Year: 2011

Crazed In Arizona

Buck Banks

Being in Congress isn’t much fun.
Indeed, one wonders why anyone would run.
Especially considering that
Some constituents are maniacs
Who trade the voting booth for a gun.

The media says it’s all about rhetoric
And pundits whose prose style is manic.
But in the end it’s insanity
That’s lost touch with humanity,
And trades political discourse for the psychotic.

In the End, Palin’s Followers Will See Her as Tucson Tragedy’s Ultimate Victim

Jon Ponder

Glad the news media is quickly recognizing who the real victim of this week’s shooting is: Sarah Palin.

– Teresa Kopec, via Twitter.

It is fair to say that, upon learning about the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, most regular Americans assumed that a deranged tea partier had been pushed over the edge by one anti-government, anti-Democratic Party dog whistle too many from the GOP’s Fox channel personalities and hate radio propagandists.

That’s certainly what people close to Giffords assumed. On Saturday, as he rushed to his daughter’s side at the hospital, Spencer Giffords, 75, was asked if Gabrielle had any enemies. “Yeah,” he replied, “the whole tea party.”

Over the ensuing three days, it has become clear that the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, suffered from delusions, at least, and, at worst, was in throes of mental illness that was untreated, perhaps even undiagnosed.

It is equally clear that Loughner planned the attack and specifically targeted Rep. Giffords, a Democrat, because she was a member of Congress. When police searched Loughner’s home, they found an envelope on which he had written, “I planned ahead,” and “My assassination” and the name “Giffords.”

And witnesses say Loughner ran through the crowd at the congresswoman’s event in Tucson and opened fire when he spotted her talking with constituents.

What is still murky, however, is whether or to what extent the toxic political environment, which is especially acute in Arizona, home to nationally known Republican hatemongers Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer, played a role in his rampage.

[…]

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that.

— Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, in an interview with Global Grind, seemingly admitting that his network isn’t necessarily “fair and balanced.”

Verbatim

Trish

Many liberal Democrats opposed the tax rate compromise because it included provisions that helped the wealthy.

— CNN, demonstrating in a story about Pres. Obama’s high poll numbers the kind of sloppy writing that we have come to accept without question. I don’t know any “liberal Democrats” who don’t want to help everybody, the wealthy included. They just don’t want to help the wealthy at the expense of all others.

DeLay Gets Three Years for Money Laundering Corporate Donations in 2002 Elections

Jon Ponder

Count me as surprised that DeLay was sentenced to jail time:

Former House majority leader Tom DeLay was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a money-laundering case stemming from the 2002 elections.

DeLay, once one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, was convicted in November for illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate money through the Republican National Committee to help elect Republicans to the Texas Legislature during the 2002 elections.

Texas judge Pat Priest sentenced DeLay to three years on a conspiracy charge and also sentenced him to five years in prison for money laundering. Priest, however, allowed DeLay to accept 10 years probation on the money laundering charge, assuming he meets certain conditions set by the court.

DeLay could have received up to life in prison on the money laundering and conspiracy charges.

The former Houston area congressman, known as “The Hammer,” was unrepentant today in court. “I fought the fight. I ran the race. I kept the faith,” he said, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

It will be a bigger surprise if he serves more than three months.

Verbatim

Buck Banks

For as long as I’ve been alive, crosshairs and bull’s-eyes have been an accepted part of the graphical lexicon when it comes to political debates. Such “inflammatory” words as targeting, attacking, destroying, blasting, crushing, burying, knee-capping, and others have similarly guided political thought and action. Not once have the use of these images or words tempted me or anybody else I know to kill. I’ve listened to, read—and even written!—vicious attacks on government without reaching for my gun. I’ve even gotten angry, for goodness’ sake, without coming close to assassinating a politician or a judge.

— Columnist Jack Schafer, writing in Slate magazine.

Rude Pundit: Hey Right Wing, How’s That Ginning Up the Masses Thing Working for Ya Now?

Trish

For those of us following the coverage of the mass shooting aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who are sick of the false equivalency arguments (“But what about Daily Kos?”), the bending over backward denials (“They were surveyors marks, not gun scope sights”), and pleas by the right not to rush to judgment (like they do with every ginned up news cycle concerning the NPRs and Van Joneses of the world), The Rude Pundit offers some relief. He is calling out the same folks as the sheriff of Pima County did — those who earn a living inflaming the American people.

Rude Pundit: ‘Gosh, it’s just wrong to lump you all together, to stereotype you all as criminals in waiting. Like, you know, you have done with Muslims since September 11, 2001’

He goes one further, though, by including the viewers and listeners and readers who indulge those leaders, who drive up their ratings, and who ultimately pay their salaries. And if you are among them, The Rude Pundit leaves you nowhere to hide.

Following are excerpts from what could have been called, “Dear Right-Wingers: We Reject Your Every Attempt to Evade Blame” but which is, instead, the much better titled, “Dear Right-Wingers: You Are All Muslims Now.”

How you must have heaved in relief when you saw that it would be quite easy to portray Jared Lee Loughner as a raving psychopath, an effort that’s helped a great deal by the apparent truth, which is that Jared Lee Loughner is a raving psychopath…

Now, ah, yes, now, lovely right-wingers, you could defend yourself. You could work yourselves into a huff about how unjustly you were accused of driving this obviously disturbed individual into an act of calculated, cold-blooded violence. But that’s because you’re sitting there in your shit-filled underpants, thinking, “I don’t believe in violence. I don’t approve this. I hope the government doesn’t try to crack down on us.”

So, welcome, assholes, because you are Muslim now.

[…]

Verbatim

Trish

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 in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry…People tend to “pooh-pooh” this business about all this vitriol we hear enflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.

Pima County, Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, answering the question he was asked repeatedly in the wake of the terrorist attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Az.) that claimed six lives. The question was, “Why did it happen?”