalist, Leaders, which the USA currently has very few.

(no one currently knows if the killer was a member of a Tea Party, but like the Sheriff said, the MSM had something to do with this, and the MSM promotes the Tea Party like it is some grass roots movement when they know it is not)

RIP Christina Taylor Green

If Glen Beck or any Fox talking head issued a threat to the Congresswoman then we go after Fox’s FCC license.

We failed the point system that Canada has. We don’t have enough money and no connections. You have to have a lot of money to move to another country, especially in western Europe.

I don’t know the answer either. I’m too old to start over. Why did they do this to us?

I’m sorry but I have no longer have any faith in the system or the rule of law in this country. In an awful bit of irony, the judge who was killed had received death threats a year or so ago. The GOP and the moneymen own the courts and will threaten any rogue judges who step out of line. As long as continue to think inside the box of traditional remedies for our grievances, we will never get anywhere.

That’s exactly what happened to us – we went to an immigration attorney in Canada in 2004 (after Bush “won” again) and he practically laughed at us. So we bought a house in Tucson and built another one and hoped that we might be able to make a few grand in profits that would get us to Europe to at least see what the possibilities were. Well, that worked out well (can you say housing crisis?). So we’re stuck here in this madhouse.

“Actually it felt like a kinship.”

I’m glad to hear that Starbuck. Engineers are some of my favorite people. Engineers and administrative assistants keep the world from falling apart, quietly and without much thanks.

When I started out in TV (I made the hop from radio, actually – you’re more perceptive than you know) when I started it was at a big production house. 2-inch videotape in those days – hulking industrial machines so industrial they needed compressed air for the bearings on the record heads.

The place was full of TV-biz prima-donnas. Everything was a crisis, everything was melodrama, everything was me, me, me. Except for the engineers. They’d all come back from ‘Nam and gotten double E’s on the G.I. Bill and NOTHING fazed them.

I’ll tell you those machines were MAINTAINED. Down to the indicator lights – the engineers took turns end of day Fridays replacing burnt out bulbs. They had metal working equipment and built their own panels. When they did, they looked so good – all brushed and clear-anodized and expertly labelled.

My favorite place to hang out (when there was time to) was the engineering shop. I wonder if they liked me, or just tolerated me. But I sure enjoyed their company.

If you feel a kinship, that makes me happy.

God, that picture is haunting. Sometimes pictures of faces are just pictures. Other times you can’t help but know that the person is, or sadly in this case was, somehow special.

I guess we’ll have to take some small comfort that we’re stuck in this shit hole together. God damn fucking fascist country, and half the idiots cheer it on. Calgon, take me away.

I wonder how many of us there are?

Calgon sounds like an excellent idea. Or maybe just bed. Goodnight!

If you’re going to do a thorough analysis to fit all the pieces together, I would start with Obama’s decision to appoint Janet Napolitano as Sec. of Homeland Security — a position that hundreds would have qualified for, and one that left Arizona’s governorship in the hands of her successor, Jan Brewer. And the final piece must be gun violence and the absence of civilized laws regarding gun control that allowed a mentally disturbed man to possess a semi-automatic weapon.

The front-page picture to advertise this event on TLC seems to be Palin holding her Downs syndrome baby. He came in handy for her, didn’t he?

“Please cancel Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Anyone hateful enough to condone murder with crosshairs and names, posted to the internet, does not deserve airtime to school children, especially since a school child (born on 9/11 no less) would probably be alive today, but for Sarah Palin.”

Letter sent to TLC at 0825 Central. Thanks for the tip.

I hate to mention this now, as this matter is so emotionally raw, but your comment triggered this thought and it’s going to come up, if it hasn’t. Might as well give it some thought. Hate to see Governor Brewer jump the shark.

What happens if Congresswoman Giffords cannot resume her duties?

I suppose Governor Brewer would appoint someone to replace her until an election can be held, similar to what happened after Senator Byrd died and Governor Manchin appointed the Attorney General (I think) to serve until an election was held. Manchin won that election.

Do any of y’all think there’s any chance that Governor Brewer would appoint,

Jesse Kelly – the schmuck who held the M-16 Shooting practice to “remove Giffords from office” – [who] already began his campaign to unseat Giffords in 2012 [?]

“BEHIND ENEMY LINES” are the words printed below that image I posted. I see targets on both the map produced by the D’s in 2004; and the map produced by the R’s in 2009. (I imagine more such maps were produced in between.) I am not drawing a moral equivalence among all of the target maps drawn; rather, I am saying, given all of these images, I am unable to isolate only those variables that can accurately be said to contribute to an ‘atmosphere,’ whether of violence or, for that matter, intolerance.

