Tucson, Arizona Shootings

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government -- the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. This may be free speech, but it's not without consequences We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
-- Clarence W. Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff

There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now? What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.... Tone matters. And the Republican Party in particular needs to reinforce that.
-- "Senior Republican Senator" speaking to Politico

President Obama's remarks Saturday afternoon:

... Here's President Obama's initial statement. Other politicians react. CW: Sarah Palin & John McCain had a helluva a nerve saying anything.

Dr. Peter Rhee of the University of Arizona hospital trauma center, which received victims of the shooting gives an update:

Jay Newton-Small of Time has a good biographical essay on Giffords. Here's more from Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times.

Alan Boyle of NBC News: "NASA astronaut Mark Kelly..., [Giffords' husband,] flew from Houston ... to be at his wounded wife's side. Kelly is currently in training to command the shuttle Endeavour's crew on a flight to the International Space Station in April.... The space agency had no immediate word about how Kelly's status might change.... Mark Kelly is the only astronaut ... to have a twin brother who's also an spaceflier: Scott Kelly is currently serving as commander of the International Space Station, and sources said he was made aware of the shooting during Earth-to-orbit consultations."

Chief Judge John M. Roll. AP photo.John Schwartz of the New York Times on Chief Judge John Roll. ...

... The AP has more on Chief Judge Roll.

Carl Hulse & Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "While the exact motivations of the suspect in the shootings remained unclear, an Internet site tied to the man, Jared Loughner, contained antigovernment ramblings. And regardless of what led to the episode, it quickly focused attention on the degree to which inflammatory language, threats and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in the nation’s political culture." ...

... From the New York Times story on the Arizona shooting: "During the fall campaign, Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, posted a controversial map on her Facebook page depicting spots where Democrats were running for re-election; those Democrats were noted by crosshairs symbols like those seen through the scope of a gun. Ms. Giffords was among those on Ms. Palin’s map." [emphasis added] Below is a portion of Palin's map, via Gawker:

Rewriting History. Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch Update: "A Palin staffer, Rebecca Mansour told a radio talk show host Saturday that [blaming Palin & the tea party for inciting the Giffords shooting] is 'obscene' and 'appalling.' ... 'We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights,' she said. 'It's surveyor's symbols,' the interviewer Tammy Bruce suggested. Bruce, a Palin supporter.... Her show is promoted as a 'chick with a gun and a microphone.' Mansour ... said that the graphic was contracted out to a professional. They approved it quickly without thinking about it. 'We never imagined, it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent,' she said. Rather, she said, that it was simply 'crosshairs that you would see on a map.' There is 'nothing irresponsible about our graphic.' ...

She did not, however, mention the 'don't retreat, instead- RELOAD!' Palin tweet that went out shortly after the graphic was posted on both her Facebook page and SarahPac's website, directing them to the graphic. The tweet turned quickly into a Palin mantra. Many, even then, urged her to stop using such violent rhetoric. -- Amanda Coyne

Also from Gawker: "Giffords' Tea Party opponent in the 2010 election, Jesse Kelly, went even further with the violent rhetoric. Kelly's campaign held an event called "Get on Target for Victory in November." Description: "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." ...

... Nathan Thornburgh of Time on the shootings. Not only was Giffords targeted by Palin & Kelly, according to Thornburgh, Judge John Roll, who was killed by the shooter & may have been his primary target, "had been placed under 24-hour security in 2009 after ruling in favor of illegal immigrants in a high-profile case." Thornburgh notes,

Pundits spoke gravely about a wave of violence, born in Mexico and now flooding Arizona. Arizona's two most famous politicians fueled the fury. Republican Senator John McCain, facing an unexpected reelection challenge from the right, ran a campaign obsessed with crossborder crime. And GOP Governor Jan Brewer, who invited the national spotlight by championing strict anti-illegal immigrant legislation, talked of beheadings in the desert. The only problem with all this talk about a massive crossborder crime wave is that it wasn't true. ...

... Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post on the state of political discourse: "Liberals were quick to blame the tea party movement and the sometimes-militant rhetoric employed by its standard-bearers. On Twitter, activists repeatedly referred to the remarks of Sharron Angle (R), the unsuccessful Senate candidate in Nevada, who last year advocated 'second-amendment remedies' to some of the nation's problems." Tea party activists are claiming "the war has already started." ...

