Gabrielle Giffords.

Let’s start a new thread for discussion of this news.

Meanwhile, I’m posting this because Mrs. Palin’s web people have taken this charming graphic down. I want it to stay up, in as wide distribution as possible, for obvious reasons.

As the Bunk would say: “Happy now, bitch?”

Posted at 5:18 pm in Current events |
 

76 responses to “Gabrielle Giffords.”

  1. baldheadeddork said on January 8, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    The artwork on Palin’s site was worse than that. Via TBogg, here’s another graphic they used on the same campaign and a write up from Townhall.com that is only too happy to play along with Palin’s theme:

    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/JillianBandes/2010/09/27/sarah_palins_take_back_20

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  2. coozledad said on January 8, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    Wolf Blitzer et. al will keep airing interviews of folks who knew this Beck mutation when he was “Really far left”. They’ve already begun to construct the whole narrative around this, despite the fact the guy’s facebook page linked to SarahPac and various posse comitatus dickbags in masks discussing various threats to cracker job security.
    This guy is obviously a product of the right wing puke funnel, and they’re crawling underneath the rock of the major news outlets until they can muddy the waters some more.
    Freedomist is already referring to Giffords as “Conservative Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords”.
    It’s all big lie, all the time.

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  3. prospero said on January 8, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    Just exercising her free speech rights responsibly. There are people all over the web claiming, with no evidence whatsoever the murderer is an illegal alien. By all accounts, this was a valuable, imaginative, gifted andconscientious public servant, recently married to a bona fide American hero, viz. an astronaut. If I’d posted her name behind a gunsight, I’d be all over myself apologizing for my irresponsible behavior. Sarah Palin is what you could call an unreconstructed asshole. She cares nothing about wrack and ruin left in her Godzilla wake. She’s a monstro narcicist like Huey Long.
    But Kingfish had far more native intelligence, and had some idea what he was doing. Unlike this sorry-ass political version of Judith Miller. Got his part played by the inimitable movie tough fatass, Broderick Crawford, and the potentially resurrecting lady played by the brilliant Mercedes McCambridge. I’d take a moment to point out that Ms. McCambridge was quite beautiful, and a spectacularly excellent actress.

    Republicans got in early and ofte. This is a malcontent alien. This is obviously non compis mentis.

    seriously, you assholes? Sarah said shoot these folks. She most certainly did. She went global and outrageous to defend targeting these folks. The dumbass bitch brought up the connection. No? How did this bald-facecd idiot not do just that? Are you just full of shit?

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  4. prospero said on January 8, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    gabrielle Giffords is a model congresswoman, andmThat piece o shit Sarah thought she was some enemy, and made hernatarget. I think the target is asshole republicans. these people are shitheels

    r

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  5. JayZ(the original) said on January 8, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    This tragedy is a result of the vicious rhetoric spewed by Sara Palin, the Arizona Republicans and the NRA. Even though they will never take responsibility for their “aiding and abetting”, it is as plain as the nose on Mama Grizzly’s face.

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  6. Cathy D. said on January 8, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    When she wakes up, she’s not going to be surprised:
    “‘For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,'” Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

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  7. Deborah said on January 8, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    I honestly don’t think this terrorist murderer was necessarily a right winger, that’s beside the point. The guy was obviously a whacko. The point is that SP and others have been using language that can very pointedly incite whackos to do things. I’m not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t mean it or had no idea what that could lead to. I just don’t know. Rachel Maddow had a guest on a few times, he was a bit of a whacko himself, the son of an evangelical weirdo who has since seen the light and has written a book about his experiences. His name is Frank Schaefer as I recall, I should google it. His term for what the right wing was doing was “trolling for assassins”. Again, I have no idea whether they were knowingly doing that or not, but the language and the theatrical behavior (attendees wearing guns to political events) was definitely playing with fire. And that’s a big deal in the face of this situation no matter how the right wing tries to spin it, and they know it.

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  8. beb said on January 8, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    I see that Republican leaders are ‘shocked — SHOCKED — to discover gambling in this casino!’ – err, that someone would shot a find upstanding Congresswoman. Now would be a good time to sue Sarah Palin for murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

    It’s exactly like all those right-to-lifers who called abortion doctors killers, monsters and post wanted posters with their names and personal information then being appalled when someone follows up on their suggestion.

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  9. Linda said on January 8, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    A real-life posting at townhall.com:

    “These murders are horrible. The only other comparable thing would be Attorney General Eric Holder’s lawsuits against the State of Arizona for enforcing the immigration laws which Holder didn’t order enforced. Or the whole Administration of Obama which has been giving heart attacks and strokes and clinical depression and so on to millions of Seniors as he attacks Judeo-Christianity and the Intents of the Founding Fathers.”

    So this is the crazy you’re dealing with. A mass murder=government decisions that piss me off. I work with a guy who gets his news exclusively from Fox News, right-wing radio, and the right-leaning weekly in town. He told me once there is no need for people to get any more news. He was totally with the news story about the multi-billion dollar Indian trip by Obama, and when I argued it, cut me off with “all other news sources have a left-wing bias.” Finally, I found one that he had to admit didn’t and refuted the story, and I thought he was going to curl up in a fetal position.