Brewer’s son was declared in 1989 rape case to be insane. Doesn’t insanity run in families? Maybe she is crazy.

Jane, it is tragic but somewhat inevitable. People are not being treated right by their government and people are lashing out. Here’s how you get to a more humane society…

1. Enact Fair Elections Now Act

2. FCC mandate that all political advertisin­g is a public service and therefore free

3. Permanentl­y ban anyone who has served in federal office from becoming a lobbyist

4. Break up the big banks and strengthen the Volker Rule

5. End ALL wars and lower the bloated defense budget

6. Enact The Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplifica­tion Act of 2010 – Eliminate $1 trillion in tax givaways. Change the top tax bracket to 70% to help pay down deficit

7. National Infrastruc­ture Bank – Run by engineers, not politician­s. Find $2 trillion over 10 years to create jobs now and increase productivi­ty later. Put millions back to work. Fund with a millionair­e’s tax

8. Federal government make massive investment­s in R & D to create quality jobs long term in areas like biotechnol­ogy, alternativ­e energy, IT, materials, science, alternativ­e-fuel automobile­s, and clean technology­. Fund with a bank tax

9. Government pass a law requiring the seating of public and worker representa­tives on corporate boards to help stem the tide of jobs being shipped overseas.

10. Raise educationa­l standards through a national core curriculum­. Advocate the firing of the bottom 10% of teachers nationwide and replace them with good teachers. Make higher education free to families that can’t afford it to encourage upward mobility in society

11. Reduce health care costs by adding the public option. Allow Medicare to purchase drugs. Allow drug re-importa­tion.

I misremembered what I read a week ago. Actually, it was over 2,000 Pakistanis killed by drones in the last five years, most of them civilians. However, over 900 were killed in 2010 alone. The estimates of civilians to guerrillas killed range from 3:2 to 50:1. So using the most conservative estimate, Obama last year killed on average six Pakistani civilians every four days.

Bear in mind that he has been busy also killing Afghans, Iraqis and Yemenis.

The governor gets to appoint senators, not representatives. A special election would have to be held for that seat.

They don’t have to explain anything. The picture of a long-haired kid is enough to fit the criteria of what a lot of people think the danger to this country is. For the fools who have been taken in by the teabaggers, hippies and anyone who doesn’t worship at the altar of the American flag, are subversives who hate America and who are suspect from the start. This is an a priori truth for these people who are constitutionally incapable of critical thinking and who hate anyone who reads material more intellectually challenging than guns and Ammo or, for that matter, Archie comics.

The haters already believe that dissent in this country is being engineered by some sort of fascist/socialist/Islamist hybrid organization that was somehow able to sneak Obama past the guards and install him as president. Forget that he doesn’t represent anything even close to a progressive or liberal agenda. the conditioning has been done. Rush will be on tomorrow foaming at the mouth, telling his dittoheads to be on the lookout for liberals trying to blame this on conservative “patriots.”

As much as I hate having FOX News spewing its garbage out over the ariwaves that our taxes pay for, I do not support censorship based on ideology. With all the different remotes out now it’s really easy to change a channel. What is needed, however, is a return of the Fairness Doctrine, not something that’s going to happen any time soon with GOP majority in the House.

What we need is an organized effort, funded by groups like MoveOn, PFAW, and, yes, our fabulously rich celebrity supporters who can get a concert together for Haiti but can’t keep something like Air America afloat, an effort to educate people about what this country was, is, and will always be: a bastion for bigoted thinking hiding behind the empty rhetoric of Horatio Alger-like rags to riches stories. Facebook notwithstanding, getting rich quick in this country ain’t happening anymore unless you can come up with an algorithm that challenges Black-Scholes in the derivatives markets.

We – liberals, progressives, socialists, agnostics, atheists – are going to be targets for the vitriolic hatred of the rabid right-wing noise machine for the next two years. We had better find some way to nullify that and turn the argument around to identify the real threat to this country or fascism is as close as 2012.

Thank you, Matt.

I just watched a youtube video of an interview with Dr. Richard Carmona, a former Surgeon General of the U.S. Dr. Carmona lives in Tucson and he has been consulting on Representative Gifford’s injury.

He used the terms “devastating injury,” and “guarded optimism.” He’s clearly very upset.

Here’s a link to the video.