Matt Bai of the New York Times:

... the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins..., with little regard for the consequences. Consider the comments of Sharron Angle.... She talked about 'domestic enemies' in the Congress and said, 'I hope we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies.' Then there’s Rick Barber, a Republican who lost his primary in a Congressional race in Alabama, but not before airing an ad in which someone dressed as George Washington listened to an attack on the Obama agenda and gravely proclaimed, 'Gather your armies.' In fact, much of the message among Republicans last year, as they sought to exploit the Tea Party phenomenon, centered — like the Tea Party moniker itself — on this imagery of armed revolution. Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like 'tyranny' and 'socialism' when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

CW: I'm glad to see MSM journalists from the New York Times. WashPo & Time finally getting off the fence & calling out these politicians who incite violence. It's been a long time coming. Here's Keith Olbermann, whose special comment covers the field:

The Huffington Post has information of the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, including words-only YouTube videos he posted recently. Extremely creepy, unhinged, with a tinge of Glenn Beck. ...

... Psychologist Jeff Kaye comments in Firedoglake on the alleged shooter's possible mental illness. ...

... Eric Lipton, Charlie Savage & Scott Shane of the New York Times report on Jared Loughner, the suspected shooter, & find "a sense of his alienation from society, confusion, anger as well as foreboding that his life could soon come to an end." ...

... Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star: "The suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers, but the threats weren't against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, [Pima County Sheriff Clarence] Dupnik said. The suspect is unstable, Dupnik said, but the sheriff would not say he is 'insane.' A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was 'obviously very disturbed.'" ...

... **The Arizona Republic details Loughner's run-ins with his college that in September 2010 required him to get "a mental-health clearance and prove he wasn't a danger to himself and others" before he could return to the school. Yet two months later, a young man who exhibited behavior that suggested he might be "a danger to himself and others" was able to legally purchase "a 9 mm Glock handgun on Nov. 30 at a Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson." CW: a message brought to you by the NRA & legislators everywhere who think everyone should have a gun. Loughner reportedly lived with his parents -- where the hell were they? This kid needed institutionalization and help. ...

... Jana Winter of Fox News Update: "A law enforcement memo based on information provided by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by Fox News suggests that alleged gunman Jared Loughner ... may have ties to the American Renaissance group, though it's unclear if he was directly affiliated with the publication or group. The memo states that there is 'no direct connection' between Loughner and the group, 'but strong suspicion is being directed at AmRen / American Renaissance. Suspect is possibly linked to this group. (through videos posted on his MySpace and YouTube account.). The group's ideology is anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti-Semitic.' The memo also includes information about the suspect's mother, who works for the Pima County Board of Supervisors and notes that Loughner has multiple arrests but no criminal record."

On Thursday, Rep. Giffords read the First Amendment on the House floor. Her emphasis on "peaceably" is haunting:

Rep. Giffords talking to MSNBC in March 2010 about the vandalism to her office & other politically-motivated violence & violent rhetoric. As a friend pointed out to me, that slimeball Chuck Todd tries to walk back Giffords' reference to Sarah Palin's putting Giffords in the crosshairs of a gun sight:

Saturday News Reports

New York Times: "A congresswoman from Arizona was shot on Saturday along with several others during at public event at a grocery store in Tucson, according to her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin. The Tucson Citizen reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot at close range in the head. The condition of the congresswoman, Ms. Giffords, 40, remained unclear. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson, the trauma center for the area, about 10 miles away. CNN quoted a public information officer as saying that 12 people had been injured in all." Note: contra the earlier reports below, this story has been updated to indicate that Rep. Giffords has been operated on & her surgeon is optimistic she will recover. Also, "An official with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said that six people had been killed and 18 wounded in the shooting, including a federal judge, John Roll, who had been involved in immigration cases and had previously received death threats. Among the six dead was a child about 9 years old, the hospital confirmed." ...

     ... Update: "A 22-year-old suspect was in custody, law enforcement officials said. But at a Saturday evening news conference, investigators said they were looking for an accomplice who may have helped the gunman."

     ... Update: President Obama said federal Judge John Roll had been killed. ...

     ... CBS News: "Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, Federal Judge John McCarthy Roll was shot and killed today when an assailant opened fire in a Safeway parking lot in Ariz., where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. was meeting with constituents. Just two years ago, he was targeted with death threats -- and given a security detail -- after ruling that a group of illegal immigrants could go forward with a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit against a state rancher...." ...