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  10. brian stouder said on January 8, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    The young folks and I were at Grandma’s house when this news broke; it sent us reeling.

    Grandma and I watched the progression of news; rumors, fears, speculation, “She’s dead”, “She’s alive”, “other shooters”, “no other shooters”, etc etc.

    It has taken me almost 50 years to really arrive at the realization that terrible news like this really will never abate. Much as I would like to believe in human progress, in my heart of hearts I really don’t believe that at all, anymore.

    As a John Q Citizen, I have had occasion to note the strange “quick size-up” look you get when you approach public figures. In recent months, we have been attending schoolboard meetings, and early on I approached the superintendent, so as to express admiration for all her hard work, and clearly felt the size-up before we could speak. Many folks in this town hate her, despite her hard-earned successes.

    In her case, I think a lot of it is because she’s a black woman, instead of another of the string of bland white guys that have trooped through here and collected paychecks and built monuments to themselves and then gone on.

    This member of congress seems to have been guilty of being an elected Democratic woman in Arizona – thus drawing a spray of automatic gunfire from some angry white guy.

    Here’s the thing.

    I bet that shooter knew that his lunatic action wouldn’t actually topple the United States government, nor change any policy of that government. I bet he clearly knew all he would accomplish is a bloody spectacle; a sort of No Country for Old Men bit of theater.

    And where did he get this idea? Where did he learn about dramatic overstatement, political absurdity and hyperbole; where did he get the idea that he was simply right, and anyone who disagrees with his righteousness is irretrievably wrong – and deserving of violent death?

    Where did he get the idea that the point of his existence was to make this one nihilistic political “statement”; that making one’s “point” is all that matters?

    He didn’t have to look any farther than the endless stream of bilge from talk radio; the rantings of of that mark Levin guy, or Hannity, or Limbaugh.

    Yes. In all seriousness, and to the end of my days – I blame this on the professional hate mongers and rabble rousers of the right.

    And – despite that I always want to “bet on the good guys” – I cannot help but believe that real blood is in the water now. Up ’til now I have not put any stock in the idea that our president was in any more danger than any president would be.

    But the endless hate-speech, hate-politics of the rightwing is mainstream, right now. (or maybe we should say “again”).

    Another thing suddenly makes more sense to me. It used to puzzle me that after President Lincoln was murdered, Mrs Lincoln left the country, and felt she was in exile, for years; Jackie Kennedy did the same.

    I am braced for a very defensive, embittered, dishonest rejection of all this from Rush Limbaugh (et al) on Monday. Those bastards will go into full-martyr mode, and before they’re done, this will all be the fault of President Obama (somehow).

    But we know the truth. The truth is, the United States is a very great country with many violent sad-sack sons of bitches in it, and a few very wealthy agitators and profiteers, who don’t give two shits about anything but their own delusional agendas and vendettas.

    This has me profoundly frightened; not because of some extraordinary evil, but because of the low-rent, mass-produced unthinking stupidity of it.

    This is America. This is my country. This is us.

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  11. Dorothy said on January 8, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    I saw that clip on MSNBC too, Cathy. It sent chills all up and down my arms. I feel like this was inevitable with all the ugly and stupid crap that $P and her supports spew. I never want to hear anything that snot-nose Alaskan has to say but this time I’m going to listen very closely when she comes out with a statement about it. If she has the cojones to do so, that is.

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  12. Jolene said on January 8, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Dorothy, Palin posted a very muted message on her Facebook page today. Just the usual, “This is tragic. We are praying for the victims.”

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  13. prospero said on January 8, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    You put a target on her headshot, you asshole. You’re constitutional right to free speech,. What a McCarthyite asshole. Look how wuickly Palins accolytes sprund to the ullegak aalien explntion with no evidence,

    she targeted this woman, Who’s prettier than she is. By a mile.. She targeted this woman and she feels no responsibility. She’s an asshole, and she doesn’t get it? She targeted this woman, She’s an irresponsible shitheel. She’s a disgraceful piece of shit., that caused a woman to get murdered. what a fucking asshole. How does she live with herself? She’s a narcistic POS.. Give it up for getting somebody better than you killed Sarah, you useless POS. She should be twittering what a turd she is. Screw you you nitwit. You contributed to screwing over sensible government. You are so fucking stupid, it’s almost hard to believe.

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  14. brian stouder said on January 8, 2011 at 9:19 pm

    Prospero,

    Amen.

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  15. coozledad said on January 8, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    The Sheriff says there’s a person of interest at large. I assume he’s debriefed the people who’ve talked to the shooter. And he’s pretty clear about the “bigotry” at the bottom of this, which leaves me wondering, how are CNN and Fox going to spin this to exhonerate the right?
    http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/8/934458/-Sheriff:-Shooter-in-custody,-seeking-person-of-interest

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  16. Sue said on January 8, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    After hearing the sheriff at the evening press conference, with his several pointed comments and the final comment about consequences to free speech, I believe we may have just seen this era’s ‘have you no sense of decency’ moment.
    And about time, too.

