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Monica Crowley Claims There Are Equal Levels of Vile, Vicious and Violent Rhetoric Coming From the Left as the Right

Click here to view this media When Monica Crowley puts up the same kind of list with supposed liberal violence or rhetoric that Digby linked in her post here with what we’ve seen from the right since they’ve lost their damned minds after President Obama got elected, then maybe I’ll take her flame-throwing false equivalencies seriously. Crowley decided to play the “all sides are equal” game on PBS’s The McLaughlin Group and did one major job of projection here. CROWLEY: I think it was a good, well modulated speech and I think the tone was perfectly appropriate. And I do think this was a presidential moment for him because, really for the first time in two years, he spoke on behalf of all of the American people, not just on behalf of his party, not just on behalf of the left, but really spoke on behalf of all of us. So I think it was an important moment. I do think he missed two opportunities. The first one is, I think he waited too long to deliver the message. Another memorial service was scheduled for Wednesday, but he could have come out on Sunday or Monday with a message to his own side telling them to cut it out when they were drawing this very sort of malicious and vicious lies that somehow conservative talk or our political climate have caused this particular act of violence which even he admitted later did not. He let his side run wild for days with this malicious lie. The second thing is, I think even though he did give an effective beat down to his own side by saying this does not… there is no direct correlation between this act of violence by a lone psychopath and our political climate. I think he stopped full of a full rebuke of the complete irresponsibility of folks on his own side that still continue to try to link this act or other things with political talk on the conservative side. Eleanor mentioned Roger Ailes at Fox and Sarah Palin’s web site, but I would like to see the left take the lead in moderating their talk, because for every one example you can give from the right, there were plenty of examples on the left of the most vile, vicious and even violent kind of rhetoric coming out of the left.

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Hollywood Can’t Take a Joke

Ricky Gervais had everyone laughing as he hosted the Golden Globes Sunday—everyone except the stars in the room. Gervais’ jokes at the expense of terrible movies did not go over with the people who made them, nor did his quips about scandalized celebs and Scientology. (more) Related Entries December 30, 2010 Is Congress More Progressive Than Hollywood? December 27, 2010 Chamberlain: Gay Leading Men Still Trapped in the Closet

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Sorry, right-wing talkers. Loughner’s rampage was a clear act of political terrorism directed at a liberal ‘government’ target