     ... The Washington Post has an eyewitness account from Tucson Dr. Steven Rayle who had gone to the event to meet Rep. Giffords. Rayle said he helped subdue the suspect after others stopped him.

The Commentariat -- January 9

President Obama writes a New York Times op-ed urging the Sudanese to allow a peaceful vote & vote count on the Southern Sudan independence referendum.

Art by Barry Blitt for the New York Times.Frank Rich compares & contrasts President Obama with President Reagan, & pops a few myths about Reagan, like these: "The present-day radicals donning Reagan drag, led by Sarah Palin, seem not to know, as [Reagan biographer Lou] Cannon writes, that their hero lurched 'from excessive tax cuts to corrective tax increases disguised as tax reform' and 'submitted eight unbalanced budgets to Congress in succession.' Reagan made no promise whatsoever of a balanced budget in the document that codified Reaganomics.... The historian Gil Troy has calculated that spending on entitlement programs more than doubled on Reagan’s watch."

Shehrbano Taseer, a reporter with Newsweek Pakistan, writes of the murder of her father, Salmaan Taseer, Governor of Punjab province, Pakistan, in a New York Times op-ed.

American Aristocracy. Tamar Lewin of the New York Times: "A new study of admissions at 30 highly selective colleges found that legacy applicants get a big advantage over those with no family connections to the institution — but the benefit is far greater for those with a parent who earned an undergraduate degree at the college than for those with other family connections. According to the study, by Michael Hurwitz...,  applicants to a parent’s alma mater had, on average, seven times the odds of admission of nonlegacy applicants. Those whose parents did graduate work there or who had a grandparent, sibling, uncle or aunt who attended the college were, by comparison, only twice as likely to be admitted."

Alex Pareene of Salon on Hypocrisy Patrol: "Robert Gates would like to cut about $78 billion from our bloated military budget over the next five years.... We spend more on defense than every other nation in the world put together.... But those Republicans who promise austerity have one small problem with Gates' plan: They refuse to cut a single dollar of military spending, even when our Republican defense secretary politely asks them to."

Tara McKelvey, in the Daily Beast, profiles Frank Ruggiero who is taking over as acting special representative to Afghanistan & Pakistan. Richard Holbrooke, who died last year, held the post previously.

The Commentariat -- January 8

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times profiles William Daley, President Obama's new chief of staff. ...

... Ben Smith of Politico: "The appointment of Bill Daley to the top staff job in the Obama White House has dealt the final blow to a dearly held fantasy of parts of the left: that a truly liberal president has been ill-served and misinterpreted by Rahm Emanuel and other center-right aides." CW: don't blame Glenn Greenwald; he's known all along. ...

... Glenn Greenwald on the Daley appointment: "Shipping in a JP Morgan executive to be White House Chief of Staff isn't a cause of any of this; it's just a nice symbol for what our political culture is.... There's a ... direct causal line between the vast number of Wall Street officials in key administration positions and the full-scale exemption from accountability which financial elites enjoy even for the most egregious lawbreaking.  When you compile all of those appointments in one place, the absolute stranglehold large-scale corporate interests exert over virtually all realms of government policy is quite striking.  But it's nothing more than what the economist Nouriel Roubini meant when he told the makers of the 2010 documentary 'Inside Job' that Wall Street has 'captured the political system' on 'the Democratic and the Republican side' alike, or what Simon Johnson describes as 'The Quiet Coup.'"

Michael Powell of the New York Times interviews economist Robert Reich, who -- along with other noted economists -- criticizes President Obama for his lurch to the right. CW: I don't think Obama lurched; he was there all along; he's just one of the "meritocrats" Reich describes, "whose kids go to private school and whose primary savings are in the stock market rather than in their homes. Their assumptions are different in profound ways from most struggling Americans.”

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Republicans are calling the Affordable Care Act [CW: and every other Democratic-sponsored law or bill] a "job-killer." But "Harvard economist David Cutler argues in new paper released [Friday] that repealing the health law would reverse [employment] gains and could destroy 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually over the next decade." Here's a pdf of Cutler's analysis. ...

... Greg Sargent: so why aren't Democrats pushing back against the "jobs-killing" malarkey with punchy lines about "deficit busting" repeal. "Dems simply have to get better at this game." ...

... Adam Chandler & Luke Norris in Slate: "When Judge Henry Hudson ruled last month that ... part of ... the health care law [was] unconstitutional because it requires people to purchase private insurance..., the law's opponents could unwittingly resurrect another alternative they won't like — the 'public option.' If the part of the health care law that's unconstitutional is the part telling people to buy private insurance, an obvious solution is to pass a health care law including a public health plan, which would operate like Social Security and Medicare. In other words, the public option." ...