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  17. LAMary said on January 8, 2011 at 9:44 pm

    I watched the whole press conference with the sheriff. He’s a very decent, smart guy. Good thing this didn’t happen in Maricopa county where that idiot Arpaio oversees law enforcement. Can you imagine his response.
    Palin and Beck and Hannity and Limbaugh should be driven back under the rocks they crawled out from. Either that or they should be honest. Say they’re happy they go their way. Admit it. I am so repulsed and disgusted by this. A commenter on another site said she was appalled by the crosshairs and “don’t retreat…reload” crap when Palin said it, but now she’s horrified. I agree. The second most admired woman in the US has just kicked in her little bit of inspriration for mass murder.

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  18. prospero said on January 8, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    Sarah Palin delifberately put a rifle sight on this woman. Pardon me but she was asking for her whackjob accolytes to shoot her. This has nothing to do with Constitutional rights to free speech. Sister Sarah encouraged whackos to commit murder. Somebody did. She aided and abetted. This was a solid representative of people that supported her. Palin’s antipathy was idiotic, , Nd it got her killed, Fuck you Sarah PLin, you scourge on participatory denocracy What a jackass, and murdress accomplice, She can;t wriggle out of this. She put this woman in the crosshairs. That’s irrefutable, Wht an asshole. What was her point? Her idea was to shoot these targets. How could this have been taken any other way? That’s not free speech. That’s targeting. It was pointed out to her abject ass,She insisted it was her right, Zo zomsvody got killed, he intended it. She should pay the piper. It’s absurd to claim she didn’t intend somebody getting killed. That was her point, and her intention. Convict her ass.

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  19. coozledad said on January 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm

    A little footage the right would prefer you ignore:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1pjH5_msR4

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  20. prospero said on January 8, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    We need to think what a despicable asshole she intended. She tried to hurt a political opponent, she aimed whackos at somebody else. She’s a dangerous asshole that means real harm to political opponents, She’s a dangerous bitch that intends physical harm. Somebody want to float this mixznthrope a loan, Xhe’s dangerous, and anbody doesn’t think xo ix z moron, She will attack with a vengeance. She is undoubtedly evil.

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  21. Sue said on January 8, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    I watched Fox for a few minutes. The blonde was pushing the ‘crazy loner’ idea pretty hard.

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  22. JayZ(the original) said on January 8, 2011 at 10:10 pm

    Brian at 10

    “. . . this will all be the fault of President Obama.”

    I just heard a Republican congressman say on NPR that the current unrest in Arizona is a result of the federal government’s failure to secure the border. Tell me that isn’t a cheap shot blaming Obama for this tragedy.

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  23. Linda said on January 8, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    I don’t think that conservatives who throw around violent rhetoric mean for it to have consequences. They do this to piss off liberals. Seriously. It’s why they are playing chicken with the debt ceiling, and wasting 2 weeks of the congressional session trying to repeal health care reform, and reading the Constitution out loud. They spend their energy doing pointless things because are not grown-ass people, and are astonished and indignant when it appears that they might be held accountable for consequences, like stirring up crazy people.

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  24. moe99 said on January 8, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    The other way the right wing puts it is that Rep. Giffords was a right wing leaning Dem and the Obama and left wings targeted her for assassination.

    Fox News talked about how this was hard for poor Gov. Brewer. As if. They can all go to hell.

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  25. Linda said on January 8, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Speaking of stuff Palin doesn’t want anybody to see, check out what she had deleting from Twitter:

    http://i.imgur.com/mGMts.png

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  26. Rana said on January 8, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    It’s not just Palin targeting political opponents, either. Glenn Beck’s awful work of “faction” includes an approving description of a tactical nuking plot centered on taking out a Congressperson’s office – and his book includes the actual address of the target.

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  27. Jolene said on January 8, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    Cooz, there’s another video similar to the one you linked to here, and we wouldn’t want to leave out the libertarian perspective.

    I lived in Tucson between 1985 and 1990, and I can’t imagine what I’d have thought if I’d ever seen anything like those streetside protests. Tucson used to be a lowkey, culturally diverse Democratic stronghold in a mostly Republican state. It breaks my heart to see all those angry people lining the streets.

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  28. John G. Wallace said on January 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    I don’t have much to add that hasn’t been said here already. The polite discourse went out the window because of talk radio, stupid people thinking they stand for patriotism and their freedom when they have actually widened the gap. The internet and the “seat for every ass” nature just accelerated the process.

    We’re likely to see more security around congress members when most have none. I covered an event in 2002 or so where Denny Hastert, then speaker, was making an appearance. I was somewhat stunned to encounter the 2nd in the line of sucession at the next urinal, with no visable security around him.

    We should pray or reflect on Rep. Giffords and those hurt or killed today, but we should also pray for our nation.

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  29. Jolene said on January 8, 2011 at 11:14 pm

    James Fallows has a good comment on the mix of politics and nuttiness that likely came together to produce today’s awful events.

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  30. MichaelG said on January 8, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    I’m just appalled and can’t stop thinking about how this all might spread. People read about stuff like this happening in places like Pakistan and the Ivory Coast and Iraq and Afghanistan and sneer at the third world savages but here it is.

    I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been better said by somebody else except to note that I read earlier that AZ has outlawed the teaching of Mexican studies in schools while preserving Asian studies and Black studies. It’s getting brutal there.

    I keep hoping that people will have to wake up but they don’t. We’re truly in the grip of insanity.