Click here to view this media Folks on the right are feeling quite confident that their tracks leading up to last weekend’s tragedy in Arizona have all been covered, now that the Village has reached a consensus that, because Jared Loughner was probably mentally ill (and at a bare minimum profoundly unstable), his killing rampage couldn’t possibly have been politically motivated. The running line is that liberals who dared point out that vicious right-wing rhetoric directed at people like Giffords played a role in this “jumped to conclusions” before “the evidence was in”. We think they may want to look in the mirror — because as the evidence comes in, it’s looking more and more like those liberals were right all along. Like the crew of right-wing wankers who populate Fox’s Journal Editorial Report , led by Paul Gigot and Dan Henninger, as well as the execrable James Taranto and Dorothy Rabinowitz: GIGOT: Let’s give an example of this. I want to read an excerpt from Monday’s editorial of “The New York Times.” “It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.” Dan, your response. HENNINGER: My response is that it has not only produced the vast majority of the anger that did that, it has produced the vast majority of anger that defeated them in the November elections, OK. GIGOT: But it’s not violent, Dan. HENNINGER: Look, what Jared Loughner did has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Everybody agrees. But we’re talking about it. GIGOT: Right. Actually, as we explained to Jennifer Rubin, not only is it violent, the violence is well documented, as has been the role of right-wing extremist rhetoric in inspiring the violence. We document 19 cases of extremist domestic-terror violence just in the past two and a half years; this does not even begin to take into account the litany of criminal violent threats against liberals in the past year. Gigot also elucidated their core insight with which the entire panel was in agreement, since it seems to be received wisdom among the Beltway Villagers now: GIGOT: Is this going to hurt the people on the left who walked out on this limb? Because there’s really no evidence that Loughner was motivated by anything political. Then there was the crew at Fox News Watch, particularly host Jon Scott, who was similarly certain that Loughner’s rampage was “not political”: Click here to view this media I hate to break it to these folks, but there is indeed an abundance of evidence that not only was Loughner’s rampage a political act, it was an act of domestic terrorism committed by someone who had been unhinged by far-right conspiracy theories. Let’s review just the facts we already had in hand, even before this weekend: — Loughner self-identifies as a terrorist. (See the videos he left behind; in our version, the page in which he identifies himself as a “terrorist” is at the 1:00 mark). — He also clearly has adopted two strands of right-wing conspiracism: He believes that American currency is “phony” because it no longer is on the gold standard, and he believes Alex Jones-esque conspiracy theories about “mind control.” The SPLC’s Mark Potok has more on this. — He had developed an unhealthy fixation on Giffords, but his hatred of her was largely political in nature and not personal. — There was a powerful campaign of demonization directed at Giffords throughout the 2010 campaign, including but hardly limited to Sarah Palin’s attack ads — much of it featuring rhetoric condoning the idea of targeting Giffords with guns. — Giffords was a mainstream moderate Democrat — a classic target of hatred from the conspiracist right, which despises real liberals but reserves its special venom for centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. If you have any doubt that this was an act of terrorism — and is thus inherently political — just consider one of the basic criteria of the definition of the word: Were people — not just the public generally, but the target group as well — terrorized by the act? Clearly the answer is yes: Democrats in Arizona, who already feel on edge, are clearly feeling terrorized now. It cannot be emphasized enough that the target of a political act is a powerful indicator of the perpetrator’s intent . Terrorists always intend to send a message with their acts, and the message is conveyed in the persons who are are targeted and become victims of their violence. There’s no doubt that Jared Loughner sent a message with these killings: The lives of government-coddling Democrats and their enablers are forfeit. And if there was any doubt that Loughner was unhinged by right-wing conspiracism, there was the report on Wednesday’s Good Morning America: One of Loughner’s friends, a fellow named Zach Osler, says that the internet movie Zeitgeist “poured gasoline on his fire” and had “a profound impact on Jared Loughner’s mindset and how he views the world that he lives in.” We’ve written a lot about how Alex Jones’ crackpot views, his connection to Ron Paul and his John Bircherite conspiracy theory websites and radio program are mainstreaming many of the most extreme beliefs in Conservativeland. (The ADL has a complete dossier in Jones. ) Michelle Goldberg explains in her piece, “Zeitgeist, the documentary that may have shaped Jared Loughners worldview” ” We now know a little bit more about the matrix of ideas that helped inspire Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage on Saturday . According to a friend of his interviewed on Good Morning America on Wednesday, the conspiracy documentary Zeitgeist “poured gasoline on his fire” and had “a profound impact on Jared Loughner’s mindset and how he views the world that he lives in.” He was also, according to his friend’s father, influenced by the documentary Loose Change , a classic of the 9/11 Truth movement. This does not mean that either of these movies is responsible for making Loughner do what he did, but it does show how his madness was shaped by a broader climate of paranoia, and offers a clue as to why he targeted Gabrielle Giffords . Indeed, as we said a couple of days ago : What most of us said from the start is that it was undeniable that the killings took place in a charged atmosphere in which all kinds of violent rhetoric had created an environment in which nearly everyone present on the ground felt something like this was inevitable — because it creates permission for violent acts, and fuels the irrationality that makes violence possible. Sarah Palin’s “target map” was only the most obvious example. So, for that matter, was that “target shoot” fundraiser by her Tea Partying opponent. … But in the end, Loughner’s motive matters less than the realities that people like Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik are well acquainted with already . Dupnik had all the evidence he needed to make the kinds of remarks he made about the political and social environment in Arizona — one that has gotten so virulently ugly that Democrats and liberals in Arizona increasingly are fearful for their physical well-being and are reluctant to self-identify as liberals. ( Will Bunch had a terrific piece at Media Matters recently on this very subject; as someone with family and friends in Arizona, I can personally attest to this reality.) Unlike Bill O’Reilly or Megyn Kelly or Monica Crowley, Dupnik actually lives in Arizona, and does know whereof he speaks. Moreover, there is abundant evidence about the vicious eliminationist hatred, some of it officially sanctioned by the GOP and Tea Parties, that was directed at Giffords personally. I think this Danziger cartoon neatly sums the situation up: enlarge Credit: Danziger Cartoons ( Digby has more. )

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CBS’s Erica Hill on Reagan: ‘Could He Have Had Dementia’ While in Office?