... This is a point Rep. Dennis Kucinich has made repeatedly. Here he is talking to Bill O'Reilly just a couple of days ago. He makes the healthcare point about 2:20 min. in:

     ... BTW, I love Kucinich for going on Fox "News" & having relatively calm conversations with blowhards like O'Reilly. This is one thing Democrats need to do.

New House Homeland Security chair has a long history of supporting & consorting with terrorists. Justin Elliott of Salon. Rep. Peter King, (R-NY) a decades-long supporter of the IRA, an Irish terrorist group, broke with them in 2005 when they condemned the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq & Afghanistan, but he still maintains ties to some members. ...

... Elliott links to this Huffington Post column by IRA victim an Amnesty International Policy Director Tom Parker. Parker writes,

There is no way to varnish the fact that for twenty years Congressman King consistently supported a violent armed group that murdered men, women and children in pursuit of its political goals. It is also worth noting that those victims were citizens of America's closest ally in the struggle against Al Qaeda.

Lunatics on Parade, Brought to You by Our Republican Friends. Ezra Klein: "In the Wyoming state legislature, 10 congressmen and three senators have co-sponsored" a bill "to make it a felony to implement the health-care reform law -- which is ... the official law of the land." Never mind that "the Wyoming legislature ... has sworn to protect and defend the" Constitution; these members have decided to defy it. That's because Congressional Republicans have frightened the public and these dumb Wyoming legislators by taking "a bill that echoes past legislation Republicans have introduced and called it, as Sen. Jon Kyl did, 'a stunning threat to liberty.'"

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling "that U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo erred when they seized two troubled borrowers’ properties in 2007, putting the nation’s banks on notice that foreclosures cannot be based on improper or incomplete paperwork."

CW: I'll give Dahlia Lithwick what I hope is (but probably won't be) the last word on the Repubican reading of a sloppily-expurgated version of the Constitution. Read her whole post, which concludes,

For Republicans who want to restore this country to the sanctity of the Constitution as written, and to show reverence for the men who wrote it, today's exercise in putting forward an official 'new and improved!' version was a truly baffling first step.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "A three-year investigation into financial improprieties at six Christian ministries whose television preaching bankrolled leaders’ lavish lifestyles has concluded with the formation of an independent commission to look into the lack of accountability by tax-exempt religious groups. Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued a report saying that self-correction' by churches and religious groups is preferable to legislative or regulatory solutions.... Mr. Grassley recommended repealing or modifying I.R.S. rules that prohibit churches from endorsing political candidates.... The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said of this proposal, 'It’s a sign that this investigation has gone seriously off course.'" CW: no kidding.

Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "... state and local officials ferried a group of reporters to ... [Bay Jimmy, Louisiana], one of the hardest-hit areas on the Gulf Coast, and criticized BP and federal agencies for not mounting a sufficiently aggressive [oil spill cleanup] operation.... [At a press availability here,] Billy Nungesser, the pugnacious president of Plaquemine Parish ... told the commander to do something that cannot be printed here."

New York Times Editors: "To keep the Defense Department running, President Obama was forced to sign a spending bill on Friday with a particularly harmful provision that bars spending to transfer detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States for trial. As wrongheaded as this prohibition is, the president was right not to declare his intention to defy it in an accompanying statement.... In the signing statement, Mr. Obama called the ban 'a dangerous and unprecedented challenge' to the executive branch’s authority to decide when and where to prosecute detainees." You can read the President's statement here.

Local News

Marc Lacey of the New York Times: "The state declared the Tucson schools' Mexican-American program illegal, even while similar programs for other students were left untouched." CW: read the whole article; it seems to me both sides are wrong.

Now, here's a stupid scandal I can get into. Radar Online: "Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack has been caught on camera in a lurid scandal where another woman is apparently licking her breast.... The woman apparently licking Bono's breast is Edra Blixseth, a disgraced former billionaire who is at the center of a criminal investigation probing whether she made fraudulent representations about her financial worth to a number of banks." CW: and why do I care? Because Bono Mack's husband is Connie Mack IV, my stupid Congressman, who is preparing for a run for the Senate against Florida's Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Anything to derail Connie Mack can't be all bad -- even something this ridiculous.