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  31. Suzanne said on January 8, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    I have told my children to look for jobs outside this country. I am in my early 50s and have never felt so fearful. Read any history of almost any revolution. It usually starts with some wingnut killing somebody and proceeds downhill from there. And sadly, I have many relatives and acquaintences who follow lock step in behind the Glenn Becks/$arah Palins of the world. I fear for us all.

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  32. Jolene said on January 8, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    The NYT has pulled together a fairly detailed account of Loughner’s recent experiences. Seems pretty clear that he was not operating on all cylinders.

    Schizophrenia typically emerges in the late teens and early twenties. His erratic behavior and marginally coherent writing is consistent patterns shown by people who are lapsing into psychosis.

    I think the way to think about the role of politics is not that he was a politically motivated actor, but, to the extent that the political environment played a role, that role involved shaping the actions of someone not fully capable of rational thought.

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  33. brian stouder said on January 9, 2011 at 12:31 am

    I think the way to think about the role of politics is not that he was a politically motivated actor, but, to the extent that the political environment played a role, that role involved shaping the actions of someone not fully capable of rational thought.

    I see the point, but the comfort it offers is quite cold. I want to know more about the provenance of this guy’s political opinions.

    I want to know more about the provenance of this guy’s gun.

    I want to know more about the provenance of the guy the cops say they are still looking for.

    The thing about the “he’s nuts” conclusion is that it really offers us no comfort, at all. We have nuts all over the landscape, afterall. Truly – the al Qaeda attackers who smashed into New York City in September of 2001 were nuts – a sort of Jim Jones cult writ large; Timothy McVeigh was nuts; the Fort Hood shooter was nuts, and so on.

    Some nuts work harder on their justifications before they act (thinking Sammy bin Laden/McVeigh/Booth), but that doesn’t confer sanity unto their essential barbarity. The “justifications” that these people append to their dreadful deeds STILL, in my opinion, exemplify “shaping the actions of someone not fully capable of rational thought”.

    And indeed – broadcasters who fill hours and hours of airtime every day will be called to account for “shaping the actions of someone not fully capable of rational thought”, although one supposes that that accounting won’t occur until they meet their maker.

    Still, one would like to hope that some sense of responsibility would eventually devolve upon a person who otherwise blithely yaps and yaps and yaps (on the public airwaves) about how this or that political party or elected official or public policy is intentionally out to “destroy America”, or “kill grandma”, or “take away our Exceptional country”, or whatever.

    I suppose if one really DID hope for that, then that person is the one who is “not fully capable of rational thought”. There has always been so much more profit in being UNreasonable

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  34. DellaDash said on January 9, 2011 at 1:40 am

    Thanks for the James Fallows link, Jolene. It coalesces a myriad of scattershot reactions.

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  35. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 3:31 am

    Pqlin targeted Giffords, no ifs ands or buts? Is she happy? Is she domplicit? She’s an asshole, one way or another. Putting an internet rifle target on somebody is heinous. She insisted it was her free-speach right. She was an abject asshole. What a douchebag piece of shit, It was Gifford’s fault because this murderer was some illegal alien? Where do these assholes get that? More like a Sarah accolyte. Sadly, just another nutcase with an automatic.

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  36. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 3:37 am

    Please explain again why American nutjobs need access to automatic weapons. Please explain how its Sarah’s free speech rights to put targets on sitting members of Congress. That was spectacularly irresponsiblde. and the dumbass bitch can say anything she wants to, she got a better person than she’ll ever be killed. she pretty much qualifies as a murderer. What a flaming asshole.

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  37. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 3:45 am

    No shit? Sarah gets to superimpose headshot rifle sights, and that’s free speach. Bullshit, you fucking morons. Now she got MURDEROUS BITCHsomebody killedand that’s exactly what she intended. Shw committed murder by proxy, it’s what she intended. she’s a murderous bitch no kidding

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  38. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 3:47 am

    No shit? Sarah gets to superimpose headshot rifle sights, and that’s free speach. Bullshit, you fucking morons. Now she got MURDEROUS BITCHsomebody killedand that’s exactly what she intended. She committed murder by proxy, it’s what she intended. she’s a murderous bitch no kidding

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  39. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 4:13 am

    hw;s resonzible nindless as she iz, She;z n idiot,; let loose by th internet, What hath God wrought? Murder, That’s what. I hope she feels good. bout now, What an asshole,

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  40. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 4:19 am

    as resonzably nindless as she is, She’s an idiot,; let loose by the internet, What hath God wrought? Murder, That’s what. I hope she feels good bout now, What an asshole.

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  41. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 4:31 am

    She can lay claim to murder, What an inexcusable piece of shit, asshole, murderer. She bought it, She;s a murderer. Asshole, WHt a Shitheel?.

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  42. David C. said on January 9, 2011 at 7:59 am

    Why, oh why do we let any nut who can fog a mirror buy guns legally and carry them to the local Safeway? Why do we allow guns to be sold with clips that can hold 30 bullets. Thirty bullets? Personal protection? My ass. That’s nothing but a mass murder weapon. In a more rational place, this would lead to a tightening of gun laws. Unfortunately, this isn’t a rational place so I’m sure by Monday there will be calls to further loosen gun laws to prevent anything like this from happening again. Go to hell, NRA.