On Monday's CBS Early Show, after reporting claims from Ron Reagan Jr. that President Ronald Reagan may have had Alzheimer's Disease while in office, co-host Erica Hill asked other son Michael Reagan about those accusations: “And your brother has said this is just his own feeling…. Could it be possible there may have been something else? Could he [President Reagan] have had dementia?” Michael rejected the notion: “No, he didn't have dementia. Look what he accomplished in the last four years of his presidency. Reykjavik, START agreements, all the things he accomplished. The speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987 on June 12th. Look what he accomplished in those last four years. Someone with dementia does not accomplish all of those things.” He went on to say of his brother: “…we don't even know in the family if Ron voted for his father back in 1981 or in 1984 when he ran for President.” Hill began the exclusive interview with Michael by quoting a statement he made in response to Ron Jr.: “…you responded on Twitter saying – or tweeting, I should say, 'My brother was an embarrassment to his father – [coughs] pardon me – when he was alive, and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.'” She then observed: “There's no love lost between the two of you. Pretty strong statement, though.” Reagan replied: Well, it needed to be a strong statement because the reality is, all these years I've listened to people like Bill Maher an other people on the Left who have inferred that my father had Alzheimer's when he was President of the United States to somehow discount the great job my father did as president. So now, for one of his sons to come out and, in fact, say, 'Yeah, he might have had Alzheimer's or he had Alzheimer's during that time,' just gives credence to people like Bill Maher and others. And it absolutely offends me that somebody would say that when there's no evidence anywhere on the planet to back it up. Despite that response, Hill went on to tout how Jon Jr. “doesn't think that it would take away from your father's legacy at all if, in fact, that had been the case. You seem to differ on that. You feel that it would have an effect on his legacy.” She then played doctor and asked if President Reagan could have at least had “dementia” while in the White House. Michael reacted to a particular comment from his brother, who claimed their father's performance in a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale was evidence of Alzheimer's: “This is the first time I've heard he [Ron Jr.] even watched the debate with Mondale…. He might have voted for Mondale….my father did not have dementia. The fact is he was overloaded with facts and figures, everybody said that at the time. The next debate, he took Mondale to the cleaners on that one. And the rest is history. He ran – he won the biggest election in the history of mankind, when he won in 1984.” In her last question to Michael, Hill questioned current political figures quoting President Reagan: “He is quoted liberally at this point by people, Sarah Palin, just most recently as part of her statement in response to the Arizona shootings, brought up some of his words. When you hear other people quoting your dad, do you think – how do you think he would feel about it? And do you think that he would always agree with the context in which he's being used?” Here is a full transcript of the January 17 segment: 7:00AM ET TEASE: ERICA HILL: Reagan family feud. In a controversial new book, Ron Reagan claims his father had Alzheimer's while still in the Oval Office. His brother Michael, though, says that's nonsense and calls him an embarrassment to the family. We'll speak with Michael Reagan in an exclusive live studio interview. 7:09AM ET SEGMENT: ERICA HILL: A feud has broken out among the family of former President Ronald Reagan, who would have turned 100 next month. To mark that occasion, both his sons, Ron Jr. and Michael have written books. But each has a very different take on their father's legacy, and also on his health while still in office. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante has more. BILL PLANTE: In his new book, 'My Father at 100,' Ron Reagan, the youngest son of former President Ronald Reagan, claims his father exhibited signs of Alzheimer's three years into his first term. Long before doctors diagnosed Mr. Reagan with the memory-robbing disease, 5 years after he left office. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reagan Family Feud; Ron Jr. Claims Dad Had Alzheimer's In Office] RON REAGAN: Knowing what we know now about the nature of Alzheimer's disease, we know that decades ahead of, you know, symptoms arriving, changes are happening in the brain. RONALD REAGAN: But in this great society of ours- PLANTE: Ron Reagan says he was alarmed by his father's performance in the 1984 presidential debate with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. RONALD REAGAN: The system is still where it was with regard to – the- PLANTE: Reagan writes of that day, 'My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words.' Nancy Reagan has not publicly commented on the claim made by her son. But the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which has ties to the former First Lady, issued a statement saying, 'Alzheimer's did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House.' Bill Plante, CBS News, the White House. HILL: And joining us now exclusively in the studio this morning is President Reagan's elder son Michael, who's author of 'The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness.' That book will be released tomorrow. Good to have you with us this morning. MICHAEL REAGAN: Good to be here, thank you. HILL: So we just heard in Bill's piece, we heard what your brother Ron is claiming. And I know as soon as you heard that you responded on Twitter saying – or tweeting, I should say, 'My brother was an embarrassment to his father – [coughs] pardon me – when he was alive, and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.' There's no love lost between the two of you. Pretty strong statement, though. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reagan Family Feud; Michael Reagan Calls Ron Jr. An 'Embarrassment'] REAGAN: Well, it needed to be a strong statement because the reality is, all these years I've listened to people like Bill Maher an other people on the Left who have inferred that my father had Alzheimer's when he was President of the United States to somehow discount the great job my father did as president. So now, for one of his sons to come out and, in fact, say, 'Yeah, he might have had Alzheimer's or he had Alzheimer's during that time,' just gives credence to people like Bill Maher and others. And it absolutely offends me that somebody would say that when there's no evidence anywhere on the planet to back it up. HILL: And your brother has said this is just his own feeling. You know, no one else is saying it to him. He also doesn't think that it would take away from your father's legacy at all if, in fact, that had been the case. You seem to differ on that. You feel that it would have an effect on his legacy. Could it be possible there may have been something else? Could he have had dementia? REAGAN: No, he didn't have dementia. Look what he accomplished in the last four years of his presidency. Reykjavik, START agreements, all the things he accomplished. The speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987 on June 12th. Look what he accomplished in those last four years. Someone with dementia does not accomplish all of those things. And it's interesting that Ron says this because we don't even know in the family if Ron voted for his father back in 1981 or in 1984 when he ran for President of the United States of America. This is the first time I've heard he even watched the debate with Mondale. HILL: Well, and you were sort of shaking your head during that, as he referenced that debate, saying – because he talks about- REAGAN: He might have voted for Mondale. HILL: But would that have any effect on whether or not your father- REAGAN: I don't know. I have no idea. But my father did not have dementia. The fact is he was overloaded with facts and figures, everybody said that at the time. The next debate, he took Mondale to the cleaners on that one. And the rest is history. He ran – he won the biggest election in the history of mankind, when he won in 1984. HILL: Your father comes up so often in American politics. He is quoted liberally at this point by people, Sarah Palin, just most recently as part of her statement in response to the Arizona shootings, brought up some of his words. When you hear other people quoting your dad, do you think – how do you think he would feel about it? And do you think that he would always agree with the context in which he's being used? REAGAN: My father was always amazed that people would bring up his name. You know, He was the boy scout in the family. I write in my own book, 'The New Reagan Revolution,' the fact that my father thought, or we thought in the family that he was going for his eagle scout badge running for President of the United States of America. But it's not only Sarah Palin. Alec Baldwin, who I work out in the gym with when we're in California – and I write this in the book – I walk out of the gym one day, I say, 'Alec – Mr. Baldwin, my name is Mike Reagan, Jane Wyman's my mother.' And he looks at me, and I say, 'Well, I felt if I said Ronald Reagan was my dad you may deck me.' And he says 'Oh, you're the only one who can say that. I said, 'You're absolutely right.' And I said, 'I just want to tell you how much I enjoy 30 Rock and all the things you do, I enjoy your acting.' And he says, 'Let me tell you something and I want you to tell your family.' I said 'What's that?' 'I miss your father.' I said, 'You miss my father?' He says, 'Yes. You know, I bleed liberal blue, but the reality of it is, I just realized lately how much I miss him. And I miss him because your father had a good soul. And what the world is missing is that good soul.' So it's not just Sarah Palin, as I write in my book. People like Alec Baldwin, who never liked my father, who understood the great soul my father had. HILL: And there are some more of those stories in your book. REAGAN: Absolutely. HILL: Michael Reagan, thanks for being with us this morning. REAGAN: Thank you. — Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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Click here for Part 2. Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. saw war as the enemy of the poor . Yet this military attorney has convinced himself that Dr. King would have approved of our invasions and wars against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan: An Obama administration official said that nonviolent icon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would “understand” and “recognize” the need for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if he were alive today. In a speech commemorating the late hero days before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, the Department of Defense’s general counsel Jeh C. Johnson imputed highly questionable views to the civil rights leader. “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack, ” Johnson said. Yes, this Dr. King. From April 4th, 1967, his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech: Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor. My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years — especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent. For those who ask the question, “Aren’t you a civil rights leader?” and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: “To save the soul of America.” We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier: O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath– America will be !