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  43. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 9:44 am

    Automatic weapons? Fuck you NRA, for what conceivable purpose but mass murder and maiming, you pin-dick assholes? Guns ain’t manhood. You’ll shoot your eye out kid, we can only hope it’s the eye you think with. Conservatives spout this Sarah’s attractive shit when she seriously looks rode hard and put up wet, most of the time. Ms. Giffords, on the other hand, was quite beautiful, and she practiced inclusional politics. Sister Sarah would never get that idea. She wants the opposition dead as doorknobs, preferably by automatics. She’s an irresponsible piece of shit. And the rush to plant this murder on an illegal alien instead of a Palinite nutcase seems unseemly like it was planned ahead of time. It’s not impossible that Sarah was annoyed this woman was obviously prettier than she. Mean girls.

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  44. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 9:58 am

    Has the dumbass bitch said anything? She probably does feel guilty. She’s a lying sac of crap. and a rode hard and put up wet joke, that good looking shit, give me a break. You are only coming through in waves. I cannot put my finger on it. She has made up a very bad world.
    .

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  45. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 10:30 am

    I could not wish her anything bad, but she’s a spectacular jerk. She has wished so much bad on so many people. She is a shitheel, no way around that. There is no way to excuse her revolting excrescence into popular culture. She’s just an egregious asshole. No way to say she isn’t. She’s revolting, No matter how you look at it. I’d like to hear the MATTHEW FISHER VERSION. Gary Brooker would do just fine. Is Sarah Palin not a disposable creep? An asshole? A purveyor of murder? How is this not about automatics freely available? How fucking looney is that? For what purpose? Seriously? Protection? Compensating for litttle dick. C’mon just admit it you jackasses.

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  46. brian stouder said on January 9, 2011 at 10:30 am

    I think it is true (as I recently heard in the news)that as men get older, they cry more easily. I was driven to tears by a report about the 9 year old who was killed at the “Congress on the Corner” event at the supermarket, on this morning’s news.

    Her mother was interviewed via telephone, and related how she got the call that her daughter (who had just been elected to student council, and was interested in seeing the Member of Congress; a neighbor had called and she went with them 30 minutes earlier) was at the University Medical Center.

    Mom hadn’t heard the news about the slaughter at the event, and assumed her daughter had been in a car accident. When mom got to the hospital, the doctors and nurses gave her the terrible news; they assured her they had done all they could for her daughter; the little girl had arrived (barely) alive, with a gunshot wound in her chest.

    And then we learned that this little girl’s life had been bookended by American tragedy. She was born on September 11, 2001; her baby picture was featured as one of the “Faces of Hope” – a book about that terrible day.

    And then, I shut the TV off and went and gave our 6 year old a hug.

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  47. Terry said on January 9, 2011 at 11:01 am

    Nancy:
    Is this why you write? Are you proud of this audience? You can snark about Lileks, and “Eloise at the Atlantic”–is this their audience, or yours?
    A lot of your writing is pleasureable. This, and the vile drivel that follows it should embarrass you.

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  48. coozledad said on January 9, 2011 at 11:06 am

    “Terry”: You’re free to just go the fuck away. Or stick your thumb up your ass and whistle. Just don’t shoot anybody, OK?

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  49. Bob (Not Greene) said on January 9, 2011 at 11:41 am

    Terry, that graphic at the top of this post comes courtesy of $P. She and her ilk (like you, I’m guessing and like Sharron “second amendment solutions” Angle) own this bit of violence. So embrace what you’ve wrought. It’s all yours.

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  50. CTJohn said on January 9, 2011 at 11:42 am

    Suzanne: My wife and I discussed moving during the previous administration. We both have jobs that probably could get us working visas elsewhere, but in the end the thought is that this is our country and we should fight to bring it back to sanity.

    This shooting is whacked, and the verbiage spewing out of Fox News, $P, and el Rushbo should be part of whatever national discussion is held. In the mean time, Murdoch and company recognize that red meat sells, and money is what this is all about. This crap will likely continue until people wake up and realize the slime that engulfs them. Our country has dealt with real problems before, with whackos more intelligent than $P, and I still believe that we can survive this latest punch.

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  51. coozledad said on January 9, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Doghouse Riley, with the QOTD on Republican “remorse”.
    It’s the pathetic remorse of the sniveling habitual drunk who’s finally managed to run down an elderly woman in a crosswalk.

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  52. nancy said on January 9, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Prospero, get a grip or I’m benching you. You’re posting until 4:30 a.m., and then back at it at 10:30? Either think of something else to say or just take a few deep breaths and listen for a while. You’re getting repetitive.

    Meanwhile, I’m still catching up on my morning reading. Back in a bit.

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  53. beb said on January 9, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Didn’t the play and movie Becket have a line in it where the King of England asks who will rid him of this pest, meaning Bishop Becket, and when someone does murder him, claims that was not what he meant. This is exactly that situation.

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  54. prospero said on January 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    There is no worse gun nut than an allegedely hot female with the gun between her legs. Sister Sarah Palin is a scourge, , She’s responsible for this murder. whether or not she chooses to acknowledge her complicity. Hateful tactics goad hateful behavioor. She’s chosen to be a centerfold for hatred. And she’s not even attractive. And I know I’ll get grief about commenting on her looks. But she brought this up, and the murdered Congresswoman was way prettier. Way. This is not even close.

    This asshole couldn’t see anything wrong with gunsights targeting sitting members of Congress. Free speach, right? Is she that fucking stupid. Is she that fucking dumb about her gun-nut fanboys? She has to have known what these redneck idiots were capable of, if she isn’t a total fucking moron. She’s insisted on her Constitutional right to goad them. What an opprobrious asshole. And she isn’t good looking, she looks nasty and Republican. I live with a middle-aged woman that’s marginally insane when off her meds. She looks way better than Sister Sarah when she’s nuts and off her meds. Now we have Jodie Foster on the TV. Totally gorgeous, totally brilliant. My personal nut-job is totally brilliant. Totall gorgeous. Everything’s strange.

    Sarah Palin worship is anti-American. She’s a cancer.

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  55. MichaelG said on January 9, 2011 at 1:51 pm

    It’s easy to simply dismiss Loughner as a nut job. Thing is, today’s steady, continuous, pervasive drumbeat of hate speech is exactly the sort of stuff that provides the impetus and the direction to push a nut case past the tipping point.

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  56. del said on January 9, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    Shooting imagery, hunting rifle cross-hair graphics and references to “reloading” have no place in politics. Some people simply don’t get it. Sarah Palin doesn’t get it and that means she’s unfit for leadership. Her apologists don’t get it either or else they’d find another horse to ride.

    NRA apologists don’t get it either. When will they realize that there is no magic litmus test to adequately assess mental health before someone buys a gun?

    Fox “News?” When President Obama gave that bunch the cold shoulder he was using his bully pulpit as a teaching moment.

    This post is, itself, a teaching moment. Maybe, like Sue suggests, this can be a “have you no decency?” moment. Thanks for the post Nancy.

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  57. coozledad said on January 9, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    DHS links shooter to American Renaissance. An anti-immigrant, anti-semitic group.
    Sorry, rightwads. Your boy got tackled before he could reload and shoot himself.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-youtube-videos-_n_806370.html
    http://bluewavenews.com/blog/2011/01/09/tea-party-rhetoric-nothing-better-than-a-dead-liberal/

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  58. Jeff Borden said on January 9, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    One of the lizards in SheWho’s employ –Rebecca Mansour, who is alleged to ghostwrite those Facebook and Twitter comments that actually makes sense– is peddling the line that the map targeting Rep. Giffords and 19 other Democrats were not gunsights. Says she, “It was simply crosshairs like you’d see on maps.”

    Mansour added that “it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent” and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy “repulsive.”

    Yeah, repulsive all right. That pretty much describes the rhetoric Moozilla and her rightwing fans engage in on a daily basis.

    Meanwhile, Sen. John Kyl, R-Arizona, is pissed at the sheriff for suggesting the overheated political rhetoric has played any role in this tragedy. And some rightwing knob polisher radio hack in Arizona is calling for the sheriff to resign or be fired for suggesting radio rhetoric may have played a part.

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  59. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 9, 2011 at 4:23 pm

    Beb, that’s the metaphor that springs to mind, exactly. Of course, Henry II went on to do public penance on his knees, in public, to convince anyone he was indeed sorry he’d evoked such passion & horror.

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  60. MaryRC said on January 9, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    Jeff, Rebecca Mansour actually came up with two excuses (which contradict each other) in the same interview: (a) the gunsights graphic was designed by the notorious firm of Some Anonymous Contractor and the Palin campaign didn’t have a chance to vet it and (b) they’re not gunsights anyway, they’re surveyor symbols.

    Apparently some helpful talkshow-host/enabler came up with the “surveyor symbol” suggestion during the interview and Ms. Mansour seized on it like a drowning woman. Of course she only succeeded in giving the story a new life with this nonsense.

    The Palin team would have done better to have kept silent after Palin issued her statement of condolence. But we know by now that this is not something that Sarah is capable of doing.

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  61. brian stouder said on January 9, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    Well, as the weekend progressed we noticed “the emerging FOX line” (which presumeably will be the the official line for all of the Flying Monkeys of the rightwing airwaves tomorrow) – which is to angrily denounce “politicizing this tragedy”.

    If I take a deep enough breath (as I will have to, tomorrow at work, no doubt) I can grant the validity of that point, in and of itself (although I’ll have to resist the temptation to ask them if they “avoided politicizing” the Fort Hood shooter of middle eastern descent, or the near catastrophe of the underwear bomber from a Christmas ago, or how the law dealt with him afterward.)

    And then, maybe the people who say that will also grant the validity of the criticism of elected officials and aspirants for elective office, for overtly injecting gun violence into their campaigns (be it with cross-hairs or with needlessly harsh rhetoric like “don’t retreat, re-load” – which our Arizona shooter literally was doing when brave and desperate citizens on the scene jumped his ass and ended the carnage)

    Yeah, that’s it. Our friends on the right will accept that deal, right?

    As an aside, I think Prospero (who seems to be working mightily to find the limits of the Proprietress’s patience!) has an essential truth here, that I didn’t immediately grasp.

    The lip-flappers and hate mongers on the radio take a backseat in this, to the elected officials who (at least tacitly) condone all this dire imagery and rhetoric. Angle’s obtuse remarks in her late campaign are only the most obvious examples; but I also recall the tableau we witnessed here in Fort Wayne, Indiana in August of ’09, when our then-Congressman Souder* conducted a “town hall meeting”.