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Twice in 24 Hours, ABC IDs Michael Reagan as ‘Conservative,’ Ignores Ron Jr Being a Liberal

For the second time in less than 24 hours, ABC identified Michael Reagan as a “conservative,” but failed to identify the left-wing ideology of Ron Reagan Jr. ABC played up the “clash” between the adopted son Michael and Ron, author of a new book that claims his father, the 40th president, had Alzheimer's during his time in the White House. Shipman explained, “It's another feud in an often fractious family. In a series of tweets over the weekend, Michael Reagan, the former President's son and a conservative commentator, accused his stepbrother Ron of trying to sell out his father to sell books.” As the MRC's Brent Baker pointed out, Ron Reagan Jr. previously hosted a show on the left-wing MSNBC and now appears on the network to provide liberal commentary. Shipman played clips from a 20/20 appearance last Friday in which Reagan Jr. promoted his book and asserted that he simply had an “inkling” that his father had Alzheimer's in the White House. Ron Reagan is not a medical doctor and Shipman didn't point out that there's evidence for this claim. Instead, she parroted, “Ron also writes 'I've seen no evidence that my father, or anyone else, was aware of his medical condition while he was in office. Had the diagnosis been made in, say, 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have.'” The liberal author will appear on Tuesday's GMA to promote his book. Will his ideology be mentioned by host George Stephanopoulos? A transcript of the January 17 segment, which aired at 7:11am EST, follows:

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What does it take for Chris Matthews and Hardball to marginalize convicted criminal Tom Delay and not offer him time to lamely proclaim his innocence? My god, he actually served up a softball in the form of asking if Delay thought there was a conspiracy that resulted in his conviction. And showing himself to be the arrogant yet poor thinker that he is, Delay eagerly grabs the notion of his conviction being politically motivated and runs with it. The only problem, he admits that there was nothing wrong with the jury that convicted him. Then Tweety suggests that maybe Delay shouldn’t have hung out with those miscreants Michael Scanlon and Jack Abramoff, because hanging out with these convicted criminals looked bad for Tom. Um, Tweety? Any awareness at all that maybe the reason Tom Delay looks bad is because he committed crimes along with Abramoff? I’ve said for years now that Chris Matthews’ deep love of politics is not connected to any sense of moral compass. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the side of angels for Tweety, it’s all about how you play the game. As Jon Stewart aptly pointed out, that playbook has been written already , and it’s still the one that Matthews sticks to.

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I’ve got a post up at The Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute’s blog, an effort to explain what it really means when a mentally ill person is inflamed by extremist right-wing rhetoric. Hint: The people who fill them with rage are not as blameless they want to claim: For some time now, it’s been something of a reflexive response by media pundits, particularly conservatives and “moderate” liberals, to point to mental illness when some violent and unstable person commits a horrifying act in the name of extremist right-wing beliefs. If they’re just mentally ill, you can’t blame the people whose ideas they happened to pick up, can you? Thus we have witnessed a steady stream of “isolated incidents” in which angry, mentally unstable men walk into churches and shoot their liberal targets in the head, or walk into public spaces and open fire, or crash their planes into government offices and gun down police officers. Yet when all these, and a long list of similar incidents, occur, they are dismissed as “isolated incidents.” Because, you see the perpetrators are just “nutcases.” Likewise, when an oddball college dropout named Jared Loughner walks up to Representative Gabrielle Giffords in a Safeway parking lot and shoots her point-blank, then empties another 30 rounds into the crowd around her, killing six and wounding 14 more — well, that can’t be laid at the feet of his incoherent (but largely right-wing) belief system, can it? After all, he’s obviously got mental problems, right? Therefore, it’s just another isolated incident. That’s a cop-out, and a dangerous one. One of its chief consequences, in fact, is that the list of “isolated incidents” — and the body count that accompanies it — will just keep mounting. At some point, people will realize that the incidents are perhaps not so isolated after all. Go read it all.

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Rep. Giffords Off Ventilator, Upgraded To Serious Condition

enlarge It certainly sounds like Rep. Giffords is making remarkable progress. Head injuries are very tricky under the best of circumstances, but she’s doing very well: TUCSON – Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was upgraded from critical to serious condition Sunday after doctors determined that there were no complications from having her ventilator removed a day earlier. In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Tucson’s University Medical Center reported that Giffords “continues to do well. She is breathing on her own. Yesterday’s procedures were successful and uneventful.” Giffords (D-Ariz.) was among 19 people shot during a rampage at a campaign event Jan. 8; six died and 13 were injured in the assault, allegedly carried out by Jared Lee Loughner. Ten of the survivors have been released from the hospital and two others are listed in good condition, medical officials said. Giffords is breathing on her own through a tube inserted in her windpipe. She had been breathing independently, but the ventilator had been in place as a preventive measure.

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Palin Map

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Palin Map

By Mike Luckovich Related Entries January 14, 2011 ‘Left, Right & Center’: After Arizona January 13, 2011 Healer in Chief

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