    It was genuinely shocking.

    An endless procession of angry white citizens stepped to the microphones and refered to the President of the United States as a communist or a Nazi or a Socialist or an illegal alien or a secret Muslim or a scoffer or a potential killer of grandma –

    and our congressman sat there with a steady Mona Lisa smile, and the crowd cheered to the rafters.

    If an odd bird here or there managed to support the president or (horror of horrors!) criticize the Congressman, THEN (and only then) Souder leapt to his microphone and animatedly disputed the point!

    One would think that a responsible elected public official might have tamped down at least some of the uglier excesses of the crowd (or mob), but our congressman (and many others across the country, that summer) had “other priorities”, as someone once said.

    *our then-congressman has since been publicly humiliated, and he resigned from office. Our new guy apparently DID manage to get sworn in, although he missed his very first vote, so that he could attend to the more important business of fund raising, but we digress!

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  62. Dave Kobiela said on January 9, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    *I believe the vote missed by “new guy” Marlin Stutzman, (the “I had no choice but to take that $300,000 family-farm rebate from the evil government”), was the House vote on the DREAM act. How convenient.

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  63. moe99 said on January 9, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    This Tweet from SP completely discounts her contention that the symbol used above was from surveying:
    http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/29677744457

    “Remember months ago “bullseye” icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin’ incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T’aint bad)
    8:43 AM Nov 4th, 2010 via Twitter for BlackBerry®”

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  64. brian stouder said on January 9, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    moe –

    all she meant was – her hardy band of pioneering tea-baggers went into the political wilderness with their land surveying tripods, surveyors brush axes, rods, GPS Equipment, transits, surveying prisms (whatever those are), and other good stuff, and they successfully staked out several objectives, see?

    They located and mapped those “Obamacare-lovin’ incumbents”, is all. See?

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  65. coozledad said on January 9, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    It’s beginning to look like this guy’s language has less to do with organic brain disorder than the “sovereignty” movement: These are Right Wing Nutcases who believe the government (and, need I add, Jews!) use grammar to separate honest white folks from the gold standard, or some such shit.
    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/inscrutable-writing.html

    To me it looks like a hick version of a Donald Roller Wilson caption.

    Dilute! Dilute!

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  66. Sue said on January 9, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    In all the discussion I’ve seen, I haven’t seen anyone asking this:
    He was 22 and a college dropout, not really gainfully employed, I believe. So, he would not have had access to his parents’ insurance, assuming they have any. In Wisconsin (at least for the time being) dependent children can stay on their parents’ insurance until 27 if the parents pay taxes on the extra “income” that the insurance is worth. I think that’s probably not the case in AZ.
    Not that he would have accepted psychiatric care, I suppose, but did he have access to any help at all? Private or public?
    Personally, I think that question is more important right now than the gun control issue. Congress is unlikely to do anything about gun control but they are going to be working hard to take away the small gains the health care bill is providing/going to provide.
    Just like you can argue that this may not have happened if he didn’t have access to guns, you can possibly argue (depending on what access he had) that it may not have happened if he had access to psychiatric care.

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  67. Jolene said on January 9, 2011 at 6:23 pm

    The Post is putting up tidbits of info as they come in. There are 911 calls and excerpts from a classmate’s email concerning his behavior in class at Pima Community College, the school he was asked to leave last fall.

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  68. JayZ(the original) said on January 9, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    Even if this young man’s tragic actions are the result of mental illness and not socio-political dissonance, we have to examine what happens when a fragile mind is exposed to hateful, divisive rhetoric. Are fears inflamed? Delusions exacerbated? The irrational rationalized?

    And why, when identified as unbalanced, does he have easy and legal access to weapons?

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  69. Deborah said on January 9, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    I just hope people keep this in perspective and don’t try to dilute it with a bunch of “issues” that will make it die. The issue is the dangerous tone of rhetoric in politics in this country. It’s abominable that people “conflate disagreement with Armageddon”, as stated in the NYT. And the media is culpable too, especially the cable end of the dial. There actually was a program called “Crossfire” out there where pundits screamed at each other. The political discourse has to become civil or more of this will tragically happen. And as Giffords said herself our leaders have to “lead by example”. Please don’t bring gun control into this just yet. As much as I think it is a huge problem in this country that whack jobs can own guns it just isn’t going to get us anywhere if we don’t focus on the issue at hand, let’s take it one step at a time so people can digest it. If we jump all over gun control right now it will continue to marginalize and objectify and give the right wing all that they need to spin this right where they want it.

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  70. Jolene said on January 9, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    JayZ: Nick Kristof, the NYT columnist, just posted something on Facebook that makes your point. He said:

    Everybody takes different lessons from the Arizona shooting tragedy, but I keep coming back in my head to this: The suspect was considered too mentally unstable to attend college, but not to buy a semiautomatic Glock handgun. Look, I’m an Oregon farmboy who grew up with guns — but I also think that if we regulate firecrackers and cars and mutual fund accounts, we should also regulate guns.

    There certainly were signs that this was a troubled young man. I haven’t read anything yet to indicate whether he was getting any kind of psychiatric help. As I said above, he is at the age where he was probably beginning to become truly unglued for the first time, and there are not always signs that anything like this will happen. It may be that no one else even knew he had the gun.

    It is bizarre that he could be kicked out of school because he was too unstable to behave appropriately, but could nonetheless buy a gun. But it’s hard to imagine what sort of registry you’d have to keep track of people who’d been kicked out of school for behaving badly. Dupnik, the Pima County sheriff, seemed to suggest last night that there had been some history of making threats, but I haven’t read anything further about that.

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  71. Hexdecimal said on January 9, 2011 at 7:41 pm

    I’ve spent the last two days on a back-and-forth discussion on FB with a women who took offense at a buddies post of an article that had the above graphic, with the gist of the story being “Could this be the cause of the shooting?”

    It might not have helped that along with the posting the buddy wrote something to effect that maybe the shooting was a Republican plot to gain more seats in Congress. Knowing him I took it as a joke, but it was red meat statement, and she tore into him.

    He apologized, but by then several others had posted comments criticizing the Tea Party. More red meat, and she feasted. She told one that “one should not critize Tea parties since you are NOT educated, aware, involved to form a conclusive statement” (all misspellings inside the quotes are hers and not mine.)

    I saw red meat and I started feasting. I started to write something calling her out about being mean and threatening when she posted again “The Tea party stands for the constitution, founding fathers, rule of law and freedom, anyone against this can be considered a person who does not support these principles and values. PERIOD”

    More red meat! What a picnic this was going to be. I wrote “Lets exam the facts. The tea party and/or GOP in IN & AZ and a handful of other states want to change the constitution because they don’t like it (14th amendment).

    As for the founding fathers, if today they pulled the things they did back then they would now be branded terrorists and would find themselves sitting in Guantanamo. Technically, the founding fathers broke the law. It’s something to think about.

    As for the rule of law, there have been many laws over the years, both here and in other countries, that no moral person can or should follow. The owning of slaves, the burning of Jews, are just a couple of laws that were on the books, and the slavery one is still mentioned in our constitution. The tea party and the GOP want to enact SB1070, a law that I equate with the beginnings of the the two laws I just mentioned.

    Your quote makes a great bumper sticker, but the devil is in the details.Because I may not agree with you does not mean I am against you. If you disagree with someones ideas you shouldn’t threaten them, as you did XXXX, nor call them names or belittle them. Instead try to educate them to your ideas and then if they still disagree, then just agree to disagree.” (The spelling errors and grammar mistakes here are mine – and names removed to protect the inocent)

    Well, you’d have thought I pissed on her grandma’s grave. She wrote back “I cannot and will not ever agree with either of you. to call the Founding fathers terrorists, is beyond crazy. You are not speaking facts. I am very concerned and sad that you have such distorted beliefs. I agree to… disagree. 70% of the country based on reliable polls believe in the constitution and the founding fathers and that the constitution is the best rule and law no other country has, so that puts you in the 30% thank goodness.”

    I was feasting. To poke her a bit more, I wrote back mentioning that Nathan Hale, amongst others, who was hanged for being a rebel. I mentioned the bounties that were on Franklin and Washington’s heads. Then I told her I love the constitution, and wasn’t the one who wanted to change it. The irony was lost on her. Then I told her I was proud to be in the 30% range because that 70% she’s spouting off about was the same 70% that at one time supported slavery, and later segregation. By now I was almost full. I finished with a suggestion she visit the library for some books on Washington or Jefferson.

    Burp.

    In the end she friend-ed me.

    Edit: Maybe I should have mentioned that most of the founding father were anchor babies. Naw, I was full.

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  72. Jolene said on January 9, 2011 at 9:38 pm

    Here’s a worthwhile (and short!) column by Dan Kennedy, a Boston writer and journalism prof, about the danger of generating simple explanations for complex phenomena. Worth a look.

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  73. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 9, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Jolene, as an employee of a juvenile court system who has primary contact for school attendance/discipline issues — I continue to want to have compassion for the complex family issues that often underlie truancy & behavior problems in school, but I see no reason why, as with driver’s license status, you couldn’t connect school dismissal/suspension with ability to get a gun operator’s license. I’m willing to defend Second Amendment partisans quite a bit, but at the same time, I’m fine with saying you can’t purchase guns without and can be further penalized in an arrest or incident for having and using guns without having a valid operator’s license. Not license guns, but license users, akin to hunter’s safety requirements for a hunting license.

    If you got kicked out of an academic setting for cause, it’s a simple matter of legal authorization to connect that to a licensing database for weapons users.

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  74. Little Bird said on January 10, 2011 at 12:16 am

    I would be remiss if I didn’t back up Deborah on this. The way we as a people speak to each other makes a difference. When we use language to inflame others, we should be held accountable for it. $p was in the wrong in this.

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  75. Christy S. said on January 10, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    The graphic is still on her FB page. I posted a link to it — everyone needs to see that. Not that she’s directly responsible but if the tables were turned I’m sure the Fox freaks would be all over it: “You have blood on your hands,” etc.

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  76. Dave said on January 10, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    http://www.examiner.com/post-partisan-in-national/liberal-website-daily-kos-put-bullseye-on-dead-to-me-giffords

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